By K Raveendran
Incumbent ruling dispensations disfranchising former rulers and banning them for life from contesting elections is something that one often associates with countries with fragile democracies. Indians are used to news about politicians losing their seats in parliament and being debarred from contesting elections on account of corruption and other offences from across the border rather than in their own country, where such instances are rare if not non-existent. Rahul Gandhi losing his parliament seat and being disqualified from contesting elections for six years in view of his conviction in the defamation case has in the eyes of the world lowered India’s prestige as the world’s largest democracy.
Pakistan’s deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif was declared ineligible to hold public office for life by the country’s Supreme Court in 2018. Successor Imran Khan has lost power and his seat in the Pak parliament last year, but is not debarred from contesting elections. But such developments have become almost cyclical in the neighbourhood so that the news no longer creates any sensation. These developments have increasingly placed Pakistan in the company of African democracies, where democratic regimes are deposed and installed in the speed of blinking an eye.
In India, former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav have so far been the most talked about convictions leading to election disqualification before the list has now been topped by the addition of Rahul Gandhi. Jayalalithaa was convicted for 4 years and slapped a fine of Rs 100 crore in a case relating to disproportionate assets. But before the sentence was enforced, she had died.
Lalu Prasad Yadav was disqualified from contesting elections to Lok Sabha in the wake of his conviction under the prevention of corruption Act in the multi-crore fodder scam in 2013. The Bihar strongman continues to face troubles over another scam relating to the so-called jobs for land scam and is virtually out of active politics due to legal complications as well as old age, but has since passed off his mantle to his children.
Within hours of Rahul Gandhi’s conviction and his unseating from parliament along with a ban of six years in contesting elections, western media put out stories about how Indian democracy has been losing sheen over the years. A Bloomberg report said India is facing the risk of losing its label as the world’s largest democracy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule. It made a special mention of the fact that the decision to disqualify the Congress leader from parliament has been taken by the Indian parliament controlled by Modi’s party.
BBC recalled how politicians including Rahul Gandhi had moved the Supreme Court for decriminalising defamation, which is based on the British era law and pointed out that charge by free speech advocates that politicians have been using the law to silence their critics.
The Economist recently carried an article on India’s ‘democratic drift’, saying parliament was becoming increasingly irrelevant under the Modi administration as laws are passed without scrutiny and debate. It pointed out that the proportion of bills referred to standing committees in the lower house, the Lok Sabha has dropped from around 60-70 percent under the previous government to 27 percent in Mr Modi’s first term and just 13 percent in his second. Attendance records in committee meetings in both houses for the past three years reveal a meagre average of 46 percent. Of the 15 bills rushed into law during the monsoon session last year, not one had been deliberated in committee, and many were passed by perfunctory voice votes, it said.
It may appear to be somewhat ironical that the BJP which is celebrating Rahul Gandhi’s conviction and his unseating from parliament has been opposing a ban on tainted politicians from contesting elections, which the Election Commission of India has been proposing. While the poll panel favoured a ban, the law ministry opposed the move lock, stock and barrel.
In fact, on a petition filed by activist lawyer and BJP supporter Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking a lifetime ban on tainted politicians in a bid to check rising criminalisation of the polity and greater number of tainted politicians in elected houses, the Modi government responded saying the existing laws have several provisions which adequately dealt with this issue.
A Law Commission report had recommended disqualification of persons against whom charges have been framed at least one year before the date of scrutiny of nominations for an offence punishable with a sentence of five years or more. The Supreme Court has time and again expressed itself in favour of decriminalising politics, but at the same time pointed out its inability to push ahead with the idea due to lack of legislative mandate. (IPA Service)