Polity

KEY POINTS

·        In British India, Suffrage was a privilege accorded to a few Indians, and not a right that all Indians had to decide who would govern them.

·        Universal adult suffrage in independent India’s Constitution marked a decisive break from its colonial past.

·        Notwithstanding the existence of voting in pre-Independence India, the implementation of universal adult suffrage was not in any sense a continuation of what existed before. Rather, it was revolutionary in the true sense.

·        Consequently,

a)     in expanding the electorate from 10% to almost 100%

b)     in abolishing separate electorates for a conception of universal citizenship

c)      in decisively rejecting arguments that individuals who were formally illiterate were incapable of exercising the franchise, Indian Constitution transformed the status of its people from subjects to citizens, from hierarchy and subordination to radical equality.

·        But, it would not be fair to assume that in the narrow sphere of elections and voting that Indian constitution at whole was not a continuation of what existed before.

·        Conversely, it simply transforms political powers and rulers, leaving underlying institutional arrangements intact.

·        For example,

a)     Two-thirds of the Constitution replicates the 1935 Government of India Act

b)     The key enablers of colonial executive dominance such as the ordinance-making power and Emergency powers were carried over

c)      Above all, the Constitution endorsed existing colonial laws such as laws of sedition, blasphemy and criminal defamation, Section 377 of the IPC.

·        This interpretation has sometimes been validated as well by the Supreme Court, which once pointed out that the Constitution “did not seek to destroy the past institutions; it raised an edifice on what existed.”

Way Ahead                       

·        A true transformation of subjects to citizens comes from: democratising the relationship between the individual and the state and not from the change of political powers and rulers.

·        It should be done by constraining the amount of centralised power that the state could accumulate.

·        Constitutions’ should intend to take us from a “culture of authority” to a “culture of justification”.

·        (i.e.) a culture in which every exercise of power and authority must be justified to those who are subject to it, even when it is said to be for their own good.

·        India needs to build upon the rights based approach in the line of Universal suffrage to make our Constitution truly transformative.