Challenges to Democracy: Imperative for Constitutional Reforms in the Indian Parliamentary System

Challenges to Democracy: Imperative for Constitutional Reforms in the Indian Parliamentary System

On Monday, 13th May 2024 at 06:30 PM IST

The Meeting Details are as follows:

Direct Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86731647023?pwd=Z01LTEJZWlJhckh3WGhIaWx3NFNKUT09

Meeting ID: 867 3164 7023

Passcode: 835757

Webinar on the topic “Challenges to Democracy: Imperative for Constitutional Reforms in the Indian Parliamentary System.”

This year, 2024, is the biggest election year in history and represents a significant test case for democracies. Some 4.2 billion people, or more than half the humanity, living in 76 countries are voting to elect their Parliaments or Presidents. The countries include India, world’s largest democracy, and the US, modern world’s oldest democracy. India’s elections, the world’s biggest electoral exercise wherein nearly 970 million people will exercise their voting rights, commenced on the 19^th of April and will be completed in seven phases by June 1^st. There are growing concerns that democracies across the world are backsliding with the rise of right-wing forces, narrow nationalism, and religious fanaticism. World’s leading NGOs are pointing to the decline of democracy in India and are calling it as Flawed democracy or Electoral Autocracy. The decline, if analysed carefully, has been a continuous process since 1950. Successive governments have used existing laws to increase state power at the cost of individual freedom and civic liberties. The problem may lie at the structural deficiencies in the Indian parliamentary democracy.

India became a republic on the 26th January 1950, adopting its new Constitution and ushered in a ‘new era of liberty and freedom with fundamental rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the state. The Constitution was universally acclaimed as the world’s greatest experiment in liberal government. Ambedkar proudly described individual rights and constitutional remedies to enforce and safeguard them as ‘the heart and soul of the whole Constitution.’ But soon, the challenges of establishing political sovereignty, addressing communal clashes, dealing with largely illiterate and destitute population with limited knowledge and experience of democracy, the challenges of national unity and the fear of balkanisation forced the founding leaders to demand curtailment of the fundamental rights and civic liberties in favour of a central government with enormous powers for state control and coercion. The first Amendment in 1951 sowed the seeds of authoritarianism. This made the Indian democracy a hybrid form with certain authoritarianism as its structural feature. The parliamentary form of governance with bi-cameral legislature with its skewed power structures contributed to the rise of authoritarianism. Indian democracy has had significant declines and recoveries in its 77-year history: the 1975-77 emergency was an drastic decline and the recovery post 1977; the coalition government phase in the 1990s to 2014 can be seen as a recovery and strengthening of the federal structure; and the current phase from 2014 where over centralisation and majoritarianism, both inherently anti-democratic, are the dominant features. The following major issues will be the focus of the discussion:

1. The Constitution has enabled the centre with enormous powers at the cost of the States. While this may have been necessary in 1950, is it still valid 74 years later?
2. India’s parliament with the bicameral structure is modeled on the British Westminster. However, the Rajya Sabha with its extremely weak role and powers makes the Lok Sabha preponderantly powerful, making the parliament a skewed structure. It leads to majoritarianism at the cost of genuine democracy. How should Rajya Sabha’s powers be increased with a greater role?
3. Rajya Sabha was meant to be the House of States. But its members, elected indirectly, reflect the power structure of the Lok Sabha thus compromising its role and power. In 1950 the states were still nebulous and took next two decades to stabilise along their genuine cultural, linguistic and social affinities and histories. India is vastly diverse, and is a combination of many sub-nations stitched together by a common civilizational thread. This reality needs to be recognised as only then India’s unity in diversity will be meanigful. For a strong federal structure, the Rajya Sabha should truly represent the states and its members must be elected by the states directly. A strong state-centric Rajya Sabha will act as a check and balance on the majoritarian impulses of the Lok Sabha. Hence, should Rajya Sabha be modelled on the US Senate, with similar structure and powers?
4. Indian electoral process of FPTP is a deeply flawed system. Should we adopt a hybrid model that includes proportional representation?
5. From the outset, the Constitution enshrined centralisation and executive supremacy, sanctioned the use of state power and retained the ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’. Is it time to review our concept of separation of powers of the executive, legislature, and judiciary?
6. India seems to be compromising on the principle of separation of the Church and the State. How do we redress this serious development?
7. The Prime Minister as the head of the executive is extremely powerful with little accountability due to the weak structure of the Rajya Sabha, and the majoritarian nature of the Lok Sabha. How should the PM and his cabinet be made more accountable? Should constitutional reform limit political power and securepublic freedom?
8. How do we ensure that the government of the day does not tamper with the independence of constitutionally mandated institutions like the Election commission, governors, and independent institutions?

This webinar takes a holistic look at the challenges faced by Indian democracy and examines the need for constitutional reforms to address the weaknesses in Indian Democracy.

Speakers:

Dr Radha Kumar: Dr Radha Kumar is former director-general of the Delhi Policy Group and a specialist on peace and security in South Asia. Earlier director of the Mandela Centre for Peace at Jamia Millia Islamia University (2005-2010), Dr. Kumar was senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (1999-2003), associate fellow at the Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University (1996-8) and executive director of the Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly in Prague (1992-4). She chaired the United Nations University Council and is vice-chair of the SIPRI Board. She was one of the group of interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir appointed by the Government of India (2010-11). She holds a PhD from the JNU, and MA and BA from Cambridge University, UK. Author of numerous books and articles, her forthcoming book is “The Republic Relearned: A Brief History of Democracy in India ” will be published by Penguin Random House this year.

Air Marshal M Matheswaran AVSM, VM, Ph.D. (V) – Air Marshal M Matheswaran is the Founder-President of The Peninsula Foundation, a policy research think-tank based in Chennai. He is an Indian Air Force Veteran with 39 years of service. He was the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff before his retirement in 2014. The Air Marshal has a Master’s in Military Science, M Phil, and PhD in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras. He is a Senior Fellow in National and International Security from the Harvard Kennedy School of Governance, Harvard University. He is also strategic consultant in Defence and Aerospace.

Moderators:

Dr Neela Ganguly – Director, Academics and Research, Senior Fellow, TPF

Ms Nabeela Siddiqui – Assistant Professor, Vinayak Mission Law School, Chennai.

 About the Organizer: The Peninsula Foundation (TPF) is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public policy research think tank, established to promote innovative thinking and stimulate critical debate on issues of governance, international affairs, and economic and technological sovereignty. TPF aims to pursue its mission by performing timely, accurate research on key policy issues and effectively marketing these findings to our primary audiences; members of parliament and legislative assemblies, policymakers in the government, media, and the academic and policy communities.

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We look forward to your participation!

Team TPF.

The Peninsula Foundation

Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

India