Why is the Election Commission so important?

First things first. I believe that the Election Commission is, along with the Supreme Court, the most important constitutional body in India.

It deserves our respect and admiration for the role it has played over the last seven decades in allowing us to proudly describe ourselves as the world’s largest democracy.

 

So here’s the problem: this avatar of the Election Commission is wiping out the body’s sterling record. I know less and less people who admire our current election commissioners. The Chief Election Commissioner, in particular, has lost the respect of much of the nation with his farcical press conference a few days ago.

 

   What this means is that India’s democracy is now facing one of the worst crisis in its history.

 

   Lest you think that sounds overdramatic, let me explain.

 

   Electoral franchise is one part — the major part, certainly but not the only one — of modern democracy. Not only should people be governed by those they have elected but they should be guaranteed certain basic rights — the right to liberty, the right to free speech, the right to dissent and more —for the democracy to function effectively.

 

   The tragedy of India is that many of these rights are often disrespected or overturned entirely. It’s always easy to point fingers at the government of the day but let’s accept that the decline began decades ago, long before the BJP was even founded. Indira Gandhi first subverted many of our democratic institutions and later, she went the whole distance, censoring the press, arresting journalists, locking up the opposition and so on.

 

   The whole promise of India as a nation was about to be betrayed. The Supreme Court which was supposed to protect citizens failed. Only elections saved democracy.

 

   Convinced that she would win and legitimise her dictatorial regime, Mrs Gandhi called a General Election in 1977. She lost that election so badly that all future would-be dictators have learned two lessons: never actually declare an Emergency, just do it all on the quiet. And don’t call an election unless you are sure of winning it.

 

   That’s why the Election Commission is so important. If elections are fair and the people of India are allowed to register their protest and vote out tyrants or scamsters, only then can democracy survive.

 

   All the other stuff that we associate with modern democracies (mostly in the West) such as rights — to liberty, to dissent, to justice, etc— is already in trouble in India. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a poor person to find or afford justice or to speak out against powerful officials or politicians.

 

   The only time every citizen of India feels empowered is when he or she votes in an election. That’s when the roles are reversed: when the politicians are the ones who come to the people to ask for something. And the ordinary citizen knows that at least on that one day every few years he or she has the right to send a tyrant or a crook packing.

 

   Take away electoral franchise and you take away our right to be called a democracy. That’s why it is so important that elections should be fair and beyond controversy.

 

   It’s not easy to do this in a country of the size of India. And yet the Election Commission has often shown more courage than the judiciary. It turned Indira Gandhi out of office when she was all powerful. In the 1990s when TN Seshan was Chief Election Commissioner he showed politicians their place and reminded them that the Constitution was more important than any individual.

 

"One of the problems with the current situation is that the Election Commission sees no reason to take the Opposition’s complaints seriously."

   It is to the credit of those who conduct our elections that, till recently, even the losers did not claim that the electoral process was unfair. Yes, there were complaints about booth capturing but the Commission usually ordered repolls in those booths.

 

   All that has changed. A few years ago, doubts were expressed about the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Those doubts never gained much traction with the general public because nobody could convincingly explain how the EVMs had been tampered with and former Election Commissioners made it clear that rigging through EVMs was impossible.

 

   But over the last couple of years especially after the Maharashtra Assembly elections, there have been concerns over the way in which electoral rolls are compiled. The allegation is that the Commission is complicit in adding a significant number of bogus voters to the rolls in various constituencies. This is not done in every constituency so there is no question of the BJP winning a Soviet-style election victory with the vast majority of the vote. But it’s done shrewdly and carefully in enough constituencies to be able to affect the outcome of the election. It only works when the mood is not overwhelmingly anti-BJP and votes of other parties do not overwhelm the bogus votes.

 

  Because this sounds like a sophisticated way of influencing the outcomes of elections it is a hard allegation to substantiate. About the only thing that those who believe that bogus voters are being added to the rolls can do is provide evidence of a sudden mysterious swell in voting numbers and point to names in the rolls that seem suspicious or appear more than once.

 

   Which is exactly what the Opposition — and Rahul Gandhi, most recently — has done.

 

   Any sensible Election Commissioner knows that for the electoral process to have credibility both the government of the day (which appointed these commissioners and changed the selection process to exclude the Chief Justice) and the Opposition must have faith in the Commission. Most important: so must the electorate. The reason the EVM allegations receded was because the public was not convinced.

 

   To keep the faith of the Opposition and the public the Chief Election Commissioner must go out of his way to demonstrate that once he occupied this Constitutional office, he forgot about his loyalties to the people who appointed him and chose to function only in the interests of the Constitution.

 

   One of the problems with the current situation is that the Election Commission sees no reason to take the Opposition’s complaints seriously. When someone points out in detail what some of the anomalies in the rolls are, a sincere and honest guardian of the Constitution says, “I need to examine your claims and give you an equally detailed response.”

 

   He does not say, “How dare you? File an affidavit or we won’t listen to you! Apologise!”

 

   Do these sound like the words of a man determined to get to the truth? A man with nothing to hide?

 

   Worse still: there is no interest in convincing the people of India. Asked several important questions at his now notorious press conference, the Chief Election Commissioner simply did not answer them.

 

   And later supporters of the government tried to muddy the waters by focusing on a numerical error in a tweet sent out by a pollster, arguing that because he made a mistake the well-documented allegations levelled by the Opposition must also be false.

 

   None of this augurs well. The only thing that powers Indian democracy is the belief that every Indian has: that he or she will get a fair opportunity to choose his or her leaders and throw out those who have not performed.

 

   Take away that assurance and you have punctured the heart of Indian democracy. And you have robbed elected governments of their very legitimacy.