The Indian model of democracy

The Indian model of democracy is flawed, but isn’t democracy in itself? Churchill once quoted “…democracy is the worst form of government except for all others…” during one of his speeches at House of Commons, and described it very aptly.

The flaw arises from the definition itself, the word in itself has many interpretations and even more expectations —a voice to the majority in the government, protection of minority from majority tyranny, participation of every citizen in the decision making and the list continues. But these ideas rarely come to practice and if they do, we find them only in small pockets of Scandinavian or Baltic states.

The question posed to Indian model of democracy is: does the government formed really represent the majority? If we go by the statistics then the answer is a simple no. The current BJP led NDA government garnered only a vote share of 38.5% and that too when only about 66% of the eligible population voted when they came to power in 2014. That means that in reality only 1/4th of the population actually wanted NDA to come to power. Hence, 3/4th of the country either abstained or wanted someone else to be in power. Does this arise a need for a better representative system, where winning on the basis of minority support isn’t possible? It definitely does, for our democracy to move further with time, we need to make continuous improvements to the system to ensure the best possible representation of population. There are a few other methods currently being implemented or actively discussed among political science circles.

There are several solutions proposed to amend this model for better representation. One of them being:

Have the assembly seats divided on the basis of vote share

Parties which receive a vote share greater than the cutoff limit will be represented on the basis of % of votes they win. The parties would have a graded list with its members listed in order of preference who shall be allowed to enter the Parliament. For example, if a party wins a vote share of 50% and 2 seats are allotted for every 5%, then the first 20 members in that party’s list would be allowed to enter the parliament. There are several issues with this kind of system.

• Allocation of seats. The seats represent constituencies, it would be an analytical and logistical nightmare in allocating constituencies on the basis of vote share. For example, if a national party wins 2% vote share in each of the 29 states, how do we divide the seats on the basis of region. Which state should one choose and which one should it neglect?
• This system does not account of the regional representation. The graded lists by parties would not be able to take into account the diversity of our huge nation and the members chosen for a particular constituency might misrepresent it. After all, an MP from Nagaland should not be allotted a constituency in Kerala. Will the people from that constituency in Kerala feel adequately represented?
• This would weaken the prospects of individual candidates. Candidates like Jignesh Mewani who have strong support in a particular area will not be able to present just because they will not have cleared the cutoff limits.
• This would make buying of tickets or else the buying of grades a much more common phenomenon than it currently is.
• Last, but not the least, it would lead to weak and slow governments as gaining absolute majority would become next to impossible. Due to this, the governments would fall apart easily and forming a government would just resort to a matter of “len-den” (transactions). Weak governments would also restrain from taking bold steps which is essential for our economy at this stage.

Rank-based voting system

We should give a thought to ‘Rank based voting’, a system where a voter is asked to select not 1 but 3 or more and that too in a hierarchical fashion. This would ensure that the politically extreme candidates cannot win the elections through their small but strong support. Generally, the centre aligned representatives are elected through this system who have a not so strong but large support base.

Let us understand how this happens, consider 3 representatives: A, B and C. A is an extreme left leaning candidate, B a centrist and C a right leaning. If we ask voters to vote for 3 representatives in decreasing order of their preference the first of each of the groups would be their own candidates, however the second preference of A supports would be B and not C. Similarly, the C supporters would vote for B and not A. It is because if we ask a extreme left wing voter to select more than one candidates in decreasing order of preference, then that voter is more likely to go for a centrist as second preference. This would mean that the governments form would be more aligned towards the centre of the political spectrum, avoiding the extreme left and right, which in itself can be debated as a good thing apart from just adequate representation.

Not exactly these systems, but these ideas of more inclusion and proper representation need to be imbibed in India’s democratic system. Then only we will be truly called world’s largest democracy.