Towards True and Total Democracy: via changes in the electoral system, structure and functioning of Panchayat Raj

direct democracy

0.   Preface:

Main thrust of this paper lies in justification of Proportional Representation (PR) for all segments of the society at all levels in all spheres of power on the basis of definition of democracy. In the political arena this (PR) can be achieved with the help of list-Proportional-Representation (list-PR) system of election. Initially the suggested changes will need to be applied to the Panchayat Raj system on experimental basis. Some associated changes in the structure and function of the governing bodies also has also been suggested, even though most of it is couched in terms of changes in the state or the union governments. Structures and functioning of Jilaa Parishads, Block Councils and Panchayats are basically similar to those of parliament and state assemblies. Instead of PM or CM, the former are headed by Adhyaksh, Pramukh and Mukhiyas.

 

The biggest hurdle in changing an electoral system and/or its structure and functioning to a better one lies in the fact that it is the same legislative body that has been elected under its current system that has to make change. Members of the current legislative body are generally apprehensive about whether they would be elected in the new system. Hence they do not want to take the risk and instead leave the old electoral system unchanged. That is why the changes being proposed here are for the Panchayat Raj system that can be tweaked and experimented upon by any of the state governments for their own Panchayat Raj. Hope is that at least one of the Chief Ministers (CMs) will have faith that the new system will improve the fate of people in his or her state, and the CM will reap the benefit of having improved the quality of life in his/her state without risking his/her own election, as that will continue to be held under the old system. By the time changes are brought about in the assembly and/or parliamentary elections, the CM who lit the spark of change to the new system through changes in his/her Panchayat Raj may be retired from politics or gone away.

 

History of List-Proportional Representation (list-PR) began with its application in the local government of Ticino in Switzerland – one of the Swiss cantons. There was a large scale dissatisfaction with the unfair result of canton election held under FPTP electoral system, whereupon the Federal government used list-PR for them in 1891 for the first time. Soon after the end of First World War list-PR had spread over more than 30 countries in Europe. And today more than a third of democratic countries use list-PR, while in another third it is used to partially (nearly half) fill their elected bodies in what is known as parallel (or mixed) system of election, while the other half continue under the yoke of FPTP; and the remaining third of democratic countries, including India, the USA, the UK and France continue to suffer from FPTP. Most of the other major countries have switched either to pure list-PR or a parallel system.

 

 

1.    Democracy with universal adult franchise implies proportionate representation of all segments of the society in all spheres of power:

On a close analysis one will find that for a true democracy we need to, starting with the election process of representatives of the people, change the structure as well as functioning of the governing bodies. Democracy (derived from the Greek: δημοκρατία = dēmokratía = “power to the people,”)wherever it exists, is based on universal adult franchise. Adult franchise mandates that all adult individuals, no matter whether they are young or old, rich or poor, brilliant or idiots, black, brown or white, irrespective of their religion, region, gender, caste, ideology, their merit or educational level, and so forth, be given one (or equal number of) votes to cast, tacitly giving them equal amount of power in choosing our representatives to run our governments. If all adults have one vote of equal value, obviously all socio-political groups/parties should have proportionate representation in all elected bodies.

 

Some persons may vote for a party because the party is led by individual(s) of his/her own religion or caste or gender, others may want to vote for a party on the basis of its ideology, still others may vote for a party led by a charismatic leader, some may like an alliance of people with good track record. Still others may vote for a mix of criteria stated above or other criteria not included above. This is what is meant by socio-political groups or parties; groups or parties based on social groups and/or other political and economic considerations. For an elected body like parliament, assembly or panchayat, electoral process should be such that each socio-political group wins seats in elected bodies in proportion to votes collected by it. As explained below, and verified by the results of our past elections, our current electoral process (variously known as first-past-the-post [FPTP] system or plurality system or winner-takes-all system) cannot achieve the said objective of allowing representation of all parties on the basis of percentage of votes they collect. However, there are electoral systems that facilitate matching of percentages of seats to votes for each party; such systems are grouped under the name party-list-Proportional-Representation (party-list-PR, or simply list-PR). These election methods are further analyzed below.

 

2.    Democracy and methods of election:

FPTP system:

As mentioned above, FPTP is our current method of election. Basic characteristic of FPTP is that a state is subdivided into a number of single-member constituencies from each of which a single person is elected on the basis of plurality (whoever gets largest number of votes is the winner from the constituency s/he is trying to represent). Any time a single person is to be elected from a constituency,it tilts the election in favor of rich and powerful or those beholden to the rich because of the money received by the former from the latter. Thus most of the seats of power in the elected bodies like parliament and assemblies down to the panchayat level are occupied by the rich or those that receive patronage from the rich, no matter whether various constituencies are reserved candidates belonging to one of the weaker sections. Hence democracies using FPTP should rather be called plutocracies wherein the real power lies in the hands of individuals who possess or control money.

 

The very first step (getting nominated by a reasonably strong party) in the electoral process of FPTP in India is fraught with corrupt practices like bribery, nepotism, favoritism and essential sycophancy. Unless one takes advantage of one or more of the corrupt practices mentioned above, s/he stands little chance of getting a ticket (nomination from a constituency). Further, after a person does get the coveted ticket and goes on to win the election from a particular constituency, s/he cannot really represent the people of that constituency, instead, s/he is obliged to obey the dictates/whips issue by his/her party supremo, lest s/he is likely to lose his/her seat and not get the coveted nomination again of his/her current party. It is these kinds of required corrupt practices needed for entering and continuing political/public life under FPTP that keeps a lot of bright youngsters away from politics. That’s why a lot of people think that the ones in political arena probably could not find any other respectable of earning a living.

 

The above mentioned characteristic of FPTP (of the candidates, who go on to win a seat, having to obey the dictates of their party-supremos) makes the reservation policy for SC/ST candidatesvery deceptive. Winning candidates from the SC/ST communities, by and large, do not represent the interests and aspirations of SC/ST communities they belong to; instead they have to represent the interests and dictates of their party-supremos who have handed the nomination to the former.

 

Under FPTP, in our country most of the seats are won by two or three big parties; generally parties getting less than 15% of the overall votes hardly win any seats; as such support for them tend to die down because voters think voting for parties with such small support is wasting their votes. Such voters tend to vote for lesser of the two evils (with big din) that are likely to win and form a government. In such a case propagandas drummed up by the parties are more effective and the one of the big money spenders is likely to win, giving us a government of the rich and/or beholden to the rich, particularly the rich corporations. In this fashion FPTP tends to lead a country towards two party systems both of which are beholden to the rich corporations, and we get to choose between twiddle dee or twiddle dumb! Heads the rich win, tails the poor lose!!

 

List-Proportional-Representation system of election:

Under a system called party-list-Proportional-Representation(or simply list-PR) we must have multi-seat constituencies; for example, a whole country or state may be declared as a single multi-seat constituency, with as many members simultaneouslydeclared as winners of a seat in the (multi-member) constituency as the number of seats in its assembly. For the sake of our discussion we will assume that a state is a multi-member constituency and we need to elect members from various parties to fill its assembly seats. All parties and its candidates can go anywhere in the state to campaign and collect votes for themselves and their party.

 

List-PR has several forms.Under an old system the party (i.e., the party leaders) used to prepare a list of candidates and arrange them in a priority order putting the party-supremo at the top, followed by other leaders, followed by the relatives and friends of the supremo and other leaders. Party-quotas that were decided in accord with the votes for various parties used to be filled off the top of the prioritized party-lists. In such a system those desirous of being listed close to the top of list of their party (with reasonable chance of getting elected) had to be in the “good book” of the party-supremo. Sycophancy, relationship with the supremo or one of the relatively more important leaders of the party, tons of money for the supremo and for the party, were some of the factors in the decision on one’s position in prioritized party-list. Dictatorial polity started right from the process of creation of the prioritized party-lists, as was the case under FPTP in the process of handing out nomination to various candidates desirous of obtaining the same. This needs to be avoided. For this reason we propose the Finn system described below.

 

In the Finn list-PR system the party-lists are initially un-prioritized and voters voting for a party are supposed vote for one of the candidates in the un-prioritized party-list of their choice. The party-list is rearranged after the voting process, putting the candidate getting most votes at the top of the party-list, followed by the next highest vote getter, and so forth. The only problem with the Finn system is that the party-list cannot be longer than the number of candidates in their parliament. This necessitates the party leadership (of the popular parties) to pick and choose the names of candidates to be listed on respective party-lists, from among many more applicants, giving the party leaders control over who is listed in their party-list. For this reason we would not like to put any limit on the length of the party-lists, as long as the desirous candidates fulfill certain criteria for candidature in their party-list.

 

Thus under the modified-Finnlist-PR system, which we will call open-list-PR (or ol-PR,) during the nomination process all those who satisfy certain characteristics specified by a party may nominate themselves as a candidates affiliated with the party and put their names in the un-prioritized alphabetically ordered list that would eventually be announced by the party. Party leaders would not have much control in the formation the party-list of candidates, as such the candidates would not be beholden to any of the leaders of their party. If the party leaders were to play a role in the deciding the number of candidates or their priority on the list, the party leaders would become virtual dictators in their party and usher in nepotism and favoritism and other forms of corrupt practices right at the very beginning of the electoral process. Ol-PR will rectify that. It will enable all those contemplating to go into political arena to go straight to the public and be helpful to them and raise public issues and awareness regarding their rights and interests, instead of being a sycophant to one of the political bosses and carrying his or her briefcases around. Entering public (political) life will be made easy by ol-PR and it will usher in a culture of helpfulness and awareness of socio-political rights of people.

 

When party leaders become leaders by virtue of handing out tickets (party nomination), they acquire huge power and become quite insecure in their position of power, thinking that bright individuals may push him/her out from their leadership position. As such, they try to keep bright people out of their party and play conservative politics embracing old ideas and keeping bright people with new ideas out of their party. On the other hand, when party leaders become leaders by virtue of their ideas, oratory, charisma, hard work, sincerity and integrity towards uplifting the society, not by virtue of having the power to play god by handing out tickets to whoever they want, they do not have much power over others. Not having much power over others, they have nothing to lose. Hence they don’t feel insecure and are likely to welcome bright industrious people with new ideas within the folds of their party. They are likely to be catalysts for positive changes in the society.

 

During voting process a voter can cast his/her vote in favor of a party by voting for one of the candidates on the un-prioritized list of his/her party. In this system party-list is open for voters to show their preferences for any of its candidates; hence such a system is called as open-party-list-PR (or open-list-PR, or ol-PR). Sum of all votes for all candidates of a party is the party-vote for the party. Each party is allocated a percentage “party-quota” of party-seats in the assembly that equals the percentage of “party-votes” it collects (via its candidates). Candidate names of a party are re-serialized in accord with votes they collect, with the largest vote getter topping the list, followed by the next highest vote getter, and so on. The party-quota is topped up (filled) off the top of the rearranged party-list prioritized in accord with votes for various candidates.

 

From the remaining names on various lists lesser positions like those in the bureaucracy, police, security personnel, etc., can be filled. This will make the bureaucrats and police more accountable to the public rather than taking their positions for granted in accord with their supposed merit. They would be serving people instead of memorizing test-guides to obtain a job. Thus, as far as practicable, it would be better to “elect” people to all positions of power, including those in bureaucracy, police, judicial system, etc. Further, as already discussed, the method of election should be ol-PR rather than our current FPTP method. This can go a long way in the direction of making all public officials accountable to the public, as well as bringing about social justice — proportionality of different socio-political groups/parties in positions of power.A hypothetical example as given below will make things more clear.

 

Suppose a party P1 collects 5% of total votes cast in a state that has 200 assembly seats. Party-quota of P1 would be 10 seats (=5% of the total of 200 seats), which will be filled by the 10 candidates who occupy the top 10 positions in its prioritized party-list. If there are 100 clerical positions to be filled as well, they may be distributed among various parties in accord with votes received by them. Thus party P1 would be offered 5 seats (=5% of the total of 100 clerical positions). They will be filled off the top of the remaining list of P1 after the top 10 have been picked to go to the assembly. It is possible that some of the members close to the top of the list may prefer taking up one of the vacancies in bureaucracy in stead of going to the assembly. That will be their prerogative. They may be allowed to do that.

 

Thus, as far as practicable, it would be better to “elect” people to all positions of power, including those in bureaucracy, police and judicial system. Further, as already discussed, the method of election should be ol-PR rather than our current FPTP method. This can go a long way in the direction of making all public officials accountable to the public, as well as bringing about social justice — proportionality of different socio-political groups/parties in positions of power.

 

In ol-PR since even very small parties can win their due share of seats in elected bodies, people identifying with those parties would not be swayed much by the big extravagant propaganda of big rich parties, reducing the value of money in elections. Moreover, one need not be the top vote getter among a group trying to win a seat, (they could be 3rd, 4th, 5th if the party is likely to win 5 seats, and still win a seat), candidates would not be vying with each other in spending huge sums of money to get elected, further reducing imperative necessity of spending huge sums of money. If someone has worked hard as a social worker sincerely, s/he would have as much of name recognition (in his/her small party) as one spending a lot of money, and a fair chance of winning a seat, additionally reducing the imperativeness of spending huge sums of money to win a seat. Further, since nomination is not in the hands of party leaders, there would be no necessity to purchase (with money and sycophancy) patronage of the party leaders. Overall, one can see that under ol-PR the imperative necessity of spending huge sums of money will be drastically reduced. This will reduce the necessity of corrupt practices to recover the money spent in elections and the necessity of black money and bribes or stolen money to win an election. Our culture of corruption and sycophancy have deep seated roots in the essentiality of corrupt practices and sycophancy in politics. Ol-PR can allow it to be cleaned up.

 

Ol-PR is in conformity with separate electorate system of election at micro as well as macro level. Separate Electorate System (SES), first demanded by Muslim leaders in 1905 was later supported by Dr. Ambedkar, including his demand for its application to ensure fair share of seats in parliament and assemblies for each of the major segments like Muslims, Depressed Class [SC, ST and OBC], Sikhs, etc.. Under SES each of major segments of the society would have been electing separately their own members. Eventually Dr. Ambedkar had to give up the demand in the face of deadly opposition from Mahatma Gandhi. Ol-PR would achieve all that Dr. Ambedkar and Muslim leaders wanted plus more. It would enable allsocio-political groups of the society (based on various ideologies or followings of charismatic leaders, or based on caste categories as well as castes, religion, gender, ethnicity, region, etc., or any combination of the former groups, small as well as large) form socio-political parties of their own and obtain seats in representative bodies in proportion to votes those parties are able to collect without rigidly separating the voters according to their caste, religion, gender, ethnicity, etc. Voters would be separating themselves in a broad (macro) category like Scheduled Caste as well as micro category like caste, gender, etc., by throwing their fluid support for one party or the other in accord with their perception of who appears to be most beneficial for them and/or their own segment and/or the whole society. The collection of candidates elected under various banners can be said to be genuine representatives of collection of their respective party supporters.

 

3.     Autocracy is opposite of democracy, hence monarchical mold of governing structure is anti-democratic:

Even though autocracy (rule of one) is opposite of democracy yet, directly or indirectly, in most supposedly democratic countries people elect a single person as the executive head/ruler of a country, state or a panchayat. This is anti-democraticeven though it is done for a limited period of time, with new elections to be held on a periodic basis. Direct or indirect election of a single person as an executive head of a country or at any of the lower key positions is at the root of many problems. Concentration of power in the hands of one is a huge problem. We all know the ever green adage: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The other problem is that the diversity of the society does not get reflected in a single person. As pointed out earlier, the single elected person is likely to be rich or be beholden to the rich donors, giving rise to a government of the rich, for the rich, though outwardly appearing to be chosen by the people.

 

In case of presidential system of governments the concentration of power is obvious. But even in a parliamentary system like ours, wherein all members of a representative body (like parliament, assembly or zilaparishad, etc.,) are elected as equals, but immediately after the election their first order of business is election of a house leader in the form of a monarch with the support of a little more than 50% of the house members. This leaves nearly 50% of the house as opposition members whose function is to say no to all that is proposed by the government. The monarch then hands out various departments (as fiefdoms) to various lesser leaders (more or less as bribes) for their support in winning the monarchical position for himself or herself. After the formation of the government even on the side of the treasury bench most members of the majority coalition are generally reduced to the status of mere yes-man/woman to every thing that the government proposes. Anyone disobeying a whip issued by his/her party leader may lose his/her seat in the house. Thus most of the members of the house reduced ‘yes’ or ‘no’ men and woman in favor of or against all that is proposed by the government, and the government is run basically as a monarchical regime. In our parliamentary system elected via FPTP, if the leading party has absolute majority, there are hardly any check on the power s/he wields.

 

Why must the members of a house of representatives create a hierarchy among themselves to do whatever needs to be done? After all everything that needs assent of parliament or assembly has to be passed by the whole house. So the whole house should be free to involve itself, in the manner it wants to involve itself, in everything that has to be passed by the house.

 

Likeminded representatives can form affinity groups to tackle issues they feel interested in. After they have some resolutions, they could see if after some modifications and compromises they can form alliances big enough to muster majority support in the house. They can form different groups and alliances to tackle different issues. They should even be free to take help of outside experts and agencies (without giving any of them voting power). They should be free to send emissaries other groups working on various issues, and so forth. This way all members of an assembly will be equal, with none winning the monarchical position on the basis of various intrigues and bribes in the form of cash or cabinet berths or other favors. There will be much more of transparency and democracy in the assembly and in other levels of governance as well as in the society as a whole.

 

Nobody should be made permanently in-charge of any department as if it were his or her fiefdom. Guiding principle should be dispersal of power in the whole house preventing formation of hierarchies and fiefdoms. Persons whose ideas form the kernel of a resolution passed by the house should be in-charge of implementation of the resolution with the help of a group of bureaucrats (preferably elected using ol-PR, as pointed out earlier,) they would collect who (they think) would be most cooperative in implementing the same.

 

If we assume that the presence of even single honest person in a collective of equals would ensure honesty (=transparency) in the collective,it can be easily shown that the probability of honesty of a collective will be much higher than probability of honesty of a single individual.As such, a collective of persons with equal power vested in them would have much greater integrity, transparency and trust of the people, the way a multi-member judicial bench commands greater respect of people and is expected to have greater integrity and transparency.

 

Generally, a person in power is subject to a lot of pressure for favorable decisions. When one is working as a part of a collective of equals, s/he can always say that s/he will put up the matter up to the collective and that the final decision will be that of the collective, which is nothing but truth. This can better enable the person to fend off people applying pressure for favors. Even if the former wanted to do the requested favor, the former has to put it up before the collective anyway. This will prevent unreasonable favors. Style of work with a single person at the top of a pyramid tends to be dictatorial.On the other hand, in the flat top collective of equals anybody trying to be dictatorial would get isolated.

 

As pointed out earlier, election of a single person from a single seat constituency generally tilts in favor or richest candidate(s), or one supported by the rich, or backed up by a party of the rich. As such, direct election of a president is likely to result in a government of the rich for the rich, even if it is by the people (with limited choice).Thus election of a single person as the head of a government is likely to bring in all of the corrupting forces inherent in an autocracy, no matter how good is the autocrat.

 

For the above reasons, and much more, way back, in 1775, Benjamin Franklin had staunchly opposed a single-person executive, and he looked upon it as a “fetus of monarchy.” Franklin was vigorously against selection or election of a President. Franklin’s plan included an executive council of twelve equal persons empowered to carry out administrative and executive functions while the Congress (Senate and the House of Representatives) was in recess. While the Congress was in session, it (the congress) would have discharged the duties of executive as well as legislative body. Today a shining example of executive body composed of a collective equals is the Federal Executive Council (FEC) of seven equal persons in Switzerland. Thus we need neither directly nor indirectly elect a president or Prime Minister. It is possible to envision dispersal of power in an elected body in such a way that none of its members are more important or powerful than others, no PM, CM, Adhyaksh, Pramukh or Mukhiya or for that matter any minister or deputies. This (dispersal of power) would minimize the tendency towards concentration of power, increase transparency and decrease corruption.

 

4.     The concept of socio-political-governments (SP-governments):

Even if an elected body does equitably accommodate various socio-political groups/parties, if it decides everything by majority in the house, it is likely to be closer to tyranny of majority, particularly for weakest section discriminated by majority of the society, than to a democracy that would lead to fulfillment of their interests and aspirations. If the rights and interests of the weakest minorities have to be safeguarded, we will need to make provisions for their autonomy that will allow them to spend their share of revenue in a manner most fruitful for them and will possess authority and instruments to protect them from violence and injustices perpetrated by the more powerful segments and individuals. This can be done with the help of a concept like socio-political governments as discussed below.

 

The method of majoritarian decision making often leads to what has been called “tyranny of majority,” particularly as far as the rights and interests of the weakest minorities are concerned. This is because all of the rest of the society discriminates against the lowest strata. Tenets like “The true measure of a democracy is the way it treats its weakest minorities!” abound. However, such tenets would continue to remain mere platitudes until solid measures are taken to safeguard the interests and welfare of the weakest minorities. To safeguard the interest of weaker minorities we propose the concept of socio-political-governments (SP-governments). It can be seen as a solid measure in the direction of strengthening true democracy and social justice.

 

Various segments of the society have different imperative needs. As such, it makes sense to allow the genuine representatives of respective segments spend their share of budgetary funds in accord with their needs.This kind of thinking is in accord with the special component of budgets meant to be spent for the benefit of SC and ST communities. Currently the special component funds are spent by elected and unelected officials of other castes (non-SC/ST) on projects that are of little interest to the SC/ST communities. However, we have seen above that ol-PR allows for genuine representation of people of various segments in elected bodies. As such, the members elected by SC/ST communities may be given the responsibility of the special component budgeting.

 

Our current states are formed by carving out geographical terrains of people with common linguistic preferences. Likewise we can form SP-states composed of people having common socio-political preferences. Some people may like communist ideology, they should have a communist SP-state that would spend money in accord with communist ideology and for the sake of protection against fundamentalist forces. People of SC (Scheduled Caste) communities may join hands on the basis of common ordeals faced by them, lack of well run government schools, and hospitals/clinics and for the sake of their protection from the violence perpetrated upon them by the higher castes. Likewise minority religious communities may want to take special measures to protect themselves from the fundamentalists of other religions. It is more important for the above mentioned minorities to have their genuine representatives get together under a SP-banner and devise instruments that would protect them from the injustices perpetrated by the others than simply to put all those speaking a common language under one state. This can be done by enabling SP-groups/parties to form governments of their own. They would not only decide ways of spending their share of budgetary funds; they would also consider other problems facing their communities.

 

We could envision SC-governments at national, state, and at various panchayat raj components. At national level we would have SP-state-govt in parallel with the current territorial state-govt. At state level we will have SP-district-govt functioning in parallel with other district governments, and so forth.

 

Aside from budgetary considerations, the weakest need protection from the sharpest and most ruthless instruments of oppression of a majoritarian union, state and district governments — law and order agencies like the police and the judicial system. Instead of working as protectors of the rights and interests of the weak, these agencies seem to work as terrorists and oppressors of the former. Each of the SP-governments can establish their own police and judicial departments administered by individuals selected/elected by their ownSP-groups/parties elected along with various elected bodies.

 

In case of conflict between individuals of two different socio-political groups, each can seek help from their own SP-governments at the state and/or district level. Each of the SP-state or district governments can allocated their own investigative agencies as well as a judge to ensure justice to their SP-state-or-district-citizen. The persons in conflict will have to agree upon inclusion of a mutually agreed third judge as well as investigative agency to help the administration of justice. Thus there will always be a panel of three judges and three investigative agencies helping in administration of justice.

 

Thus if a Dalit has been attacked by some goons, the Dalit person in question would be able to seek help of a Dalit-state or Dalit-district governments, while the alleged goon would be free to seek help of whatever SP-government he would feel close to. The two sides would have to mutually agree upon inclusion of a third judge and investigative agency to get involved in the case. The judges may act as lawyers-cum-judges to the party that sought their help. Obviously, while helping their clients as lawyers, they will have to keep their position as a judge in mind. This kind of system is likely to prevent weaker segments from getting shorter end of law and justice.

 

5.     100% Reservations/quota system needed for true democracy:

In the definition of democracy (derived from the Greek: δημοκρατία = dēmokratía = “power to the people.”) The words “power” and “people” are unqualified. That means it applies to all kinds of power and all segments of people. In addition to the power of elected bodies, enormous amount of power is wielded by unelected public/governmental (and so called private) bodies like the bureaucracy, judiciary, military, police, media (electronic and print media), and various educational, research, economic (banks, insurance), and manufacturing and other institutions and corporations, NGOs and so forth, which are all constituted via various kinds of selection process. Thus “people” in all their diversity must be reflected in all arenas of power mentioned above. “People” implies all segments of the population on equitable basis. This is corroborated by the concept of universal adult franchise that gives the same amount of power in the hands of all individuals, with no mention about their merit.

 

Thus for the method of selection to comply with the tenet of democracy, it must incorporate 100% reservation for all segments of the society. Further, there is no mention of private or public in the definition of power. As such reservation policies must apply to private institutions that have significant amount of economic or human resources. Actually, none of the so called “private” institutions can survive long without the protection and various kinds of assistance on the part of the government. Thus the so called private institutions can at best be said to be semi-public institutions. Hence all of the reservation rules of public institutions must apply to the so called private institutions too, though its implementation could be enforced via some kind of economic incentive/inducement. Thus for democracy to prevail in a country, all of the segments mentioned above (based on gender, religion, ethnic origin, caste, region, etc.,) must be represented in proportionate manner in all institutions mentioned above (judicial system, bureaucracy, military, police, media, educational institutions, NGOs, financial institutions, etc., including the so called private institutions).

 

To facilitate reservation for even smallest segments of the society we need lots of vacancies for each levels of appointments. For this reason most appointments should be made just during one month of a year, for example, during the month of January of each year. Any interim appointments should be on ad hoc basis. At all level, if one can show that a particular segment lacks proportionate participation, that lack of proportionality should be remedied as soon as possible.

 

Unless all segments/groups of the society participate proportionately in all power structures of the society, the groups that lack equitable share of power are more or less under colonial rule of the groups that are over-represented in power structures. This is unacceptable in 21st century. It cannot be justified on the basis of “merit” of individuals or groups. There is no mention of the so called merit in the definition of democracy! None of the groups have right to subjugate other socio-political groups/parties on the basis of merit, not even on the basis of majority or minority!

 

6.     Extreme disparity is opposite of equality and hence anti-democratic:

For a country to be called democracy, constant effort has to be made to reduce disparity of political power as well as income. This can be done by democratically running each of the above mentioned institutions, including corporations, that involve more than, say, 10, 20 or 50 people, as cooperatives (giving equal votes in the hands of all employees of respective institutions) rather than in the old mold of autocracies, with a single person running the whole show as CEO or the owner of the enterprise. In corporations with publicly sold stocks, all stock-holders may be given one vote irrespective of the number of stocks a person holds. This will be in consonance with all voters, rich or poor, getting a single vote to cast (equalizing them). Many other innovative equalizing techniques can be proposed and discussed, for example, setting limits on the highest salary one can receive as compared to permissible minimum wage; Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all individuals in a country is another way that can make the lives of the poorest more livable. It would increase bargaining power of the poorest and would allow each person to follow his or her passion rather than just do a “job” for the sake of survival.

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Any comments on the above mentioned may kindly be directed to:

Dr. Satinath Choudhary

[email protected]

Mobile: +91 98217 08942

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I, the Citizen, (Not) the Sovereign

by Sandeep Pandey and Vishwas Bhamburkar          The preamble to the Constitution begins with “We, the People”. Thus, the idea that the citizens are the sovereigns, should have been the…

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