Indian democracy is at crossroads today. While it celebrates it success in instituting largely free and fair elections and in establishing the vital routines of democracy, ordinary citizens and democracy activists are routinely frustrated by the growing gap between themselves and centres of power, between what they expected from democracy and what they get in real life. Indian democracy needs a second wind of energy from strengthening peoples’ politics and deepening of democratic institutions. At attempt in this direction faces a preliminary hurdle. The existing political institutions and processes work in such a way as to frustrate any attempt to introduce new ideas, energies and personnel into the democratic system. Democratic reform is thus a precondition to deepening of democracy in today’s India. Otherwise we face the prospects of a shallow democracy that goes through the motions but without in any way realising the promise of democracy.

Over the years, this has become more and more difficult. Distance between people and centres of power has grown, floor level of resources required to undertake political activity has risen to obscene proportions, the connection between resources and viability in election has deepened and the relationship between people and the political process has become more and more mediated. Misguided efforts at reforming politics have made matters worse: raising the barriers for fresh entrants, discouraging local political mobilisation and encouraging a distant contact through the media, tightening the grip of party bosses over their parties, driving local initiative out and bringing corporate politics has in fact contributed to democratic deficit.

Our recent experience shows that it is crucial to develop a political agenda -- political in its content and perspective -- on this question. Such an agenda can channelise the vast public energy available today into acts of democratic consolidation, if not transformative politics. Otherwise the widespread popular discontent on this score can easily be manipulated to feed a manifestly anti-political and potentially anti-democratic agenda.

The challenge of democratic reforms is very different today from what it used to be when JP offered his famous critique of the functioning of western style liberal democracy in India. The reformers of the 1970s and 1980s focused on institutions of high national politics: the national legislature and the executive. The objectives of reform were still quite generalized: to clear the system of corrupt practices and to ensure free and fair elections. The favoured instrument of political reforms was legal-constitutional change. Electoral reforms were the centre piece of political reforms.

Since then the political context has changed. We do not live any longer in a one party dominant system. Therefore the issue of seats votes disproportionality does not introduce the kind of system skew as it did in the past. Rise of regional parties has contributed to a less uneven playing ground in politics. Democratic upsurge from below has introduced new aspirations that need to be responded to. Besides, a host of new legislations have changed the institutional set up that needs to be reformed: Anti Defection Act and 73rd Constitutional Amendment are prime examples of that. Finally, we have a new kind of thinking on political reforms to contend with.
In the post Seshan era, a new conservative thinking on political reform has quietly taken over the popular imagination. Thus the mainstream perspective now threatens to turn into a conservative platform for refashioning the political structures to suit the interest of a small, hitherto entrenched but now threatened class. This agenda amounts to nothing short of undoing the results of the democratic upsurge of the last decade. In this version political reform is a corollary of and an effective vehicle for the ‘economic reforms’ package of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, a prerequisite for rolling back the state. Our perspective on political reforms needs to have a different starting point, rooted in our own situation and an analysis of the democratic deficit that confronts us. The principal task of political reform is to address our democratic deficit and some of its root causes.
The real failure of the current phase of Indian democracy is not the failure to hold free and fair elections, nor the inability of the people to affect change in governments through the exercise of their free vote, but the growing distortion in the mechanism of political representation, the growing distance between the electors and the elected, the inability of the mechanism of competitive politics to serve as a means of exercising effective policy options. Clearly, the institutional frame of democracy has failed to translate popular participation and enthusiasm into a set of desirable consequences.
Thus the challenge is to strengthen devices that facilitate popular mobilisation and its effective expression in the formation of political agendas, formulation of governmental policies and their effective execution. In the context of the retreat of the state, there is a need to bring back the primacy of politics and restore its capacity to act as the principal vehicle of social change. The litmus test for any proposal of ‘radical’ political reforms is its ability to deepen the ongoing process of democratization for the social groups and communities that have historically been denied access to political power.
Broadly speaking the new paradigm of democratic reform would involve thinking about seven kinds of measures or steps. Not all of these reforms are merely ‘electoral reforms’ in the narrow sense of the terms. But in view of the interconnections between electoral and political reforms, we need to locate electoral reforms within a larger package of democratic reforms. Instead of focusing narrowly on how elections are fought, we must also pay attention to what elections aReference:re for and what background rules and conditions determine the outcome of electoral contestation. Not all the items in this list can be enacted by the parliament or delivered by the state; democratic reform requires as much initiative on the part of the citizens as it demands institutional response. Since democratic reform is a combination of short term and long term measures, they need to be spelt out separately.


1. Electoral reforms to fine-tune the system and institutions of electoral representation
Although electoral reforms is no longer the centre-piece of democratic reforms today, serious reform of our electoral process continues to be the first step towards reducing the gap between the people and centres of power.

a) The Model Code of Conduct enforced by the EC should be incorporated into the law. The provisions relating to campaign and restrictions on these should be clearly spelt out in order to avoid excessive and irrelevant restrictions.
b) There should be a mechanism for checking of affidavits given by the candidates regarding their assets and criminal cases; false declaration by any candidate should be a ground for making them ineligible for further elections and false decalaration by the winner should be a ground for declaring the election void; declaration on assets should be the basis for criminal investigation into sources of income and income tax records.
c) Basic norms of free and fair elections that prevail in the rest of the country need to be extended to areas like Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. There should be zero tolerance of interference by the security forces into the electoral process (including forcing people to cast their vote); acts like AFSPA that violate the fundamental democratic norms need to be withdrawn.
d) The voters should be given the option of voting secretly for "None of the above". If the number of votes for NOTA exceeds those of the leading candidate, the election in that constituency should be held afresh.
e) There is a need for minimalist legislation to regulate the internal functioning of political parties. Such a legislation could require political parties to follow their own constitution, maintain an open register of membership and provide for regular and democratic election to the highest decision making body. In case of violation of party constitution or disputes concerning it, there should be an adjudication mechanism evolved by the Election Commission.

f) Delimitation of constituencies must take place once in a decade, as envisioned by the Constitution. Parliamentary, assembly and local bodies elections should be held on the basis of a single Electoral Roll; boundaries of PRI institutions should be linked to the boundaries of assembly and parliamentary constituencies.
g) Appointment of CEC and the ECs should be made by a constitutional Committee comprising the PM, the leader of the opposition and the CJ of Supreme Court.
h) There should be a ban on all post-retirement governmental appointments, including nomination to Rajya Sabha, and a ban on contesting elections, for the members of the EC after they retire.

2. Constitutional change to correct social imbalance in the composition of elected representatives
If there is any need to tinker with the electoral system, it is with a view to address two specific problems: under-representation of women and Muslims. In both cases the under-representation is gross and structural, and therefore unlikely to be overcome in the normal course of things. Both these are fit cases for redesigning institutions. But it needs to be ensured that the proposed change would achieve the objective and its side effects will not outweigh the benefits.
The government and the opposition must live up to its public pronouncement that constitutional amendment to improve women's representation to one-thirds of the legislature will be brought about without any further delay. A broad consensus in the public opinoin and across the political spectrum must not be held hostage by an extra-ordinary condition of complete unanimity. Similarly the search for the best system to increase women's representation must not be allowed to be an enemy of the feasible good.
There is a need to begin a national debate on the under-representation of Muslims and ways to redress it. Besides this, there is a need to think of the changing class profile of the peoples representatives and the dominance of the super rich. There are still some other groups whose under-representation needs systematic attention: lower OBCs, mahadalits, under-represented communities among ST and pasmanda Muslims.

3. Measures to ensure a less unequal access to resources in politics
The issue of unequal access to resources in politics has conventionally been taken up as the measure for reducing the role of ‘money power’ in politics with its typical emphasis on a regime of controls to ensure a ceiling on political expenses. The emphasis should now shift from the issue of ceiling to that of securing a floor, from a regime of controls to a package of enabling measures to ensure adequate and equal supply of resources. There is a serious dearth of legitimate resources in politics, made worse by grossly unequal distribution of what is available. The problem is not that spending more money ensures victory in elections, but that lack of money denies an entry into the political arena. This area acquires new salience in the context of the democratic upsurge from below and the rolling back of the welfare state.

a) The RPA provisions regarding the ceiling on electoral expenses should be modified to cover all expenditure, including that of parties and friends; accordingly the 1974 amendment to section 77 should be annulled. The ceiling should be kept realistic and should be revised with each general election.
b) State funding of elections should be operationalised by creating a National Election Fund out of the consolidated fund of India in order specifically to subsidise electoral expenses and more generally to support legitimate political activity. Each party that secures over 1% votes in any state or any candidate who gets over 2% votes in any constituency should be reimbursed @ Rs 10 for every vote polled by it at current prices. This funding should be tied to the condition of regular democratic elections within the party.
c) The tax exemption individuals and companies for contributions to political parties should be subject to a celing.

4. Interventions to encourage democratisation of political information and opinions
The arena of democratising information promises to be one of the most critical arenas for political reforms in the years to come, an arena where traditional state legislation is a weak instrument of reforms.

a) The provisions of Right to information and the infrastructure to give it effect should be strengthened. Any attempt to dilute the ‘right to information’ should be resisted.
b) There should be a complete ban on paid political and electoral advertising on Television for lesson from the rest of the world shows that this can be fatal for the possibility of level playing ground in politics. It should be mandatory for all channels to give some free time to all political parties for election broadcast as is currently the case with Doordarshan.
c) If the media fails to evolve effective ways to control the recent practice of selling of news space to parties and candidates, this aspect should be brought within the Model Code of Conduct and regulated by the Election Commission so as to ensure that there is a clear distinction between news and advertisement and a complete transparency about the sources of funding for political advertisement.
d) Restoring the spirit of the independent public broadcaster behind the Prasar Bharati legislation and removing all the recent distortions.
e) Measures to democratise the ownership of private media and curb monopolistic practices by introducing restrictions on cross-media ownership, and to ensure easy access to cheap media to small groups and movements.
f) Measures to change the social profile of the media practitioners and to ensure the entry of communities that were denied access to higher learning.

5. Reforms to safeguard the primacy of citizens and elected and accountable democratic institutions
These measures try to respond to the anxiety about the erosion of democratically elected authorities in the last two decades either to the bureaucratic and the technocratic establishment or to the international economic institutions. These erosions threaten to undo many of the gains of the democratic upsurge in the last decade and negate the point of electoral democracy.
a) MPLAD Scheme and similar schemes at the state level should be scrapped forthwith.
b) It should be mandatory for the government to get any international treaty ratified by the Parliament. This would cover not only the inter-governmental agreements like the Indo-US Deal but would also cover treaties under the WTO and the MOUs signed with bodies like IMF. Similar treaties that affect the subjects in the state list must be ratified by a majority of state legislatures.
c) Any decision that affects the life and livelihood of an area (e.g. displacement or environmental change) or a section should require a referendum in that area or that section. The existing provisions about Panchayat sanction for acquisition should be strengthened and must enjoy constitutional safeguard.
6. Measures for de-centering the polity and reducing the compulsions of scale
The need for political decentralisation is clearly not a new subject. It has been commented upon and spelt out at length and in the last decade our polity has moved in that direction thanks to the 73rd and the 74th amendments and the change in our party system. What is required is to press for the consolidation of these gains and to see these as measures of political reform.

a) Strengthening the new panchayati raj framework by making it mandatory to devolve greater powers, including administrative power and powers to mobilise financial resources to the Panchayati Raj Insitutions (panchayats, panchayat samiti and Zila Parishad and nagarpalikas). The Constitutional role of PRIs in preparing, planning and implementing for economic development and social justice should be safeguarded.
b) Besides, there is a need to protect smaller parties and formation in electoral politics. The recent changes in electoral law which systematically privilege the existing national/recognised parties over other parties and independents should be withdrawn. The duration of the campaign should be restored to the original three weeks in order to give a fair chance to smaller parties and candidates short of resources;
c) Constitutional recognition of District level elected government with a separate list of subjects under its exclusive jurisdiction
d) Greater financial powers for the state governments as suggested by the Sarkaria Commission.
e) Constitution of another State Reorganisation Commission to go into the various demands for small states so as to .
f) Include within the purview of such a commission the question of greater political autonomy to backward regions within large states by expanding the scope of the institution of Autonomous Councils on the lines of Scheduled Tribe areas.

7. Movement for deepening people's participation in politics and raising democratic consciousness.
Democratic reforms is not just a responsibility of state and political parties. In the last instance the success or otherwise of democratic reforms (including its ability to pressurise the state and political parties) depends on the level of consciousness and participation of ordinary citizens. This would also include action by non-party and non-political organisations and movements in society so as to develop public opinion and maintain constant external pressure on political actors so that

a) Election-time promises are first scrutinised and then remembered so that representatives are accountable to the electorate in the period between two elections
b) Supra-party citizens’ organisations are formed to examine the candidates’ background and electoral malpractices, especially in conflict zones
c) Civil society initiatives to make funds available to social and political workers.
d) There should be a campaign throughout the country, especially among the youth, to invite ordinary citizens to take part in politics as voters, as conscious citizens and as political workers and representatives.

Much of the party system reform should be carried out through democratic pressure inside parties to ensure that
a) The local party unit has a decisive say in the selection of party candidate
b) No person is eligible for party ticket without a minimum duration of party membership and record of political work
c) There are well laid out conventions and rules about career mobility of workers inside a party as well as about age of retirement
d) Modalities for institutionalising ‘white’ money are evolved in the party
e) Non-legal forms of summary inquiry are evolved by the party to look into charges related to corruption and criminal behaviour of its members