The Election Commission's model codes of conduct are very bookish and impractical. let us hope that the recent shocking conduct of a Shiv Sena MP on board a flight will bring some positive changes in our polity, which goes beyond election campaigning rules
Indian democracy has taken deep roots in the past 60 years since independence with outstanding parliamentarians contributing in strengthening its edifice and making India a shining example of a vibrant modern democratic nation of more than 125 crore people. However, the nation’s politicians cannot and should not rest on their laurels and must take a serious note of the rogue elements who have made their way in the electoral politics.
The behaviour of one of our members of the lok Sabha recently, with an officer of Air India, is a criminal and an unpardonable act. The incidents of unruly behaviours of our elected representatives, who are responsible for making laws for the country, are getting more and more frequent all over the country, both inside the House as well as outside.
The masses appears to have accepted it and hue and cry raised soon after dies down and the culprits become more and more emboldened. Though such elements comprises of a very miniscule of our polity these fringe elements nevertheless, take their electorate for granted and believe that breaking laws is their right with the result that law-abiding citizens are at the receiving end of their arrogance like Air India staffer R Sukumar.
That is where the country’s governance comes to zero point in the eyes of international communities. Political parties are waiting for people’s patience to run out. The incident of brutal assault on one of the Air India staff by the lok Sabha MP in Delhi has created an outrage of protest all over the country against such uncalled for uncivilised behaviour by this gentleman law-maker.
This has also taken all the political parties by surprise. His own party, the Shiv Sena, has disowned his action. Now the time has come to take advantage of this unsavory situation and enforce the law of democratic games and prevent making mockery of the democratic values, which in long term, can lead us to anarchy and fascism.
Now let us examine why this is happening. If we review the proceedings of two Houses of Parliament for the last five to 10 years, and compare it with any other Parliament of the world, like the UK, the US and even Malaysia and Singapore, it becomes clear that a miniscule of our parliamentarian are violating the ethos of parliamentary debate which is the corner stone of parliamentary democracy.
Competitive electoral politics is leading to abhorrence for respecting opposite views. This is being tolerated by all political parties. The net result is the ever increasing unruly behaviour by some of our parliamentarians. While most of our parliamentarians are dedicated, seasoned politicians, but they are being taken over by fringe electoral thinking of a few, leading to disruptions of Houses and huge wastage of tax payers’ money. Such behaviour then extends outside Parliament as this incident shows.
The Constitution provides remedy for running Parliament smoothly, but in the name of freedom of expression and democratic values, it is never resorted. liberal attitude is now proving counterproductive. It is high time that our law-makers and the Prime Minster, who is leading a Government with a comfortable majority, decides to check this trend forthwith and set standard norm for the behaviour.
To begin with, the Government must ensure smooth functioning of Parliament and State Assemblies. In the instant case, Parliament must take exemplary appropriate action against this member for assaulting a public servant who was performing his official duties. The crime is more severe since he was openly flaunting his action on television cameras. First, he violated Section 353 and 186 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Second, his tantrum inside the aircraft was tantamount to high-jacking the aircraft as the aircraft was scheduled to fly to another destination.
After getting elected, parliamentarians are expected to be more polite and erudite since large sections of the people they represent are poor and need to be contacted any time by their representatives. Over a period of time, the very culture of service has changed and is focused more on privileges. This culture is spreading fast and the distance between people and the law-makers is increasing.
The Election Commission of India had several times approached the Government for electoral reforms. Money and muscle power has taken over the election process. This writer has the firsthand experience of money and liquor being freely distributed during the Uttarakhand election and the gullible people lapping on it gleefully, unaware that they are being corrupted and their vote is being stolen.
In fact, the money sanctioned for MPs and MlAs, for work in their constituencies, is the biggest source of corrupting the people and creating a coterie of contractors. This must be done away with. Instead, a list of activities in a particular constituency should be collected annually and processed by the concerned department and work executed under the supervision of the Members of Parliament or State Assemblies.
Further, pension for public representatives needs to be reviewed. A minimum period of one term of five years should be fixed. like other public servants, who get pension after 20 years, MPs and MlAs are also public servants. In the present case, the MP became furious for not getting a business class seat while travelling from Pune to Delhi. He travelled in the economy class and then created a raucous on arrival.
It is a matter of consideration as to how many people of his constituency are travelling by air, leave aside travelling by business class. Public representatives should be rooted with the social profile of his constituency. Senior Government servants of additional and joint secretary level after putting on 25 to 30 years of service travel by economy class within the country. Similarly, new members of Parliament should be entitled for business class only for official functions and rest of the passes must be of economy class.
The country needs well-groomed people in our Assemblies and Parliament. Fighting an election has become a business now and only moneyed people can fight the election and this promotes corruption as the candidate recovers the money after election.
In order to get genuinely interested people with fewer resources in our electoral process, we must drastically reduce the time for campaigning and expense limits needs to be curtailed drastically since now the social media is abundantly available and literacy rate is high.
The Election Commission’s model codes of conduct are very bookish and impractical. let us hope this incident will bring some changes in our polity.
(The writer is former Principal Secretary, Government of Tripura and chairman, Foundation of Integrated Resource Management)