Politics of toppling: When wolves in sheep’s clothing write the epitaph of our Constitution – Herald Goa

02 Jul 2022 | 07:38am ISTSurat, Guwahati, Goa-Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai-Government change needs cross-country pit stops, where the anti-defection law is an enabler of defection

SUJAY GUPTA

The contour of toppling politics continues to throw up different strands. But the strand that stands out is the one that binds the wrongs in our democracy together, to belittle our Republic.

The country-wide private charter crossings and landings in three different cities culminated in Goa becoming the last pit stop and camp for the final coup dtat, launched by the rebel Shiv Sena against their mentor Uddhav Thackeray, the son of their supreme leader Bal Thackeray; was the running soap across all channels. But the worry is different. The show at hand was another episode of using the anti-defection law as an enabler of defections and not the preventer.

The fundamental flaw, with the benefit of hindsight, is that the law punishes single MPs and MLAs from leaving their party and joining another. But it is no impediment if a group of MPs and MLA split, join and merge with another party or form a new party in the same legislature without facing the penalties in the anti-defection law. The law itself was a course correction to the manner in which government after government in the states got toppled by party hoppers after the Lok Sabha elections of 1967. But it has completely veered off its course.

But the core of punishment is that it has to be meted out at a speed that makes committing the crime a deterrent. Defections in Indian politics, even if you fall foul of the law are no deterrent.

Speakers, especially if they are from the party which is the beneficiary of defection, do not determine the cases of defecting MLAs who almost always become ministers till the end of their term. In 2020, the Supreme Court dismissed a minister in Manipur when the Speaker did not decide on his defection petition for three years.

The worry here is that the subjugation of the anti-defection law has been brutalised to such a worrying degree that when MLAs defect en masse and enter the bazaar, their shenanigans, jet setting, their card, and ludo games held at resorts in States ruled by friendly governments are like Instagram reels, watched, liked and shared even as democracy disseminates.

It is this normalisation which is the elephant that has brought the room down. Democracy is not about voting. Its about institutions keeping governments accountable and the institutions that frame and support check violations and punish the ones that get past the need to ask if they have done their job.

It is perhaps time to deep dive into the fundamentals of what the nature of governance in India entails. Shruti Gopalan, one of the scholars involved in the Brainstorm Project, where issues of importance are curated in a series of essays by critics, writers, and researchers in the Future of the Indian Republic series in her essay Democracy vs The Republic, writes: India is both a democracy and a republic, and they are not the same. A democracy and a republic have different functions and implications for the relationship between the individual and the state. A democracy is rule by the people, chosen by a majority of the group. While this is also true of the republican form of government, republicanism is more than merely the process of choosing the sovereign. The supreme republican values are individual liberty and independence from arbitrary power. A republican form of government, therefore, is intended to limit the excesses of democracy or majority rule. In India, however, democracy is cannibalizing republicanism. And within this chaos of tyranny and oppression is a new type of order. One where there is no room for republicanism, but instead different groups fighting for the top spot.

When this happens, there is a fundamental shift. Democracy no longer represents the will of the people but the will of some people.

Larry Flynt, otherwise known as a publisher of adult magazines who became one of the most influential defenders of free speech once said that majority rule only works if youre also considering individual rights. Because you cant have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

The average citizen is like sheep. And so is the Republic when it gets cannibalized by democracy.

What just happened in Maharashtra is one more episode in the long-running seasonal OTT series. Lets call it the Not So Sacred Games. But the Maha topple took the twist to another level. Eknath Shinde, the Sena rebel, claiming to be the real Sena took a private charter to Mumbai from Goa to be sworn in as Deputy CM but returned to Goa about 8 hours later as CM of Maharashtra, becoming the first (perhaps) CM to spend the night of his swearing-in outside his State.

And then there was Devendra Fadnavis. He had prepped himself to be the CM even having received the new Police Commissioner as the CM in waiting. The wait continues as he was first asked to name Shinde as CM. And then after saying he would stay out of the Government, was directed to take a demotion and become a deputy to Shinde when he, as CM in his first term, was his boss.

While the institutions of the State are withering, the engine of politics runs with no limits to its authority. The founder of Indias constitution Babasaheb Ambedkar said: The purpose of a Constitution is not merely to create the organs of the State but to limit their authority, because, if no limitation was imposed upon the authority of the organs, there will be complete tyranny and complete oppression. The legislature may be free to frame any law; the executive may be free to give any interpretation of the law. It would result in utter chaos.

Ambedkars foresight and vision are being felt, with pain to the real sheep even as the wolves in sheeps clothing write the epitaph of the constitution.K

Sujay Gupta is the Group Editor Herald Publications and tweets @sujaygupta0832

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Politics of toppling: When wolves in sheep's clothing write the epitaph of our Constitution - Herald Goa