NOTA in context of India

In the last couple of years India seems to be going through a sort of awakening process. The wide spread reach of internet, proliferation of news channels, newspapers, proactive journalism and mobile phones made social forums and discussions a routine thing in even the far flung areas of the country. This has made the ordinary person aware of the deep routed sickness of corruption in the Indian bureaucratic and political system. Political corruption is more a matter of debate in the nation because of the sheer size of it. 2G, CWG, Land Scams, Coalgate, Adarsh, Porngate, Bhanwri Devi kidnap and murder, Tatra Truck controversy are all household terms nowadays.

Amidst all this a PIL was lodged in the Supreme Court demanding cleansing of politics. The Court has answered the need of the hour by a very much debatable ruling by interpreting the RPA act. Further in a separate ruling the bench headed by CJI himself has declared right to reject implicit in the fundamental rights. These two rulings of the court are supposed to go a long way in changing the face of Indian politics. It can be hoped that once politics is clean the rest of the machinery will improve rapidly.

However these rulings are not without their controversies. The first of the rulings says that any legislator or a candidate for legislature will be disqualified immediately if a court of law has convicted or found accused, such a person, in offences as defined in the RPA act as offences, conviction in which can be awarded for two or more years of sentence and/or fine for the term of the conviction and further 6 years. The existent law gave the convict a window of three months to make an appeal in the higher court and if such an appeal lies, he can carry on as a legislator, as long as the higher court does not find him guilty. The ruling of the court has eliminated the window and the tainted legislator is disqualified immediately.

This ruling will have two major impacts. First after this ruling the old scourge of criminalization of politics will get cured. It is a welcome change. Every citizen wants to see a clean legislature. There has been a resentment of law breakers holding the place of law makers. Second impact is negative, that it gives an opportunity to innovative politicians wage their political war. A politician can just get lodged an FIR against a rival politician and get him disqualified, investigations notwithstanding. Considering the influence a sitting MLA or MP has on the police and other law enforcement agencies, it is a walk in the park for them. This can disrupt the democratic functioning of our system. While in the first system it is easy for a criminal to make his way into the legislature, after the ruling it will be impossible for people with tainted record to reach the legislature, but at the same time hard for anyone to challenge the sitting legislature.

The one side of the coin is so bright that it outshines the other in the eyes of a common man. A clean legislature, MP’s and MLA’s who command people’s respect from their honesty in life and actions seemed to be a distant dream but the ruling of the court has made it realistic. But does a clean legislature guarantee the fulfillment of the nation’s dreams, elimination of poverty, hunger, disease, grievance of the tribals, a dutiful police, early justice, corruption free bureaucracy and so on. In words of Hitler, in politics, the good intentions of a man can not make up for his incompetence. There is no guarantee that even a clean legislature can be competent enough to answer the grievances of this nation, which are so difficult to handle. There is no such guarantee, only a hope. But as long as there are criminals right in the parliament, even such  hope does not exist.

There are costs which the nation will have to pay for such a clean legislature. A really potent politician who is well capable of leading his people out of the misery of circumstances might become the victim of false accusations, engineered investigation, and influenced judgment and his career may get ruined. The ruling has provided powerful people a very dangerous weapon to eliminate their rivals. It is not beyond one’s imagination that many a political careers will be sacrificed for this dream of clean legislature. Furthur a tainted powerful man can always field people on his behalf such as his son or wife and reap all the benefits. This ruling can clean the legislature for the purpose of paper but not necessarily for the purpose of conduct. The prospect of a clean legislature on record are bright by this ruling but a clean legislature in intentions can by no means guaranteed.

In my opinion the criminalization of politics is not a result of loopholes in the law, but it’s a result of bovine and careless nature of the common man. There are criminals in the parliament not because the law has permitted them to contest but because we have chosen criminals to represent us. For decades we have been voting on caste lines, communal lines, language and resemblance. People in India vote an image, not a personality. Without knowing a sinlge thing about the real character of a candidate we have been voting all our lives for his caste, religion and language. At best we vote the party, but only very rarely we vote the man. We all get blown by the propaganda. Propaganda is driven by the finance and muscle of criminals. We never try to look for the real truth for ourselves, we only trust the propaganda. The result is before us, 33% criminal in our apex legislature. Even the new ruling can eliminate the criminals from the legislature but not crime from politics. Criminal may be in the jail, but his son or wife will ride the propaganda and reach the legislature. Nothing will be solved until the common man looks into his own conscience, puts away the lure of caste and religion and votes the righteous irrespective of his background.

The court has given its best by giving this ruling, but I don’t see upside down changes in the political gamut until the voting behavior changes. The role of the media is paramount in unmasking the truth behind the propaganda, and the media is doing a commendable job indeed. However, the drive behind the activeness of the media is not an urge to strengthen the democracy but TRP. I don’t mind this as long as awareness about the real character of those who rule us keeps on spreading.

Lets move on to the second ruling of the court. In a landmark judgment the court has declared that the right to reject all the candidates in an election if the voters don’t find any of the candidate worthy of his vote, is a fundamental right implicit in the right to expression. Earlier, one had to vote at least one of the candidates whether he like it or not. In the ruling the court has directed the election commission to add the choice NOTA as an option. If a voter finds none of the candidates worthy of his support he can reject them all by NOTA. The right to reject exist in many other democracies like USA, UK. However the NOTA will not change in the election results since a person exercising NOTA will amount to not voted for anyone. It will add zero votes to all of the candidates. However, in the true right to reject if a sufficient number of voter choose NOTA, the election will become void and fresh election will be held considering the earlier candidates were hated by so many voters that it will amount to tyranny if any one of them reached legislature.

So in those term the new ruling will not have a substantial impact on the outcome of the election, however many people believe that the coming election will be more democratic because of the NOTA option. Many of the people do not go to vote simply because they do not like any of the candidates. This new option is supposed to increase the ballot substantially. I see the importance if this ruling in paving the way for real right to reject since no big change comes at once but step by step. Once the people at large become aware of the NOTA they will demand the full right to reject. The way I see it, the constitutional duty of the Supreme Court as being the protector of the social revolution has been duly fulfilled in paving the way for a new instrument of democracy. I can imagine the NGO’s and other sections of the people demanding full fledged right to reject once the NOTA becomes a wide phenomenon.

As we have seen the series of ruling by the EC and Supreme Court have come a long way in democratic process in the country. But these rulings like mandatory disclosure by the candidates of their assets and liability, declaration of criminal record if any, monitoring of the election spending, stringent codes of conduct, prohibition of liquor, disclosures of large sums of donations received by parties have not changed by a great dealthe ground realities. Most of the grievances of the people still remain unsolved. Many new grievances appear. The recent rulings of the court are, in my opinion new chapters in the book of electoral reforms. This book is a book after all, it cannot change much until the reader adopts the noblel reading in his life. Not much will change if the common man does not apply his mind and use his vote as if it was a valuable asset, because a vote is valuable indeed.

“What greater luck for the rulers than those whom they rule do not think.” Adolf Hitler

Neeraj Gaur