Will they be better than their predecessors?

Now that India has a new President and will soon have a new Vice-President, it may be pertinent to ask whether Ram Nath Kovind and M. Venkaiah Naidu are any better than Meira Kumar and Gopal Gandhi, or any different from Pranab Mukherjee and Hamid Ansari. It seems a poor harvest if all that can be said of the elections is that the turn-out for the presidential poll was extraordinarily high and the contest did not descend into bitterness. Perhaps a 99 per cent turnout did imply that people have some expectations from Rashtrapati Bhavan. The absence of acrimony could suggest no one is sufficiently involved in the election and its result to get excited. One seems to cancel out the other.

Of course, it’s an academic debate. The “basic structure” doctrine that the Supreme Court articulated in 1973 does not contemplate drastic systemic change. Indira Gandhi accepted this during the Emergency. But no system can be hidebound forever. Britain’s supposedly unwritten constitution has undergone far-reaching alterations since the barons forced King John’s hand at Runnymeade, and again since Parliament cut off King Charles I’s head. In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro has announced the creation of a constituent assembly. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have both oscillated between the presidential and parliamentary systems. Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy one day and a military presidency the next. Myanmar’s pragmatic framework allows the country’s most popular political figure to exercise power without heading the government which she is constitutionally debarred from doing. Bhutan retains its monarchy but the revolution from the throne created a new powersharing dispensation.

All this indicates there is nothing sacrosanct about a blueprint. Indira Gandhi stepped back from taking the plunge probably because she feared that leading members of her own party would use the “basic structure” argument to plot against her. Those who cite Dr B.R. Ambedkar do so only because it suits their present book. It’s the quality of public life, the political dramatis personae, that is so shoddy; the methods employed, the name-calling, the use of money and muscle power would reduce any system to a farce. We pride ourselves on being the world’s largest democracy. But there was nothing democratic about the Mahant of the Gorakhnath Math, who was not even an elected member of Uttar Pradesh’s Vidhan Sabha, being catapulted into the chief minister’s job. It was a blatant denial of the rights of the Assembly’s Bharatiya Janata Party majority.

If instead of objecting, they tamely subjected themselves to the Centre’s will, it’s because the monarchical instinct is too strong in India for the spirit of democracy to flourish. Opposition parties are no different. Democracy contradicts obedience. It demands questions and even defiance. Just the way BJP loyalists burble “Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi-ji” on television betrays obsequiousness. This is so in all parties, probably in all organisations where a man’s future – his fate – depends on the goodwill of a single individual. Did UP MLAs even think it necessary to subject Adityanath’s candidature to a vote in the Assembly?

It is argued that while a presidential system centralises power in one individual, the prime minister is primus inter pares, first among equals, in the parliamentary system. We are warned that over-centralisation of power in one individual must be guarded against. The presidential system’s votaries argue that safeguards and checks like a powerful legislature can curb a powerful president. But does it? Or does a dictator have to be a president? Mr Modi is by no means the first presidential prime minister. He is trying to emulate Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Both dominated the party and the legislature and ruled without any democratic curbs. They were elected Caesars. Ironically, that kind of one-man (or one-woman) dictatorship is what the multitude probably associate with good governance.

Western theories about consensus-building, the choice between the “first-past-the-post” and “winner-takes-all” approach, and even judicial constraints are not applicable in a constituency dominated by religion, caste, community and feudal loyalty. They seem to be faltering even in Venezuela where the Supreme Court made a surprise announcement on 29 March that it was taking over the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. As the opposition clamoured that the ruling undermined the separation of powers and took Venezuela closer to one-man rule under Mr Maduro, the court argued that the National Assembly had disregarded previous Supreme Court rulings and was therefore in contempt. While the Supreme Court reversed its ruling just three days later, distrust of the court did not subside.

The episode is worth recalling because India’s Supreme Court also displays a tendency to intervene in public life either suo moto or on the basis of pleas. On the whole, these interventions are received with goodwill by people who feel that the judiciary has no vested interest and acts only in the national interest. But this attitude can change, especially as judges are accused of corruption, and judicial intervention can lead to political clashes as in Venezuela. Governance as a whole would benefit if the courts devoted more time and attention to remedying their own shortcomings – the enormous backlog of cases, corruption and dilatoriness, the hints of lobbies. It’s a sad indictment of India’s justice system that the doctrine of falsus in uno falsus in omnibus (if one detail is false the whole structure must be false) is not admitted because too much is false for any exclusion based on principle.

A possible advantage of the parliamentary system is that for 25 years till 2014 it produced coalition governments which reflected the views of a cross-section of the electorate and ruled out individual or group dictatorship. Yet, by focussing more on politics than on policy or performance, it also obliged governments to concentrate less on governance than on retaining office. In practice, this often meant catering to the lowest common denominator in coalitions whose leaders were constantly haunted by the fear of collapse caused by the withdrawal of even a single member. The parliamentary system is also accused of distorting the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants but not necessarily which parties or policies.

Ideally, we should do away with parties altogether. They enjoy no constitutional sanction. They involve too much bribery, pressure and persuasion. Governments of talents would be best for the public, and one can think of luminaries like Manmohan Singh and C.D. Deshmukh, M.G.K. Menon and Raja Ramanna whom various prime ministers inducted. But then there are bound to be squabbles and accusations over nominations. India can’t get away from the Indian nature. The problem is the singer not the song. As for the new incumbents, Plus ça change, Plus c'est la même chose: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

IT may be pertinent to ask whether Ram Nath Kovind and M. Venkaiah Naidu are any better than Meira Kumar and Gopal Gandhi, or any different from Pranab Mukherjee and Hamid Ansari. After all a 99 per cent turnout did imply that people have some expectations from Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The writer is the author of several books and a regular media columnist