Constitutionally speaking, India is a federal liberal secular parliamentary democracy. But in reality Prime Minister of India, Home Minister of India and some Chief Ministers of different States are acting like dictators or despots by abusing or misusing the provisions of Anti-Terrorist Act like the UAPA and Anti Sedition Law as provided under section 124A of the IPC. This must not happen. Critics of the Governments, both Central and State, must not be victimised in an inhuman way.
Bashir Ahmed Baba, a young man of Srinagar had gone to Gujarat in 2010 as his company sent him there to get some training. He got arrested under Sedition Law of Section 124A of the IPC. The court acquitted him after 12 years. Many more Indians are unnecessarily languishing in different jails of India because of such hostile attitudes. Needless to say the present PM was the CM of Gujarat then. First and foremost, the Unjust FPTP (First-Past-the–Post) system of Election should be replaced by the just MPR (Mixed Proportional Representation) system of Election of New Zealand to ensure fair representation in Vidhan Sabhas and Lok Sabha. Our Parliamentary democracy must be modelled on the lines of New Zealand’s Parliamentary democracy.
Our unfair FPTP in 2019 Lok Saha poll gave PM Modi 103 extra seats in the Lok Sabha while it swallowed up 54 seats of Rahul Gandhi's Congress and left 52 seats only to Congress in the Lok Sabha. This sort of Over-Representation for the BJP and under-Representation for the Congress Party must go in too. Secondly, we must have “One-Day Poll” for Lok Sabha throughout India. No phased poll be there under any pretext. Thirdly, the EC (Election Commission) must be “functionally” independent of the executive of the day.
It should not be “henpecked”, directly or indirectly, by the Office of the Prime Minister or by the Office of the president of the ruling Party. It is quite good that Justice NV Ramana, (Chief Justice of India) has very rightly said: “For the judiciary to apply checks on Governmental power and action, it has to have complete freedom. The judiciary cannot be controlled, directly or indirectly, by the legislature or the executive, or else the rule of law would become illusory.” In the fourth place, the spirit of Justice NV Ramana’s statement, quoted above, must pervade the functioning of the Election Commission of India. The CEC (the Chief Election Commissioner of India) Sushil Chandra must say like CJI Justice NV Ramana that the EC would never ever act as per the wishes of the executive.
Since Corona is having its sway almost all over India, the Election Commission must devise a worthwhile Code of Conduct for all political parties, so that party activities should not contribute to the spread of the deadly disease that has already claimed lives of over 10 lakh in the country. In other words, the EC must ban mega political rallies and road shows. On the votes counting day, there would be no victory processions and celebrations of any kind with crackers and drum beatings .
Lastly, since India is a huge country having more than 275 times of the population of New Zealand, the Prime Minister of the day and all the Union Ministers should be barred from canvassing door-to-door, and addressing political gatherings during Assembly elections. All State elections to their respective Vidhan Sabhas must be conducted at one go.
(The author is general secretary, Freethought Party of India)