As the country prepares for a fresh round of national elections many people are pondering over several questions concerning the whole exercise. What do these periodic elections achieve? Are the broad masses of Indian voters capable of making an intelligent choice? Do the people really want to be governed by the known criminals and persons of questionable character who figure in most winning combinations? Are the people getting the benefits that the Constitution promises to provide to the people? Is our constitution really suitable for producing the best government? Is there a better alternative which we should try?

Sixty years should be a sufficiently long period for a proper assessment of the merits and demerits of the present system. There will of course be no dearth of experts claiming that the constitution that we have is the best one possible and that if it has not produced the results that it was intended to produce the fault lies with those who operate the system. It could be further agued that even the most flawless system could be rendered useless if the people working it are not possessed of the essential commitment to public good. In effect it boils down to the old maxim that the people get the government they deserve. This is also the most readily available excuse to avoid an honest examination of the faults of the present system.

THE CURRENT DETERMINANTS

That the existing system has grossly failed to meet its purpose seems to be fairly obvious except to the diehard partisans. The tremendous role that money plays in determining the outcome of elections is known to everyone, yet no corrective steps have been taken.   Equally well known is the power that local lords of various persuasions exercise over the electorate in the areas of their influence but the solution that the political parties have come up with is to try to find an adequate number of such local lords to be fielded as their candidates. Splitting the electorate into groups on the basis of religion, caste, tribe etc. and then manipulating their votes by promoting feelings of deprivation, discrimination and victimhood, promising special incentives and quotas etc., commonly called vote bank politics has become a permanent feature of electioneering in India.

Last update : 16-03-2009 11:24

Keywords : Jai Prakash Sharma, Yet Another election,

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