A
few weeks ago, Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the US, made a powerful
analogy while on her “When we all vote” campaign tour: “You wouldn’t let your
grandma decide what you should wear… you wouldn’t take advice from a stranger
on which doctor to consult”. But when you don’t vote, she argued, you are
essentially letting others decide far more important consequences for your life
than what you will be wearing. India, on the other hand, is currently debating
an even more contentious topic. When we vote, aren’t we entrusting our futures
with criminals?
India’s
election trends have long showed an unmasked preference for goons. 34% of our
current Members of Parliament have pending criminal cases against them. Over
20%, serious criminal charges, such as murder and rape. As The Economist put it
a few years ago, “One can just about walk the whole way from Mumbai to Kolkata
without stepping foot outside a constituency who’s MP isn’t facing a charge”.
It wasn’t just that criminals were entering politics. They were also more likely to win. The average criminal with a heinous crime had an 18% likelihood of winning, while the untainted was successful just 6% of the time. Moreover, these shares have been rapidly increasing with every successive election.
And yet, while deciding on a Public Interest Litigation last month, the Supreme Court refused to ban chargesheeted accused from standing for office, or even impose a narrower restriction on political parties from fielding such candidates (Convicted felons, like Lalu Prasad Yadav, are already barred for a period). The decision is correct, legally. After all, the definition of ‘disqualified’ in the Representation of People Act, 1951, makes it abundantly clear that only the restrictions in the Act can act as a disability ‘and (on) no other ground’. For the Court to then legislate a fresh disqualification would be an unwelcome enlargement of its own powers.
The apex Court rightly found that it is squarely and solely within the powers of the legislature to amend the law to ensure that criminals do not run our politics. And thus, we get perhaps the closest parallel to ‘entrusting the keys with the thief’. Parliament has an increasing share of members with serious criminal cases against them. Parties realise that such candidates have a bigger chance of winning votes, and actively court them. And these very parties are supposed to pass laws to keep such candidates out. Just not happening!
Milan Vaishnav, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington has spent many summers studying the phenomenon of criminalisation of Indian politics. Its result, a brilliant book “When Crime Pays”, is a must read (the above statistics are from the book). He traces four reasons why political parties gravitate towards criminals. First, he says candidates with criminal records may be involved in illegal activity which provides them with ample liquid resources.
Second, candidates with criminal reputations also tend to carry their own vote-banks, by virtue of being ‘native-sons’. This also helps them accumulate resources through local networks that leverage their power. Thirdly, this local-network provides them with a volunteer base that is essential to a short and intense campaign. Finally, it is plausible to assume that such a person would be willing to cut corners with the law, allowing them to raise significant funds through illicit means.
What follows is that for political parties, such candidates offer economic rents, in the form of being self-sufficient, financially and electorally, and often being able to carry neighbouring constituencies in their wake. Vaishnav’s travels through India told him that freebies to voters are no longer viewed as bribery. Since almost every serious candidate hands out doles, voters see it as an entitlement, and for the candidate, it becomes essential for simply staying in the game. Former Election Commissioner Navin B Chawla, writing in the Indian Express says, “it is no longer a one-way process. Voters have become accustomed to demanding their price”.
With caps on permissible spending by candidates, the freebies cannot be legally ‘spent’. Enter unaccounted money. But there are other roles too. Such as funding Paid news (where newspapers slip favourable mentions in their regular reportage to paying candidates, for a price) as well as a daily supply of liquor and food, in addition to cash, to volunteers/workers to keep them motivated. [It is easy to see that election is not a poor man’s cup of tea. Vaishnav’s analysis of asset-declarations show that candidates with less than Rs 10 lakhs in wealth have a 1% chance of winning, and candidates with less than Rs 1 crore in assets have a mere 10% chance of winning]
And therein lies the rub. The malice is, perhaps, not just that criminals run our Parliament. Our plight is that we have made such a mockery of our democracy that only the criminals can compete for our votes effectively.
