By Malay Mishra
The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), an inadvertent creation of the head of the highest judiciary, has announced a nationwide agitation from 10 October. It will start from the very site that was the battleground for a restive Gen Z barely three months ago — an agitation that forced the government to sacrifice its education minister over paper leaks and systemic failure in education. This will be Jantar Mantar 2.0, demanding the ouster of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for allegedly disenfranchising 13.4 crore voters across 30 states and UTs through the dubious SIR exercise. Party founder Abhijit Dipke has declared: once the CEC goes, it will be the Prime Minister’s turn. This has been an ominous warning for the establishment, which is already smarting under attacks from multiple directions — from activists, civil society bodies, the Opposition combine, and diverse sectoral groups — all demanding that the EC in its present form be disbanded, that all elections held after the SIR came into operation be countermanded, and that Gyanesh Kumar be tried as a common criminal for allegedly rigging elections massively in favour of the ruling party.
In fact, the 157th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation saw protest movements erupt in various cities, notably at Shivaji Park, Mumbai and at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. At both places, the protests were suppressed with a heavy hand by local police and CRPF. A lot has been discussed and written on the irregularities committed by the EC in implementing the SIR, and this column will not go into those again. Yet, a few pertinent questions still need to be addressed to uncover the grand plot behind it all.
Leave out the procedural deviations — the composition of the three-member committee to select the CEC and the two ECs, decided by an amendment passed by voice vote with no Opposition member present or voting, largely skewed in favour of the government, with lifelong immunity granted to them for any action taken or “purported to have been taken” in the discharge of duty. There is also the public disclosure that the two ECs formally disagreed 14 times over a period of 10 months, and then went back to sitting with the same CEC at a press meet agreeing that all decisions of the EC were taken unanimously, with consequent press notes declaring that all is well. And most surprisingly, the government answered on behalf of the EC and took steps to rectify the situation in the name of the Commission.
When key institutions of the State are compromised, democracy is lost and citizens are left to take to the streets. The disclosures on Form 6 and Form 7 — additions, deletions and alterations carried out arbitrarily through ECI Net and not, as per rules, by the EROs — seem to have targeted a particular community. In all this, the CEC has functioned solo, with all decisions taken by one man despite objections from the two other ECs, whereas as per norms, in cases of dispute, the majority view should have prevailed.
This begs the question: for whose gain? Who would have benefited from this exclusion when the Constitution was clear about including the last voter through universal adult franchise and one person, one vote? Could this exercise not be linked to the scheme of creating a National Register of Citizens — the mass disenfranchisement exercise creating two broad categories: those who can vote and thus are citizens, as per the definition endorsed by the Supreme Court, and others who cannot and therefore are non-citizens? Could this then be tied to the larger project of One Nation One Election, filtering out the undesirable non-citizens? The balkanization would then be complete and would aid the delimitation exercise of carving out territories depending on their utility for the party in power.
For the last two years, “Vote Chori” has been sloganised and brought into the political discourse by the Congress and this has been amplified over the last several months calling into question the role of the ruling party in rigging elections. Their successive victories in Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra and Bengal have amply proved the point. But then, why would the party which had been enjoying untrammelled power at the Centre for over 12 years in the idealisation of the PM stoop to such lows in completely disregarding the popular mandate.
With increasing unemployment, jobless growth, rising inequality, and plundering of State resources by a few corporates, the govt’s performance has largely been viewed negatively by the bulk of the electorate, who ironically are the ones whom the system has disavowed. For the majority of Indians, the right to vote is their cardinal strength, one they can ill afford to lose through dubious means.
In all this the judiciary’s role has been largely disappointing. Why would the SC not take suo motu cognisance of the matter when it is getting out of hand and the Opposition gaining corresponding strength is a moot point. The larger question is, what happens to the global image of the world’s largest democracy?
In their seminal text, ‘How Democracies Die’, Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt provide the answer: “Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders-presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power…The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy-gradually, subtly and even legally-to kill it.”
The damage is irreparable and any amount of gloss would only further sully its image beyond its borders. The world is watching what’s going on in Delhi. The birth of a nation which had heralded the coming of a new age for emerging democracies, now part of the Global South, has now come full circle and it’s time that the democratic ethos of the nation finds fulfilment with determination, courage and confidence in the expression of a new society.
The day of redemption for the citizens of the Republic is near and they will seek their price. The State’s hammer blows to quash any kind of protest could be the last flicker, and along expected lines. The end-game is clear though the end is still not.
The writer is a retired diplomat, educator and political analyst.
