The Peninsula Foundation

Category: Elections and Policies

  • An Outside View of the US 2024 Presidential Election

    An Outside View of the US 2024 Presidential Election

    What was the voter turnout?

    The big change is that Harris, so far, has lost 9 million voters since 2020, while Trump has gained only 1.2 million. Harris’s count of lost votes will decline as the final votes come in, but the bigger story remains that Harris lost more votes than Trump gained.

    Voter turnout is NOT final, but it is likely between 153 and 156 million, down from 2020 but still the second-highest percentage turnout in 100 years. At a minimum, 107 million adults did not vote (88 million of whom are “eligible” to vote). Thus, 41% or more of the adult population and 36% of the eligible voters did not vote.

    Using the percentage of voter groups who voted for Trump is misleading.  The news remains that the significant change is the loss of Harris voters.

    What were the economic issues?

    Daily survival has become a serious problem for the bottom 65% due, specifically, to the inflation of grocery items and increasing mortgage payments and rent. Aggregate figures don’t reflect this reality.

    Workers’ actual standard of living was worse under Biden than under Trump.

    Real wages in the US remain lower than they were a half-century ago.

    Are there differences between Democrats and Republicans?

    US electoral parties are NOT like those in Europe – they have always been a different version of bourgeois electoral systems. Both major US parties are corporations, not parties with memberships, ideologies, and programs. They are designed like a marketplace of individuals preening for the Presidency, much like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but only held every four years.

    The Democrats turned over their foreign policy to the CNAS group of neo-con warmongers who will now be displaced.

    The Republicans are also not an actual party; Trump proved this, and what is next for Republicans post-Trump is also uncertain.

    What are the class shifts in the US?

    There is a new stratification of the bourgeoisie, with billionaires as a new factor. The increasingly dominant discourse amongst the capitalist class has the wherewithal to exert its influence.

    Fifty Billionaires put 2.5 billion US dollars, 45% of the 5.5 billion total, into the Presidential election. Of this, 1.6 billion went to the Republicans, 750 million to the Democrats, and the rest to both. The total spent on the election, in all races, was 16 billion, a sign of a kleptocracy, not a thriving democracy.

    washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/biggest-campaign-donors-election-2024

    There is a concerted effort by a section of libertarian tech billionaires, including Thiel and Musk, to have their hands directly on the levers of the state to control the race for global domination of AI. They believe that they alone should control the advances in the AI space for the world and that the initial next step is what is called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). These megalomaniacs believe this will begin the control of humans by machine intelligence and, perhaps, in their perverse dreams, the end of humanity.

    A growing number of lesser capitalists, such as multimillionaires, are now being lumped into the upper middle class and the wealthiest one-third of voters. One very important trend to note is that in the last fifteen years, the richest one-third have switched allegiance from Republicans to Democrats.

    Why did Harris lose 6 to 9 million votes?

    Workers were worse off, wages did not keep up, and inflation left a long, lingering impact.  Some of the youth vote left for economic reasons. Others were disillusioned and demoralised by the full-throated support of the genocidal war in Gaza by the Democratic Party. Muslims, while a small group, voted for a third party or Trump.

    Despite the fabrications of the Democratic Party corporate handlers, Harris was, in fact, inauthentic, unlikeable, shallow, and could not mask her history as a prosecutor who spent her life attacking the rights of the poor.

    Dissatisfaction with many Western elected parties is growing – Conservative in the UK, Centre Right in France, right-wing in Germany – all thrown out. Biden left a demoralised Democratic Party and left too late.

    Fear-mongering about fascism was core to the rhetoric of the Democrats, even though no one knows what the term means.  Some voters became annoyed at the harassment by the liberals to vote for them since they were the last rail of defence against fascism. Many people did not believe Trump was, in fact, a fascist, nor did they believe that every one of their family members who listened to Trump was a fascist.

    Apathy is growing and remains a real issue.

    Probably over a million stayed at home as they could not stomach the Democratic Party’s gleeful support for Genocide. Trump’s victory in Michigan was certainly due to this issue.

    Harris played to and fawned over the war criminal Dick Cheney, the architect of the invasion of Iraq and a historic right-wing enemy of the Democrats.  We don’t know how many voters left in disgust. 

    Why did Trump gain votes?

    Trump took advantage of working-class dissatisfaction. Even so, he only gained less than 2 million total new votes. There is no evidence of a widescale shift of working-class votes to the Republicans in this election.

    Working-class women voted for local candidates supporting abortion but voted for Trump for economic and other reasons. Others voted on local issues important to them and then voted for Trump as they felt that despite his unsavoury behaviours, he was more committed to “shaking things up”.

    The billionaire class made sure that Trump had ample funds. Elon Musk’s America Pac spent $118 million handling field operations for the Trump campaign, an unusual role for a super PAC.

    From 2008 to 2020, there was a decline in the percentage of voters supporting the Democrats amongst the bottom 1/3 of income earners in the US.

    ft.com/content/6de668c7-64e9-4196-b2c5-9ceca966fe3f

     

    Too little data is available now to provide a detailed answer about the relatively insignificant number of voters who voted Democrat in 2020 and Republican in 2024.

    What is the assessment of the new cabinet positions announced?

    Trump’s sixteen appointments to date are all vocal supporters of genocide in Palestine. In the United States, there are both Jewish and Christian Zionists. Trump has appointed several Christian Zionists. The majority are China hawks.

    When analysed from a US statecraft point of view, many are extremely underwhelming candidates. These include:

    • Secretary of State: Senator Marco Rubio: He is a rigid, fierce anti-communist.
    • Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host: He is divisive and has no high-level military experience.
    • Attorney General: Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida: He has no experience in the Department of Justice and has had past legal controversies.
    • Director of National Intelligence: Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She has no intelligence background but is perhaps less rigid on international issues, a non-interventionist, and has a friendship with Indian Prime Minister Modi.
    • Ambassador to the United Nations: Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. She is an extreme Zionist, has near zero diplomatic experience, and has focused only on domestic issues, but is loyal to Trump.
    • Secretary of Homeland Security: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. She lacks national government experience, and her actions have veered toward radical anti-federalism.

    Due to some of these appointments, US stature in international affairs will likely diminish.

    Trump has brilliantly dismissed the extremely dangerous Pompeo. He has made it clear that few from the first inner group of his cabinet and advisors will return. The world will not miss them. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Trump has the capacity to lead any group successfully for even an intermediate period. He is known for turning on people and turning them against each other.

    How do we interpret the vote?

    A significant section of the working class understandably abandoned the Democrats in this election.

    There is not a major right-wing shift in US attitudes, but there is a real base for the right.

    The Democratic Party elite is completely divorced from the masses. Parading the loyal royal cultural elite like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Bruce Springsteen reeked of wealth, opulence, and tone-deafness.

    Apathy should not be understated. At least 88 million didn’t vote, with a further 19 million disenfranchised.

    Third parties are structurally prevented from winning even a single state in a presidential election. They are structurally locked out of Congress. The United States has locked in a two-party system. Most voters have been captured by this belief.

    Small exceptions to this are wealthy candidates like Ross Perot in 1992 and Robert Kennedy Junior.

    There was huge intimidation at the end against supporters of third-party candidates, which depressed their vote even more than usual. In this just-held election, the Party for Liberation and Socialism Candidate Claudia Cruz received 134,348 votes so far.  Claudia Cruz’s 134 thousand votes is the highest number of votes for an explicit communist in American history. It exceeds the CPUSA’s William Z. Foster’s previous record of 120,000 votes in 1932. The 1932 vote was a higher percentage of the population as the US was smaller in 1932. These facts are a reminder of the long-term campaign of anti-communism within the US.

    Capital is clearly happy with Trump’s win, as evidenced by the November 6th celebration rally on Wall Street. They disagree with the liberal hype that he will bring an end to American society.

    Despite the lies of the liberals, the facts are that Trump formally initiated the New Cold War on China. His inner team are more fiercely anti-China than the Democrats, who are more bound to the Ukraine War.

    Trump has fewer restraints, controlling the Senate, House, Supreme Court, and Presidency.

    He could well launch a Third World War.  It would be a mistake to underestimate this danger.

    Other things people outside the US should know

    There is a tendency in some parts of the Global South to have a simplistic and false analysis that any enemy of the liberals is a friend of the Global South. This is a severely flawed argument. The imperialist far-right is not a good guy, a cultural conservative who wants to protect families and cultural life. Inside the US, conservative culture is tightly tied to slavery and genocide. It is misogynistic, racist, militaristic, and reactionary. We should not confuse the histories of Iran, Turkey, India, Ghana, and China with those of the US.

    Welcoming divisions in the enemy camp is often entirely correct. But Communists, socialists, and true democrats do not support reactionary views and always side with the people, not the far-right ideologues.

    There is also great confusion about MAGA and MAGA-Communism. First, Make America Great Again (MAGA) means returning (the second “A” in MAGA) to the full glory of the US industrial past. But what was that past? It was, in fact, the total economic, political, military, and racial subordination of the peoples of the Global South states to the US. It was the century of humiliation in China. This is not a return to be welcomed by history. MAGA is a profoundly reactionary, unacceptable outcome and concept.

    One of the greatest poets in the United States is Langston Hughes. One of his poems was called “Let America Be America Again.” But this was a parody as the actual statement was made in the refrain, “America Never Was America to Me”. The meaning of this poem was the false portrayal of the United States as ever having a glorious past, which was never true for the slaves or the working class.

    Second, there are a handful of personalities in the US who have taken the great word communism and sullied it with the idea of returning to this falsely idealised America. The old “strong” American industry was built on the backs of low-paid workers in the mines in Africa and elsewhere.

    Desiring a real communist path is a good thing. But tying it to an imperialist past, a past of violence, with reactionary views is the opposite path taken by Lenin, Mao, and Fidel.

    There is also a dangerous tendency to simply reject the liberal concepts of identity politics and embrace the values of far-right conservatism while lacking scientific thinking about the plight of women and other vulnerable groups.

    The CPC led the country in the first national Soviets in Ruijin in the struggle to abolish the prejudices of feudalism and emancipate women and national minorities in China. However, these rights have not yet been achieved in many countries, as there has been no communist revolution.

    True Communism is the path to advancing the overall interests of the working class in all countries, including women, national minorities, and other vulnerable groups.

    The Republican voter base in class-terms is the lower-middle class, which is overwhelmingly white, suburban, rural. It is amplified by fundamentalist Christians and the Republican regional strongholds.

    There are six “ideological” trends, all extreme right, in the Republican camp:

    1. Populist demagogues
    2. Extreme Libertarians
    3. Fanatical Christian-Zionists
    4. Virulent anti-communists
    5. Dangerous AI-obsessed Tech billionaires
    6. Complex conservatives

    The US economy will continue to perform poorly but better than the rest of the West. It will continue to use its dollar hegemony, reinforced with sanctions, to remove hundreds of billions from the Global South and to force Europe, Australia, and Japan to subordinate their economic interests to those of the US.

    The actual US budget for the military was $1.8 trillion last year. Significant cuts seem improbable.

    There is now a permanent Black upper middle class that produces a Black mis-leadership. This mis-leadership group has created two decades of Black war criminals and apologists for empire. The rise of this mis-leadership gang, however, should not overshadow the fact that most blacks remain oppressed and exploited.

    The anti-immigrant politics in the U.S. is directed primarily at undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

    But there is a false belief that all immigrants in the US are working class and progressive – it is just not true. An important stratum of non-working-class immigrants in the US are amongst the most virulent defenders of US atrocities in the world.

    There is a belief that there is a conspiracy of some secret group of members of the military and government that decide most things, which they call the Deep State. This is a lazy concept. It denies that all states have a class character and permanent army. In the US, it has been estimated that over 5 million people have security clearance, and many have near-lifetime employment. There is no need for conspiracy theories. The US does have an advanced state that functions on behalf of capital. This state manages the affairs of the often-competing large capitalists and is now increasingly primarily favouring the billionaires amongst the capitalist class. Thus, a better way to see the US State is through the lens of Mao, Lenin, and Marx and not as some inexplicable conspiracy.

    There is a special relationship between the US and Israel, both extreme white-settler states. In the US alone, over 30 House, Senate, and cabinet members are dual citizens of the US and Israel. Israel does not control the US, BUT they are socially a duopoly.

    They are the CORE of Ring 1 of the Global North, the core of the imperialist bloc, along with the UK, Canada, and Australia.

    The long-term trend is clear – bourgeois liberal democracy is failing globally.

    What is the domestic consequence of the vote?

    Since 2016, the very top of the capitalist class has led and mobilised a neo-fascist movement. Increasing levels of force and lawfare will now be used internally inside the US.

    Trump himself is not a fascist per se. He is super-egoistic and believes he can act with near absolute impunity.

    But he is riding on, and a beneficiary of changing class phenomena.

    Fascism is not so much an ideology as a structural class relationship in which the lower-middle class, which has a revanchist ideology, is mobilized by big capital during a period of internal and external disequilibrium.

    The New York Times and Financial Times use the word fascism as a scare tactic to maintain their role and influence in the state. Neo-fascism is a more precise word than fascism at this moment to describe the changes in the US.

    Historically, there are a few things that are necessary to define a fully fascist state in imperialist countries. One is that the state uses methods of control it would typically use only for its colonies and neo-colonies, i.e., extreme widespread violence and force.  The other is that they resort to the overthrow of the constitution.

    The Constitution is unlikely to be changed directly. However, the original Constitution, an eighteenth-century document, has many gaps that can be exploited.

    Radical and extreme legal changes are thus probable. There will be a reversal of 70 years of civil rights.

    Overall, it remains to be seen how far the capitalist class is willing to go.

    State capacity in many areas other than defence and border police will be diminished. Trump 1 saw big cuts in the State Department.  Even with Rubio present, it is unlikely to be refunded to its old level.

    The Billionaires will play a direct role in key tasks, from meeting Zelensky to chain-sawing government departments. Some departments, like Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, are, in fact, decrepit, corrupt and dysfunctional. But a billionaire-led revamp will result in an unsavoury privatized equally dysfunctional capitalist state bureaucracy.

    Trump is committed to a long-term isolationist strategy.  But the US has over 900 military bases abroad. It has fully supported the expansion of Israel’s War in the Middle East, building up its military in the process.

    Trump will not block the infrastructure projects that were voted in during Biden. The US recognises that its lost manufacturing capacity is a strategic deficit in military supply.

    The brunt of the cutbacks will still increase the suffering of the 150 million working-class poor in the US.

    The Left will be even more subjected to severe repression. Rubio is salivating.

    What are the possible international consequences?

    Despite the recent Zelensky meeting, the US will probably push a cease-fire and curtail the Ukraine war. Crimea is off the table. The current military lines will be the starting point. Doing this could reduce the immediate danger of a nuclear war. In April of this year, both Vance and Rubio voted against the 95-billion-dollar US military aid bill for Ukraine.

    With Israel, there are three main possibilities:

    1. Trump curtails Netanyahu and calls for an end to Lebanon, no regime change in Iran, and an unjust peace agreement.
    2. He falls prey to the Christian Zionists and continues Genocide against Palestine.
    3. He goes against his no-war statements and approves an escalation with Iran.

    We don’t know, but option one is not impossible. Trump wants a deal with Saudi Arabia.

    A few days ago, MBS was forced to call it a Genocide, a rare statement from a long-term US ally.

    With China, there are also three possibilities:

    1. Trump says tariffs are his favourite word in the English language and wants to increase them and eliminate domestic taxes.
    2. Rubio and other super China-hating cabinet members push him to escalate.
    3. US national security elements and US tech moguls like Peter Thiel push US military preparations.

    On the question of Taiwan, some in the Global South fall for the liberal messaging soundbite in the West that Trump, the dealmaker, will sell Taiwan for a fee. This would bring strong resistance from the US military and large sections of the anti-communist members of his core group. This is a very unlikely case.

    The world should not be confused if Trump does initiate a ceasefire in Ukraine and pressures Netanyahu to curtail the Genocide. Neither of these actions reverses the long-term trend of the US towards militarization against China. Nothing Trump does will turn around anaemic long-term US economic growth.

    China is still on target to surpass the US in current exchange rate GDP within 10 years.

    The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy what it perceives as the Eurasian threat. It remains committed to dismembering the Russian Federation and overthrowing the CPC. The imperialists believe this is the path to a thousand-year reign of unilateral power.

    The US will continue, unabated, its strategy of seeking nuclear primacy and what is called the “counterforce” strategy, which plans on the use of a first strike or launch of nuclear weapons. Evidence of these dangerous changes in US military strategy can be seen by their unilateral withdrawal from the following treaties:

    • 2002 (Bush): the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.
    • 2019 (Trump): the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty
    • 2020 (Trump): the Open Skies treaty

    Tucker Carlson has Trump’s ear for now and is not a proponent of military conflict.

    In 2023, a four-star general, Minihan, claimed that the US would be in a hot war with China in 2025. These are not accidental statements.

    It is unknown if Rubio, some of the far-right libertarians, and CNAS-influenced military forces can overcome Trump’s dislike of military conflict.

    The US is likely to increase its attention on Latin America and increase support for the far right like Bolsonaro and Milei.

    Large-scale aid to Africa is not likely to happen. The Angola railway project is now improbable.

    Final comments

    The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy the Eurasian threat.

    The US has adopted counterforce and nuclear supremacy as its prime military strategy.

    The threat of war has not changed due to a new administration. Only, perhaps, the speed at which it will be accomplished.

    The economic and political assaults against the US working class will escalate, especially against progressives.

    The state will continue to tighten its grip on the so-called bourgeois democratic freedoms by further restricting voting rights, civil rights, and freedom of speech.

     

    This article was published earlier on MRonline 
    The article is republished underCreative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

    Creative Commons License

     

     

  • “And Now to some serious Governance”

    “And Now to some serious Governance”

    A time comes for each leader and government to rise above pettiness, discarding ill will and hatred towards all. For the BJP, now uniquely in its third term, this is the time to show the nation that it is a party with a difference. For the opposition equally, this is the time to cooperate with the government on critical issues impacting the country.  

     

    Since my retirement from active service, I have avoided politics and political writings like the plague, but the avoidable happenings of the past few months have caused me, like am sanguine would have to millions of our countrymen, pain and a sense of despair.

    India has conducted over 18   general elections to its Parliament since 1952 with a lot of fury and vibrancy, but the Lok Sabha 2024 general elections were indeed an example of abysmally low-level politics transcending our better senses.

            How the world’s largest democracy indulged in its Lok Sabha 2024 elections was hardly complimenting to it considering the unquestionable fact that among the emerging nations in the world, call it from the Global South, the conduct of our elections showed some among those participating in poor light. Between competing political parties, enlightened debates and mutual civility were sadly lacking.   India has conducted over 18   general elections to its Parliament since 1952 with a lot of fury and vibrancy, but the Lok Sabha 2024 general elections were indeed an example of abysmally low-level politics transcending our better senses. India, which carries a fair amount of moral authority and is considered an example of a true and vibrant democracy, cannot let its hallowed image be sullied attributable to the selfish electoral games of some of its political leaders. The party in power at the Centre, the principal Opposition party and all those regional parties at the helm in the states have to display adequate maturity and a modicum of propriety and civility towards each other and not politicize each and every aspect of governance or national issues impacting India. The opposition, as it shows the mirror to the government on critical issues of governance, must not criticise each and every act of the government as a matter of routine.

             With the outcome of the general elections now done and dusted and the previous BJP government back in power, albeit with a clear reduction in its seats tally from 303 down to 240, it must get down to the exacting business of good governance from the Centre. That the same government, with its experience of the last ten continuous years in power, fielding more or less the same faces in the Cabinet in critical ministries and importantly serviced by the same bureaucrats should have, relatively speaking, not such an arduous task in governance. However, the thrust for fair, equitable, and sensitive handling of all critical matters across the nation has to come from the top political leadership. All our states must never feel discrimination by the Centre, especially in financial allocations urgently required for developmental works and disaster management. Additionally, the new government must take stern measures to keep rising inflation and unnecessary governmental expenditure under check before the economy takes a severe nose-dive.

             The Modi government, with the continuous experience of the last ten years, will have more than a good idea of the systemic improvements required and about areas needing additional financial resources and effort. It is unnecessary to worry too much about criticisms from the opposition but to carry on regardless in developmental works, without fear or favour, and with impartiality towards all the states in the true spirit of federalism. A time comes for each leader and government to rise above pettiness, discarding ill will and hatred towards all. For the BJP, now uniquely in its third term, this is the time to show the nation that it is a party with a difference. For the opposition equally, this is the time to cooperate with the government on critical issues impacting the country.

             New Delhi’s hands will be full of the nation’s diverse and formidable challenges, requiring attention and effectiveness. On the foreign policy front, India will have to walk the tightrope of maintaining strategic autonomy and sustaining its good relations with both the US and Russia. However, as it determinedly confronts an overly assertive China, India needs to use its economic clout and sophisticated diplomacy to get its South Asian neighbourhood closer to it and each other, avoiding the debt trap diplomacy and financial machinations of China.

    The number of terror-related incidents in J&K has gone up substantially in the last three months, and Pakistan will have to be kinetically chastened.

          India must, at the appropriate level, convey to China that their confrontationist attitude towards us will be harmful to the Chinese, too and may propel India to rethink its existing Tibet policy. Nevertheless, India must maintain the utmost vigil along the 3485 km Line of Actual Control/ IB, which it shares with  China. Meanwhile, Pakistan once again needs to be cautioned against stepping up terror activities in J&K  or elsewhere in the Indian hinterland. India is in full knowledge of Pakistan’s many fault lines. Still, it has refrained from exploiting these, and Pakistan must also cooperate in ensuring a peaceful and prosperous South Asian neighbourhood independent of China’s wily stratagems. The number of terror-related incidents in J&K has gone up substantially in the last three months, and Pakistan will have to be kinetically chastened.

    Meanwhile, India’s preparations to successfully improve its security capabilities to confront a two-front war must go ahead with realism and an unfailing determination. Measures to augment capital expenditure for major defence acquisitions must be identified. Transformative defence reforms like the introduction of integrated theatre commands will need the attention of the Centre. In addition, India must take all steps to restore peace in our restive NE states.

             The Modi government has come in for some criticism abroad on its human rights record and dealings with its Muslim population. This unjust criticism must be dealt with judiciously and with maturity. India’s overall inclusiveness and celebration of its diversity are unique examples for the entire world, especially the nations of the Global South. We must never deviate or be even seen to shift from this noble orientation.

    Reduction of the yawning gap between the countless ultra-rich and those millions in abject poverty is essential as we boast of becoming the 5th largest economy in the world. The many human indices where we are faltering also need to be addressed.

             As economic strength is the pillar that propels and sustains progress, the Modi government must take measures to improve our economic health. Reduction of the yawning gap between the countless ultra-rich and those millions in abject poverty is essential as we boast of becoming the 5th largest economy in the world. The many human indices where we are faltering also need to be addressed.

             By all yardsticks, India is deservingly on the cusp of acquiring a seat on the global high table. Let us not squander away this golden opportunity by internal squabbling but instead work together in addressing crucial issues that affect our nation; we must seize this opportunity.

    Feature Image Credit:  vskbharat.com    

    Cartoon Credit: Times of India

  • Gendered Politics at the Local Level: An Analysis of Tamil Nadu

    Gendered Politics at the Local Level: An Analysis of Tamil Nadu

    The institution of panchayat raj, a milestone in the journey of administrative institutions at the grass-root level, is not an exception to proxy candidature, caste-based violation of rights or gendered politics

    The political domain continues to be considered a male bastion, with women in politics often seen as a paradox. The domain is conspicuous by the very low presence of women, with very few of them making it to positions of power. Elizabeth I, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir have often been regarded as minorities in politics despite being some of the most powerful women in domestic and international politics. In the minuscule group of women politicians, ‘self-made’ women are often considered an exception rather than a rule. The political transitions are short-term solutions to break the pattern of exclusion. From the suffragette of the 20th century up till now, feminists have fought a lengthy battle for women’s right to vote and hold office. With the development that is slow and choppy, women continue to be underrepresented in politics, and parliament. While we talk about women’s political participation, it is easy for us to imagine empty seats in the parliament. However, women in India have been involved in politics since pre-independent times even when they had no voting rights. The aspect of politics that has always held an uncertain position in our minds is the relationship between women and politics.

    Constitutional Provision

    The world of urban local politics associated with political decentralisation in India was constitutionalised in 1992 through the 74th Constitutional Amendment. It ensured a reservation of at least one-third of the total number of seats for women. Additionally, for the office of chairperson one-third of the seats are reserved for women in the Urban Local Body (ULB). However, the bill for the reservation of seats for women in parliament has remained pending for years. The Constitution allows 50% of seats to be reserved for women in the local body elections. In Tamil Nadu, the High Court has directed the State Election Commission to ensure that the reservation stays at 50% in ULB as mandated by law.

    Proxy Politics and Tamil Nadu

    Despite the reservation mandated by law, the participation of women in state and national politics has barely improved. Gender inequality, hierarchy, and stigma against women in politics along with structural, social, economic and cultural barriers continue to obstruct women’s effective participation in politics. Within the urban local body, it is witnessed that husbands or male relatives wield actual power and control even though women relatives or wives are the ones elected for the position and appointed officially. Men continue to control the wards while most elected women work as proxies. This is evident in the case of the Tambaram corporation where Nagarajan, husband of DMK councillor Geetha, took the chair on her behalf in official meetings, a clear violation of legislative procedures and law. In such cases, women are shadowed and they are not free to make their own decisions. Proxy politics is rampant at the grassroots level of panchayat and local body elections where women get posts filled with responsibilities but without effective power or control.

    The term ‘proxy women’ needs further elaboration. In the 2022 urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu, while women councillors were elected in accordance with the 50% reservation policy, the actual power and control were exercised by their husbands. Though the Greater Chennai Corporation has a majority of women in elected seats, it is effectively run by men. In a few wards, for instance, in wards number 24 and 34, it was the husbands who were attending to complaints, and deciding over issues, while operating the office. In some wards, husbands address themselves as councillors.  And while people in the ward complain of not having seen their councillor since her election to the post, it is to be noted here that this problem does not end with councillors. Even the top-most positions held by women in the municipal body continue to be dictated by her veteran politician family members or, they are in the hands of the political party itself. 

    Participation in PRI

    The institution of panchayat raj, a milestone in the journey of administrative institutions at the grass-root level, is not an exception to proxy candidature, caste-based violation of rights or gendered politics. Retired IAS officer Ashok Varadhan Shetty stated a case in Dindigul in 2008 where the husband of a woman member of block panchayat was caught participating in council meetings while she stayed at home. Even when the obstacles for women in politics and panchayats in specific are diverse, male dominance automatically tops the list of obstructing women’s participation in politics.

    Theories of Representation

    The gendered pattern of politics in most parts of India is deeply patriarchal with low sex ratio, patrilocal marriage, and patrilineal inheritance, with women being denied access to the public sphere. In Omvedt’s words, “Girls are socialised to be mothers, wives and domestic workers under other’s authority”. As literature explains, women in political bodies argue that mere representation is not sufficient. A formal seat is not the same as active participation. In India, most women are less educated, less exposed, and more dependent, and proxy women are more likely to be seen as token representatives in political organisations.

    Philip’s study of the political representation of women has set up a foundation to shift from ‘politics of ideas’ to ‘politics of presence’. The twin democratic principles of equality in politics and popular control, help in ensuring equal representation of men and women. He has presented four arguments for politics of presence: the importance of symbolic representation; the need to tackle exclusion inherent in ideas of the political party; the need for vigorous support to the disadvantaged groups; and the importance of politics of presence in arriving at policy options.

    Does the concept of proxy politics leave a mark on female politicians alone? Certainly not. Various male politicians act as mere mouthpieces of the political party. Hence, it is not just women who become prey to proxy politics, the practice is widespread at the lower level. But the difference that lies here is men are instructed while women are dominated. Gender equality is, thus, an essential element for the sustainable progress of any nation. The goal of all-round development can be achieved only through equal representation of all genders in various fields. In the Global Gender Gap Report, released by the World Economic Forum, based on the key dimensions of Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health, Survival and Political Empowerment, India has ranked 140 out of 156 countries slipping 28 ranks from the 2020 report. It is evident how deep and strong the roots of discrimination in the country are.

    References

    The Constitution 112th Amendment. (n.d.). Amendment to Article 243T of the Constitution to provide for 50 percent reservation for women in Urban Local Bodies. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://mohua.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/243T_Constitution_15.pdf

    Mahanta, K. (n.d.). Home | Government of India. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/

    Menon, J. (2021, October 8). Tamil Nadu: Many women in panchayat race, but will they take the podium? | Chennai News. Times of India. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/tamil-nadu-many-women-in-panchayat-race-but-will-they-take-the-podium/articleshow/86858818.cms

    Omvedt, G. (n.d.). Women in governance in South Asia. Economic and Political Weekly.

    Phillips, A. (1998). The Politics of Presence. Clarendon Press.

    Sarpanch Pati Culture: DMK’S Women Councillors, Their Proxy Husbands, Relatives Abuse Power in TN. (2022, April 9). Times Now. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://www.timesnownews.com/videos/times-now/specials/sarpanch-pati-culture-dmks-women-councillors-their-proxy-husbands-relatives-abuse-power-in-tn-video-90747544

    Tamil Nadu Municipal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2016. (2016, February 27). TAMIL NADU GOVERNMENT GAZETTE. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from http://www.stationeryprinting.tn.gov.in/extraordinary/2016/56-Ex-IV-2.pdf

    Feature Image Credits: The Federal

  • Changing Socio-Economic Situation of UP over the past Decade

    Changing Socio-Economic Situation of UP over the past Decade

    Elections have been announced and UP will be crucial. Parties have been campaigning for them for at least the last 6. The media has been awash with advertisements portraying a rosy picture of UP. They needed this unprecedented blitzkrieg to overcome the negativity due to the poor of the COVID second wave. Anyway, the and the government try to present a positive image of their work. Other state governments followed the UP, to the delight of media which is garnering much revenue.

    What is the reality on the ground in UP? Farmers, workers and have been protesting. Why this protest if the situation is as rosy as is projecting? Where does lie? Citizens need to know, to make up their minds about who to vote for. Since there has been growth. Even when it is small but positive, will be visible in socio-economic parameters, like, education, longevity, etc. There will be more roads, bridges, agricultural production, and so on.

    So, it is no brainer that the last 5 years would show progress compared to the immediately preceding 5 years and the ones before that, etc.. The meaningful comparison has to be based on changes in the ratios and growth rates between the earlier period and the present one. That tells us whether matters will improve faster or stagnate. Also, comparisons with all India figures would yield a picture of where UP stands compared to other states.

    If the present regimes 5 years are compared to the 5 years earlier this would be unfair since the last two years have been unusual – hit by the pandemic and the lockdown. The economy as a whole experienced a downturn and so did UP. A meaningful comparison would be between the pre-pandemic three years and the 5 years before them.

    Growth has Decreased

    A difficulty arises regarding measuring the growth of the economy since the Indian economy’s data is suspect, especially after demonetization. A disjuncture has been created between the organized and unorganized sectors while the data is largely from the former. So, the latter goes largely unrepresented and this causes a large error in the growth rates.

    Ignoring this aspect for the moment, let us analyse the official data, assuming it to be correct. It shows that out of the 20 major states, UP’s position remains at 19 in the last 10 years. In effect, there is no relative improvement in UP’s situation at the all India level.

    This is because the official growth rate was 11.8% in 2016-17 and has fallen to 6.3% in 2018-19 before the pandemic. The decline is also visible in the real income per person. Between 2012-13 and 2016-17, it increased by 27.63%. If we take the average over three years it increased by 16.6%. Leaving out the pandemic year of 2020-21, it rose by 9.23% (including the pandemic year it was 0.43%, that is it hardly grew). Including inflation also the per-person income growth slowed down. It was 25% during 2017–21 as compared to an increase of 65% during 2012–17.

    Slower Structural Transformation

    UP’s income (GSDP) was Rs.19 lakh crore out of GDP of Rs.190 lakh crore in 2019-20 – 10% of the country’s income. But its population share is estimated at 17%. The situation has not changed in the last 5 years and that is why the per-person income capita income rank or UP remains at 19th out of the 20 major states.

    One of the factors underlying the slow growth of UP is that it has structurally not transformed as much as has happened for the country as a whole. In UP, the share of agriculture is 24% while that of services is 50%. The all-India figures are 19.7% and 54.3% respectively. So, UP’s structural transformation is lagging behind that of all of India. Since agriculture cannot grow as fast as the services sector, the state’s growth rate is bound to be less than that for the nation. This feature is also the reason for weak employment generation in UP because agriculture cannot absorb more workers, in fact, it is characterized by mechanization and disguised unemployment.

    UP employed 57.13 lakh under MGNREGS, in May 2020 which was the highest in India. This points to high rural unemployment in UP. The large scale migration of workers from other states to UP in 2020 is an indication of the weak employment generation in UP which forced many to look for work elsewhere. No wonder the state faced the biggest impact of Coronavirus in India both in terms of employment and health aspects.

    Unfortunately, data invisibilizes the unorganized sector and hence the poor. The country has suffered policy induced crisis due to demonetisation, implementation of GST, NBFC crisis and the pandemic induced lockdown. This has deeply impacted the unorganized sectors of the economy and they have suffered massive losses during 2016-17 to 2020-21. The total loss for the unorganized sector in UP is estimated at 10% of the national loss during this period and amounts to Rs. 7.1 lakh crore. That is an average loss per annum of Rs. 1.78 lakh crore. This loss is far more than what the social welfare schemes of the government give. In any case, the schemes are mired in corruption and inefficiency and do not reach everyone uniformly. So, the poor are the net losers in spite of the government schemes.

    Government’s Efforts Slowing

    Are the government schemes expanding? How much are they able to help UP develop and catch up with the other states of India?

    No doubt, the absolute budgetary expenditures rise with inflation and growth. So, on most items more is spent than in earlier years. But to know whether these expenditures will help improve the situation or not, one has to compare the expenditures as a ratio of the state’s income (GSDP). On this score, the Budget data shows:

    a) Development expenditure peaked in 2015-16 at 16.66% and declined to 13.28% in 2019-20. This signifies that development is decelerating.

    b) Non-Development expenditure rose from 6.81% in 2015-16 to 8.49% in 2018-19 and was at 7.12% in 2019-20. This reflects the expenditure on grandiose show schemes of the state government which resulted in a decline in developmental expenditures mentioned above.

    c) No wonder expenditure on Education, etc. peaked in 2016-17 at 4.21% and fell to 3.07% in 2018-19 and was at 3.3% in 2019-20. The target should have been 6% of GSDP on public education. Instead of moving towards that goal, there is retrogression.

    d) Similarly, health expenditure peaked in 2016-17 at 0.84% and fell to 0.79% in 2019-20. It should have been raised to at least 3% of GSDP and instead, it fell. The impact of this was visible during the pandemic with poor health facilities in large parts of the hinterland and unnecessary deaths.

    e) Budgetary Capital outlay peaked in 2015-16 at 5.66% and fell to 3.55% in 2019-20. This slows down infrastructure development and adversely impacts private investment.

    In brief, as the economy expands, there will be development in a state – more hospitals, schools, colleges and so on. Further, development may be skewed and leave the poor behind as is the case in recent times. The real picture becomes clear when one looks at the ratios and compares them with other states. In these respects, UP has lagged behind both its past performance and other states. The virtual campaigning required due to the spread of Omicron would marginalize the less tech-savvy parties and give BJP an advantage in painting a glorious image of itself, in spite of its recent indifferent performance.

    This article was published earlier in hwnews.in

    Feature Image Credit: www.dnaindia.com

  • Elections and Democracy: Germany’s Mixed Member Proportional System

    Elections and Democracy: Germany’s Mixed Member Proportional System

    It is now well-established that the First Past The Post system of elections followed in Indian democracy is thoroughly unsuited to Indian conditions, as it is more feudal and less of democracy. The German mixed system is better suited to India to ensure a more representative system of elections and accountability.   

    When it comes to choosing an electoral formula, the world often takes extreme positions which range between any variant of the Majoritarian System or that of the Proportional Representation. Proportional representation, to a great extent, has been an apt choice for ethnically divided societies with scholars such as Arend Lijphart asserting that it would strengthen the consociational approach in the political system. Yet, it has been criticized for the unstable governments it may produce and its inability to connect a voter with its representative. On the other hand, Majoritarian systems while praised for their simplicity and ability to produce stable governments, lack inclusivity, and induce tactical voting due to wastage of votes. However, the Parliamentary Council of Germany structured a mid-point for the two extremes to meet, which was initially considered provisional but has remained unchanged. It follows the Mixed-Member Proportional System.

    The Mixed-Member Proportional System combines First Past The Post (FPTP) system (Majoritarian System) with Closed-Party List System (Proportional Representation) and thereby, enables the formation of a Government that is inclusive, stable, and remains connected with the voters.

    Understanding how MMP works in Germany

     The Bundestag (the German Parliament), elected for a four-year term, has 598 seats, distributed among the 16 federal states in proportion to the states’ voting population. Out of the 598 seats, 299 seats are filled through the FPTP system and the other 299 through the Closed-Party List System. This means that every voter has two votes on the day of the election: a constituency vote and a party-list vote. The first vote of electors decides the 299 representatives to be elected through the FPTP system, won based on a plurality of votes, and the second vote decides the proportional number of seats each party would get in the national assembly.

    Once the FPTP seats are filled, the second votes are totalled. Those parties that obtained 5% of votes at the national level or have three representatives elected directly through the single-member constituencies are considered for the allocation of PR seats. The PR seats are allotted in proportion to each party’s vote share using the Sainte-Laguë formula.

    The Sainte-Laguë formula divides the parties’ total votes using a series of divisors (i.e., 1,3,5,7,9….) to form a table of averages. The seats are then allotted to the parties with the highest averages in the table.

    source: Washington university

    Furthermore, these allotted seats are then subtracted from the respective party’s FPTP seats, and the remaining seats are the actual number of party-list seats allocated in the Bundestag. Often, the number of seats allocated to a party through FPTP is greater than those allocated through the Party List and these surplus seats are then kept by the party leading to an increase in the number of seats in the Bundestag for that governing year.

    Implications of the electoral formula

    • Electoral participation

    Over the years, scholars have suggested that Proportional Representation tends to increase the voter turnout in a country. This is said to stem from the fact that the disproportionality between the number of votes received and seats allotted is significantly lower thereby reducing vote wastage, which encourages more voters to go and vote. Unlike FPTP’s ‘winner takes all’ formula, PR provides a chance to even smaller parties to secure their representation in the legislative council. This encourages their support base to vote and at the same time provides an incentive to the party to not limit their campaigning to specific areas (Blais & Carty, 1990). Germany’s electoral participation was 78.5% in 1949 and escalated to 86%, 87.8%, 86.8%, 91%… in successive elections. The lowest turnout was in 2009 with 70.8% and escalated slightly to 76.2% in 2017.

    • Gallagher index

    The Gallagher index created by Michael Gallagher is a statistical analysis methodology used to measure an electoral system’s relative disproportionality between votes received and seats allotted in a legislature. While countries following the PR system do generally tend to do well, Arend Lijphart points out that the German system, which is a mixed system, does exceedingly well compared to pure PR variants.

    Germany scored an average of 1.95 in the 2017 national elections and has consistently maintained a low average in terms of disproportionality in comparison to others. Their highest average was 7.83 for the year 2013. On the other hand, countries that continue to use FPTP such as Canada, Bangladesh, and India record pretty averages of 12.01 (2015), 21.38 (2001), and 16.06 (2019) respectively.

    • Representation

     PR systems generally enable conditions for a more representative legislative council because political parties no longer restrict their discourse and activities to the interests of the dominant communities, given winning a plurality of votes is no longer a deciding factor in their pursuit to secure a seat in the parliament. This provides an incentive for them to look appealing to a larger voter base.

    Germany has seen a steady increase in the percentage of women representatives in the Parliament, starting from 7% in 1949 to 31% in 2017. The need to encourage ethnic minorities to cast a vote provides an incentive to political parties to field candidates who are non-German in origin, and this has enabled the participation of candidates originating from Turkey, Poland, Austria, Romania, and so on.

    • Effects on the Far-Right

    Lisa Harrison in her paper ‘Maximizing Small Party Potential: The Effects of Electoral System Rules on the Far Right in German Sub-National Elections’ writes that far-right or extremist parties see limited success at the national level elections, but they may play a significant role at the sub-national level elections. A major hindrance that keeps these far-right parties away from the Bundestag is Germany’s minimum threshold of votes policy, which allows only those parties that have won 5% votes or 3 FPTP seats to claim representation in the parliament.

    This however changed in 2017 when Alternative for Germany became the first nationalist far-right party to secure seats in the German Parliament since World War II. They received 12.6% of votes, translating into 94 seats in the Bundestag. The rise of the party coincides with the rise of hate crimes against immigrants. In March 2021, it was reported that Germany’s domestic intelligence forces have kept the party under surveillance on the suspicion of trying to undermine the democratic constitution.

     Conclusion

    Electoral systems don’t come up in a vacuum. Rather, they are selected and implemented within the socio-political conditions of a particular nation. This implies that there is no electoral system that is universally applicable. Depending upon the suitability, countries could either side with the Majoritarian system or the Proportional Representation system or could apply both, as in the case of Germany. Germany’s Mixed-Member Proportional System catered to the needs of a constituent assembly which was divided over the question of an apt electoral system and at the same time has continued to do the two things that the constituent members hoped for, maintain stability and remain inclusive.

    As India enters the 75th year of its independence, and as the world’s largest democracy, its electoral experiences of the last seven decades point to the unsuitability of the present FPTP system. Given the large population and the diversity of India, the FPTP system has proved to be a complete failure. The FPTP system does not truly reflect the principle of “one person one vote”, according to which each ballot should have ‘equal force’ in the sense of the share of seats in the parliament. Indian elections system has resulted in a skewed system of vote-bank politics, endemic corruption, and the feared majoritarian tyranny in the name of democracy.  The German model of a mix of Proportional Representation and the FPTP system is what India needs at this to revive and strengthen its democracy.

     

    References:

    Gallagher, M., & Mitchell, P. (2008). The Politics of Electoral Systems (Illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press.

    Zittel, T. (2017). Electoral systems in context: Germany. Oxford Handbooks Online. Published.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190258658.013.37

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/753732/german-elections-voter-turnout/

    https://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/Docts/ElectionIndices.pdf

    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2017/09/21/measuring-the-diversity-of-each-partys-candidates-in-the-german-election/

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/753494/seat-distribution-bundestag-germany/

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/how-serious-is-germanys-far-right-problem/article30952770.ece

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-afd-idUSKBN2AV1M3

     

    Feature Image: angusreid.org

  • How Representative is the Representative Democracy in India?

    How Representative is the Representative Democracy in India?

    India’s transition from an erstwhile British colony to an independent, sovereign state meant, for her people, a change in their status from being mere subjects to citizens bestowed with adult suffrage. The ultimate authority, therefore, now rests with the citizens. India’s large and complex population made it impossible for this authority to be discharged directly and therefore, the citizens elect their ‘representatives.’ This act of electing their representatives is called ‘elections’ and the set of rules that determine how the elections are conducted and the results ascertained is called the ‘electoral system.’ The electoral system adopted by the Constituent Assembly, through the debates on the constitution for the adoption of the parliamentary democracy, is a variant of the majoritarian system known as the ‘First Past The Post System.’ The fundamental principle underlying the system is that for the candidate, to cement his/her electoral victory, does not need a majority of the votes polled, but only a plurality of votes would suffice. The basis for the decision of the Constituent Assembly members to opt for the FPTP system lies in its simplicity and its promise of producing a stable government. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar when speaking in the assembly said, “Now, I have not the least doubt in my mind that whatever else the future government provides for, whether it relieves the people from the wants from which they are suffering now or not, our future government must do one thing, namely, it must maintain a stable government and maintain law and order. I am therefore very hesitant in accepting any system of election which would damage the stability of the government.”

    Legislative bodies aren’t merely law-making authorities, they are mini societies in themselves that reflect and react to the issues plaguing the citizenry at large. Labelling legislative bodies as mini societies emphasizes the fact that the composition of the representatives reflects the diversity of social groups and shades of opinion present within the country. The divisions and prejudices that exist in the Indian subcontinent based on caste, class, and religion were a primary point of reference for the members of the constituent assembly when debating over whether the various provisions of the constitution would be functional in the country. In this sense, the decision to choose the FPTP system over other electoral formulas signifies an attempt to alleviate the fears of the members of a further divided subcontinent. Yet, as we enter the 75th year of our freedom with entrenched unresolved issues, it brings us back to the question that the constituent members struggled with: how efficient and representative is the present electoral formula?

    Loksabha Elections – 2019

    Regional representation

     A post-election analysis by IndiaVotes showed that the two major alliances – National Democratic Alliance and United Progressive Alliance won 45.2% and 27.5% of votes respectively and the rest was shared among parties including All India Trinamool Congress, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, Biju Janata Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and so on. With 45.2% votes, the NDA led by the BJP satisfied the requirements laid down by the FPTP allowing it to take charge of the government formation. However, what the vote percentage implies is that the current regime isn’t exactly a popular choice given more than fifty percent of the voters chose to vote against them. In their paper ‘Minoritarian Rule: How India’s Electoral System Created The Illusion of a BJP Landslide’, Macdonald and Moussavi call India a “minoritarian” democracy wherein ‘ a plurality of voters selects the majority of representatives in Parliament.’

    Furthermore, the success was concentrated within the states of central and western India which includes- Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand. These are also few of the states with the highest number of Lok Sabha seats- Gujarat (26), Uttar Pradesh (80), Rajasthan (25), Madhya Pradesh (29), Bihar (40), Chhattisgarh (11), Maharashtra (48) and Jharkhand (14). Given how diverse the country is culturally and linguistically, how do we compensate for the lack of the same in the union government?

    Minority representation

     The total minority representation in the 2019 Lok Sabha stands at 9.2%, including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and other religious minorities. This means over 90% of the MP’s are Hindus in a country where the minorities make up 19.3% of the total population (Census 2011).

    Kazi Syed Karimuddin when speaking against the efficacy of the FPTP system in the constituent assembly had feared the dilution of minority representation and had said, “Therefore my submission is that the present system as it stands does not guarantee a majority rule as people commonly suppose and does not guarantee a representation to minorities, not necessarily religious, even the political minorities.”  To this Dr. B.R.Ambedkar felt that while the country may not be ready for a complex electoral formula but to ensure minority representation he suggested reserved constituencies for the minorities as an alternative and in this regard, he said, “If any particular minority represented in this House said that it did not want any reservation, then it would be open to the House to remove the name of that particular minority from the provisions of article 292. If any particular minority preferred that although it did not get a cent percent deal, namely, did not get a separate electorate, but that what it has got in the form of reservation of seats is better than having nothing, then I think it would be just and proper that the minority should be permitted to retain what the Constituent Assembly has already given to it.”

    The Constituent Assembly finally decided on reserved constituencies for the communities of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes only.

    Reserved constituency

     The constitution has reserved 131 out of 543 seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (84 for SC’s and 47 for ST’s). In the present Lok Sabha out of the 543 MP’s, 138 come from SC/ST communities implying that only 7 MP’s from SC/ST communities have been elected in unreserved constituencies. The situation would have been grimmer had their representation not been secured through reserved constituencies.

    The major loophole in the practice of securing representation through reserved constituencies with the use of FPTP is that it is the Non-SC/ST communities that majorly get to decide who the representative for the SC/ST communities would be. Given SC/ST populations are spread across regions rather than being concentrated in a few, it is then the dominant communities with their muscle and money power that decide on where the votes go. This keeps outspoken and assertive leaders from marginalized communities outside legislative bodies and in a way excludes these communities and their issues from mainstream political discourse. Hence, Macdonald and Moussavi observe, “District boundaries are therefore fundamentally important. Their shape determines the population size and ideological composition of the electorate facing each party.”

    Mainstream political discourse

     With FPTP’s ‘winners take all’ formula, it so happens that political parties restrict their discourse and activities to the interests of the dominant communities as they become the deciding factor in the contestants getting the plurality of votes. Douglas Amy in her paper ‘Proportional Representation: Empowering Minorities or Promoting Balkanization’ says, “The claim that winner-take-all elections are inherently more capable of bridging political divides does not bear up under scrutiny. For example, the requirement that winning candidates appeal to the majority of voters has done little to discourage factionalism. Indeed, it has merely encouraged candidates to attack minority groups to win over the majority.”

    This has not only further marginalized the already marginalized but also hinders the Socio-Economic and Political progress of the country as spaces for discussing “actual” issues shrink and real development can’t be equated to the progress and well-being of a minute population.

    Effect on voters

    Wastage of votes, a definite consequence of the FPTP system as it often discourages voters from turning up to vote. Furthermore, voters indulge in ‘tactical voting’ wherein instead of voting for a candidate/party who aligns with their values and ideals, they end up voting for one of the major parties or the lesser of the two evils whom they think have more chances of winning. In a way, the voter is making no real impact in the making of the government (Singh & Sharma, 2019).

    Conclusion

    The Law Commission, in their reports in the year 1999 and then again in the year 2015, had recommended that the government look into alternative electoral methods and examine how well they’d work out for the country. However, this has remained a recommendation only on paper with governments taking no active interest in the same. Carles Boix in his paper ‘Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies’ (1999) states that “as long as the electoral arena remains the same, and favours the ruling parties, the electoral system is not changed. If there is a change in electoral dynamics due to the coming of new voters or alterations in voter’s preference, then the ruling party reshapes the electoral setup to suit their choices.” Hence, we still do not see electoral reforms being a part of the mainstream political discourse. However, to make our political system more inclusive, diverse, and efficient, it is about time we give electoral reforms a serious thought.

     

    References

    Amy, D. J. (1995). Proportional Representation: Empowering Minorities or Promoting Balkanization? The Good Society, 5(2).

    Boix, C. (2000). Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies. SSRN Electronic Journal. Published. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.159213

    Macdonald, G., & Moussavi, B. (2015). Minoritarian Rule: How India’s Electoral System Created The Illusion of a BJP Landslide. Economic and Political Weekly. Published.

    https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/7/1949-01-04?paragraph_number=186%2C185%2C12%2C176%2C33%2C189%2C170%2C11%2C7%2C5%2C215%2C196%2C195%2C180%2C179%2C177%2C172%2C122%2C102%2C99%2C98%2C97%2C58%2C57%2C54%2C34%2C6%2C4

    https://www.indiavotes.com/alliance/partyWise/17

    https://scroll.in/latest/924583/elections-2019-bjp-alone-got-more-than-half-the-votes-in-13-states-and-union-territories

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_constituencies_of_the_Lok_Sabha

    https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/from-faith-to-gender-and-profession-to-caste-a-profile-of-the-17th-lok-sabha/story-Mnp5M4pRX3aUji1UFFVy2N.html

    https://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/MsDP%20%28FAQs%29.pdf

    https://www.indiaspend.com/governance/reservation-scheduled-castes-tribes-representation-social-justice-755256

    https://theprint.in/opinion/17th-lok-sabha-looks-set-to-confirm-ambedkars-fears-no-vocal-dalits-in-parliament/232383/

     

    Image Credit: www.aa.com.tr 

     

  • Bengal’s thinking is clear: will rest of India follow?

    Bengal’s thinking is clear: will rest of India follow?

    The second wave of Covid-19 began on February 10 when India reported 11,000 new cases. In the next 50 days, the daily average was 22,000 cases. In the following 10 days the daily average touched 89,800. We are now adding over 400,000 a day. India has never been engulfed by a crisis of this order.

    We are woefully short of hospital beds, oxygen, Remdesivir and Tocli-zumab, vaccines, ambulances and sadly even space in our crematoria. The growth and spread are expected to scale to almost a million a day. In two months, India has become the world’s basket case. Yet, on January 28 this year, speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed a blissful and disturbing ignorance of the perfect storm looming. The committee of scientists monitoring the virus warned the PMO of the gathering storm. He was not interested. He was crowing about his perceived “achievement” of beating back the much-mutated “Chinese virus”. He was so wrong, and the country is paying a huge price. There is no Modi image of competence left.

     Prime Minister Modi’s inability to defend India against the second Covid-19 wave, and his inability to cajole the Chinese from withdrawing from areas they occupied in Ladakh now make him an easy target.

    The elections to the four states and Puducherry, which he was so focused on, have been his undoing. He began campaigning on February 5 and 7 in Assam and West Bengal. After that he addressed 20 more rallies in West Bengal and six more in Assam. He also addressed 10 rallies in Tamil Nadu, three in Kerala and one in Puducherry, in all around 40 giant rallies criss-crossing across in IAF Boeings. I wouldn’t even hazard the true cost to the exchequer, but I have heard it said the PM himself is liable to a charge of Rs 6 per air km. Other costs are borne by the PMO.  But the cost is not important. The time spent on huckstering is important. He lost almost a month campaigning, instead of managing the engulfing crisis. I always had a low opinion of his intellect, but even he could have surmised the risks posed to the nation by the renewed pandemic. Clearly, he factored winning West Bengal was more important and worth the cost. Mr Modi himself cheerfully paraphrased what Gopal Krishna Gokhale said almost 100 years ago: “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”!

    West Bengal has unambiguously expressed what it is thinking. It has rejected Mr Modi and his message and campaign-style, lock, stock and barrel. A subservient Election Commission helpfully broke up West Bengal’s polls into eight phases starting March 27 and closing April 29. During this period the daily Covid-19 cases rose in West Bengal from 812 to 17,403. Breaking it into eight phases didn’t help the BJP either. It lost in every phase and got double digits only in four. West Bengal has a sizable Muslim electorate and Mr Modi didn’t mince words in targeting them by making it appear they were Mamata Banerjee’s personal votebank. He didn’t bother to even conceal what he thought of them. His electoral style touched a new low, even by his standards and most certainly by the standards expected of a PM, when he jibed her by catcalling “Didi-O-Didi”. Urban Bengal responded to this by defeating the BJP soundly in all urban constituencies. There is a message here. All over the country the BJP and RSS have strong urban bases, but urban and urbane Bengal administered a resounding slap to gutter politics. With no record to show, Mr Modi’s politics are nothing but that now.

    There was no surprise in Assam. The BJP was returned by almost the same margin as in 2016, getting a majority with the AGP’s nine seats. The Congress lacked a visible local leadership who could match wits with the BJP’s Hemanta Biswa Sarma. Tamil Nadu was as expected. The two so-called national parties were clinging to crumbs thrown by the two so-called Dravidian parties. In Kerala, Pinrayi Vijayan showed why he’s India’s topmost and only surviving commissar. The DMK’s Stalin made no bones about what he thinks of Mr Modi’s Hindu and Hindi-centric politics. The Modi government used every means, including ED raids, to slow down Stalin. The ED even raided Stalin’s daughter.

    So where does our politics go from here? One clear conclusion is that both the BJP and Congress were dealt severe blows. It’s interesting the BJP’s campaigns were entirely shouldered by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. None of the other top BJP leaders even bothered to show up anywhere. What shouldn’t be missed is that the Raksha Mantri, a former BJP president, was the first from the party to congratulate Mamata Banerjee. In Assam, Mr Sarma’s supporters have gone public crediting the victory to their leader. Mr Sarma has already fired a shot across Sarbananda Sonowal’s bow, saying he was no longer interested in being just a minister in someone’s Cabinet. The numbers might work for him, as he needs just a dozen MLAs to cross over and give Assam a new government. Mr Sarma was a Congress satrap till Rahul Gandhi insulted him by playing with his dog rather than listening to him. Rahul will be all ears now.

    Mamata Banerjee’s stunning victory puts her squarely on the centre stage of Opposition politics. Joining her there will be Lalu Prasad Yadav, released on bail by the Supreme Court despite the government’s strenuous objections. Tejashwi Yadav has shown he’s capable of leading a party when the RJD came so close to upstaging the BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar. Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot and Punjab’s Amarinder Singh have emerged as fairly independent Congress satraps. Uddhav Thackeray has shrugged off the Shiv Sena’s pariah status by providing Maharashtra with good leadership and a penchant for making politics the art of the possible. In Telangana, KCR has put the BJP in its place by a resounding win in Nagarjunasagar after its surprise showing in the Dubbaka and GHMC polls. YSRC scored a resounding win in Tirupati with the BJP candidate, a retired chief secretary, losing her deposit. The anti-BJP lineup now has seven chief ministers, excluding Naveen Patnaik. Seven CMs will mean the election and propaganda machines can be kept well-greased and the powder kegs dry and replenished. Prime Minister Modi’s inability to defend India against the second Covid-19 wave, and his inability to cajole the Chinese from withdrawing from areas they occupied in Ladakh now make him an easy target. The Gujarat model has been long exposed as bogus. There is light seen at the end of the tunnel.

    Image Credit: Patrika.com
  • ‘Pawar Play’ in Maharashtra

    ‘Pawar Play’ in Maharashtra

    Henry Luis Mencken (1880-1956), well known American journalist and essayist, once wrote “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” As we sit back and watch as the Impeachment drama plays out in the United States, one cannot help but marvel at Mr. Mencken prescience. The election of Donald Trump does seem to suggest that the American public has indeed found its inner soul, but as to whether it has really perfected democracy in the process remains questionable.

                Especially, more so, if it was to compare itself to what passes for democracy here. In short order they would then realize the vast distance they have yet to cover to reach true perfection. As a matter of fact, they would do well to follow the ongoing “Pawar Play” in Maharashtra, which incidentally is only the latest manifestation of what perfection in a democracy looks like, and has all the ingredients of a true Bollywood potboiler in the making. That is the only way in which realization would dawn on them that Mencken’s deductions were slightly awry. Invariably in perfect democracies it is not the political leaders who are morons, but the people who voted them to power. That is the fundamental reality we have been confronting ever since Independence, regardless of the political ideologies of the people and parties we vote into power.

                Whatever the host of legal eagles fighting the case in our Supreme Court may say to justify their arguments, and regardless of the conclusions the Hon’ble Court may arrive at, the simple truth of the matter is that for all sides concerned, Maharashtra is too important to lose. To start with the inability to form the government in Maharashtra would not just be a simple loss of face, but utter humiliation for the BJP, and more importantly, for its mentors from Nagpur, located in the heart of the State. If they cannot control their own fiefdom, what control will they exercise tomorrow over the rest of the country, more so given that elections are due in states like Bihar and Jharkhand in the coming months?

                Similarly for the Shiv Sena after having openly cast aside the cloak of morality and gambled everything, including the kitchen sink, in its blatant attempt to go one up and grab the Chief Ministership for Balasaheb’s scion, a loss would spell utter disaster and lead to questions of survivability of the dynasty. For the NCP, and especially the Pawars, being on the winning side is the only hope for redemption for past transgressions. As events have played out, it is now obvious that Pawar the younger was carried away by the brashness of youth and the fact that leadership of the Party would remain just a mirage due to circumstances of birth as long as Pawar the elder had any say in the matter. Finally, for the Congress that continues to be on the ventilator this was an unexpected bonus, a fleeting opportunity to start again.

         While each of these stakeholders has its own particular motivations for their actions, however, the most important aspect  incentive for all in this battle royal for the stewardship of the State is the simple fact that not only is Maharashtra a large state, governing which is undoubtedly prestigious, but also an extremely rich one. It doesn’t exactly require a leap of faith to suggest that whosoever controls the money controls the votes. After all, is that not the very reason that controversy dogs the issue of electoral bonds that were introduced not too long back?

                Leave aside mundane issues of malfeasance, personal greed, overarching ambition and rank opportunism, what is indeed truly astounding to see is the utter lack of constitutional propriety and ethical conduct on the part of those charged with its very protection. For them to let petty loyalties and servility take precedence over self- respect and principled conduct is not just a reflection on how unworthy they are to hold such positions of eminence, but also a shameful blot on our social mores that encourages such people to claw their way up despite lacking an iota of integrity or moral fibre. One cannot but feel embarrassment for the President, a former advocate, who unquestioningly accepts the recommendations of a Prime Minister without the requisite cabinet approval, justified by the use of a most inappropriate rule to cover the lapse. That such a rule can be invoked at the dead of night to swear- in a government at dawn, in the futile hope that it would provide stability, after weeks of confusion, is indeed laughable, if it were not so tragic.

                The Supreme Court’s directions to the newly sworn-in Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, to prove his majority on the floor of the House within two days, set the cat among the pigeons as it left only limited scope for horse trading. It forced him to resign prior to the House being called into session as by that time it was abundantly clear that Mr. Ajit Pawar was in no position to provide the necessary support of the NCP legislators required to gain a majority, as he had promised. It is only now becoming increasingly clear that the ‘Ajit Pawar move’ was in all likelihood, a move conceived by his uncle and leader of the NCP, Mr. Sharad Pawar, to kill two birds with one stone; firstly lure the BJP into withdrawing President’s Rule in the State, which it may otherwise not have done in a hurry, and to force the Congress to reduce its demands in exchange for joining the anti BJP Coalition, Maharashtra Vikas Agadi, under the leadership of Mr. Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister.

                Events in Maharashtra only accentuate the utter lack of morality on display on the part of all concerned. If we were to look at the winners and losers that have emerged after this power play, clearly the BJP finds itself stranded by the wayside and has much to introspect, but it is not the only loser, The Shiv Sena may have won itself a reprieve and fulfilled Thackeray’s ambition of being Chief Minister, it has come at a cost, as it appears to have caused grevious damage to its ideological foundations. There is always the possibility that Uddhav may have realized that with the Ayodhya Temple issue having been resolved to a large extent, hard Hindutva is unlikely to be a crowd puller in the coming days and an ideological shift was necessary if the Shiv Sena is to flourish. The Congress continues to be seen as disorganized, lacking leadership, confused and opportunistic, a perception that is unlikely to change until the Gandhi’s are leached out of its organizational structure. Only the NCP appears to have emerged as clear winners, especially Mr. Sharad Pawar, as he will undoubtedly wield the remote control on this coalition government. Off course, all of these shenanigans only reinforce the fact that it has been the people of Maharashtra, who have lost out the most, and were, in Mencken’s words, “moronic” enough to vote these ingrates into power.

    The writer is a military veteran and consultant with the Observer Research Foundation and a Senior Visiting Fellow with The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai. The views expressed are the author’s own.