Examining the Indian Constitution’s functioning

By
Randeep Wadehra

Indian government and politics by Bidyut Chakrabarty & Rajendra Kumar Pandey

Sage. Pages: xxviii+359. Price: Rs. 295/-.

India is often eulogized as the world’s largest democracy that has managed to thrive in an increasingly hostile international environment – surrounded as it is by totalitarian and pseudo-democratic states. But India is much more than that. Although there is no dearth of those who dismiss India as a functioning anarchy the country is in fact a shining example of a liberal-democratic-pluralistic polity that has successfully managed her inherent contradictions – ethnic, linguistic, religious, casteist and economic. Once damned as a basket case, India is today an economic super-power in the making that is also making its military presence felt on the international strategic scene. So, what is the secret behind this grand makeover? India’s democratic ethos, of course. Thanks to our hoary traditions the post-independence India took to democracy like a whale to the high seas.

However, the country’s democratic superstructure is unique and incomparable in many ways. The colonial influence in the form of Westminster model is self-evident, but other influences too have worked in shaping our Constitution. The authors rightly point out that although the Constitution was an outcome of deliberations on the floor of the Constituent Assembly, it acquired a clear centralized bias reflective of the trauma of the 1947 partition. Therefore, while the Assembly members were appreciative of India’s pluralistic social texture, there was an overwhelming consensus in favour of a strong state. Emergency provisions in the Constitution were justified on the grounds of protecting India’s territorial integrity against such threats as mal-governance and anarchy. Later experiences in the form of various regional and ideological insurgencies vindicated the Assembly members’ stand. One of the strengths of our Constitution is its dynamism – the capability to take on unitary character and revert to its normal federal functioning whenever the situation so demands, without doing any damage to any constitutional authority or institution.

Every democracy needs a set of institutions in order to function smoothly. The American political scientist Robert Alan Dahl says that a democracy needs six institutions, viz., elected political executive; free, fair and frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship. These institutions would ensure: Effective Participation - Citizens have adequate and equal opportunities to form their preference and place questions on the public agenda and express reasons for one outcome over the other; Voting Equality at the Decisive Stage - Each citizen is assured his or her judgments will be counted as equal in weights to the judgments of others; Enlightened Understanding - Citizens enjoy ample and equal opportunities for discovering and affirming what choice would best serve their interests; Control of the Agenda - People have the opportunity to decide what political matters actually are and what should be brought up for deliberation; and Inclusiveness - Equality is extended to all citizens within the state. Everyone has legitimate stake within the political process. Utopian? True, but an ideal worth striving for.

Our parliamentary system has not wilted under the feared stress and strain of coalition politics. On the other hand, the rise of regional political parties has in fact reinforced the Indian polity’s federal texture, the authors aver. This is because these regional parties have become serious stakeholders of the system thus fashioning political pluralism in its true spirit. If the nature of political discourse has undergone metamorphosis it is largely due to the phenomenon of regionalization of national politics that has engendered new social constituencies. Consequently, there have been very important and enduring structural changes in the country’s political superstructure. So, in South and Northeast India these changes have been articulated in regional terms, West Bengal and Kerala have, however, resorted to the class-based dialectics. The North has experienced caste-based changes in political equations. What is worth noting is that various aspiring groups want to create political space for themselves within the exis

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