Tag Archives | Constitution

Why protests are not constitutional methods

By on 27th November 2012 in Public Policy

The right to protest peacefully is not in doubt. The wisdom is.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that The Acorn has been a relentless advocate of constitutional methods in conducting our public affairs. We never tire of citing Ambedkar’s Grammar of Anarchy speech (whose anniversary, incidentally, we celebrated yesterday). Ambedkar said:

“we must…hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. [More here]“

One of the most frequent reactions to criticism of protests and advocacy of constitutional means is “Do you mean to say protests are unconstitutional?” The question has been raised frequently enough so it is important to answer it.

Ambedkar calls these actions “unconstitutional methods“. He does not say that they are unconstitutional. There is a difference. No serious person will deny that Indians have a constitutional right to protest. Article 19(1) explicitly guarantees as fundamental rights the freedoms of speech, expression and peaceful assembly. The constitutionality of peaceful protests is therefore unquestionable.

The question, though, is not whether we have a right to protest or not. The mere exercise of liberty is neither an indication as to its wisdom nor to its efficacy. The question is therefore, about the wisdom and the efficacy of particular actions and their consistency with constitutional morality. This is the crux of Ambedkar’s argument.

For instance, praying to the Almighty is a constitutional act. Sleeping over it is a constitutional act. Protesting peacefully is a constitutional act. Civil disobedience is a special case of peaceful protest, for where it involves disobeying laws of the land, it is an illegal and unconstitutional act. None of these are constitutional methods.

What are constitutional methods? The full answer deserves a book-length treatment. In short, constitutional methods involve engaging the executive, legislature and the judiciary. Through representations to government officials, through persuading and working with legislators, through voting and through actions in court.

These methods are regularly used, do work and in fact deliver the most substantive changes. But there is a curious asymmetry in terms of their standing in the public discourse. While protests and ‘unconstitutional methods’ are romanticised and have a reflexive public appeal, their actual achievements fade in comparison to those achieved by constitutional methods. As Rohit Pradhan asked in an article in Pragati, what are the achievements of Jayaprakash Narayan’s “total revolution” of the mid-1970s? Violence fares even worse. No insurgency has succeeded. We await rigorous empirical evidence but it does appear that change through politics, parliament, legislatures and courts has a much better record on delivering lasting change.

However there is less glorification of these methods and diminishing awareness of what they are and how they can be exercised. This last must be addressed. (At Takshashila, we are attempting this. We have an ongoing policy research project on constitutional methods for civic action and are introducing a course on constitutionalism in our GCPP programme)

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Let’s Organise Indians for a Strong Republic

By on 26th August 2011 in Public Policy

Join us on Facebook

The people around Anna Hazare in Ramlila Maidan have injected a dangerous element into the Indian polity that presents a threat to India’s national interest.

This is a Facebook page for people who believe in preserving and strengthening our democratic republic, regardless of political views or ideological persuasions.

About
Defending the Indian Republic by upholding the Constitution

Description
We believe that preserving and strengthening the Indian Republic – by upholding the Constitution, constitutional institutions and constitutional methods – is the enlightened way to seek a better future for the whole nation.

Mission
To defend the Indian republic from being undermined from within and attacked from without.

To practice and promote constitutional methods in our society and polity.

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A million ironies now – grammar of anarchy edition

By on 12th April 2011 in Public Policy

Constitutional defence

B R Ambedkar’s grammar of anarchy speech at the Constituent Assembly—a perennial favourite with us at Takshashila—got several mentions last week in the light of Anna Hazare’s hunger strike demanding a draconian Jan Lok Pal bill against corruption. There’s no harm repeating the relevant words from his speech:

If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. [Pragati]

Anupam Kher, who was part of the celebrity set that supported Anna Hazare’s hunger strike, is alleged to have criticised the Constitution (drafted under Ambedkar’s chairmanship) on television. His exact words are in dispute but members of the Republican Party of India—a party once-led by Ambedkar—decided to take the decidedly unconstitutional route of vandalising Mr Kher’s house to protest the insult to the Constitution.

The Sanvidhan Bachao Manch (the Protect the Constitution Platform) of Mumbai has correctly arrived at the conclusion that “The Lokpal would be the ultimate authority if the bill is passed. He would be above Parliament and the Judiciary which challenges the basics of democracy.” So they have decided to organise a peaceful protest rally at, well, August Kranti Maidan, on April 14th, Ambedkar’s birth anniversary.

What would Babasaheb say?

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Laws that don’t befit the Indian republic

By on 29th December 2010 in Public Policy

Which outdated laws should we get rid of, and why?

The recent surge of opinions on whether India—a liberal, democratic republic—ought to retain the colonial-era crime of sedition on its rule books is a good opportunity to discuss the general topic.

Which of those laws, or crimes under the Indian Penal Code, according to you, must be repealed? Why?

(Note: Be brief—that’s the best guarantee that people will read you. Restrict your comment to 150 words or less, per law.)

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More makers of modern India

By on 13th November 2010 in Public Policy

Rajadhyaksha’s review of Guha’s book

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha has a fine review of Ramachandra Guha’s “Makers of Modern India” in Mint.

Reading through the selections of the 19 makers of modern India, one is struck by the sheer diversity of concerns that gripped their minds—the gradual reformism of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the militant populism of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the enlightened globalism of Rabindranath Tagore, the attacks on caste by E.V. Ramaswami, the feminism of Shinde, the nation-building of Nehru, the futile quest for alternatives to parliamentary democracy by Jayaprakash Narayan, the fight for a free market economy by C. Rajagopalachari, the sharp investigations into caste as a central fact of Indian life by Ram Manohar Lohia and the insights into tribal life by Elwin.

These and other leaders have continued relevance. The splendid economic boom that India is in the middle of will inevitably be socially disruptive as well. It is a well-documented fact that the social strain of such disruption often leads to rebellion or hyper nationalism, to anarchy or oligarchic rule. We see early signs of all these in India, in tribal rage harvested by the Naxalites and the flag waving encouraged by the mainstream political parties. It is critical at such as juncture that India remains in touch with the enlightened political thought that emerged in response to colonial rule and later gave us a liberal republic.

A sound understanding of Indian political traditions would also help us understand the importance of Ambedkar’s perceptive warning on 25 November 1949. [Read the whole thing at Mint]

That Ambedkar’s Grammar of Anarchy speech should make it into the book is appropriate. Contemporary India must read and reflect on perhaps the most prescient set of warnings that the republic’s founding fathers left behind. Ambedkar is well-known, even if his actual ideas are now forgotten, but Mr Guha has done well to commemorate lesser known, not no less brilliant thinkers too. (The book has Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, Ambedkar, Periyar, Raja Rammohan Roy, Syed Ahmad Khan, Jotirao Phule, Gokhale, Tilak, Tarabai Shinde, Jinnah, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Golwalkar and Lohia)

Mr Rajadhyaksha rightly points out that Mr Guha’s work will be contentious because of who it leaves out. I personally think Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, or “Gora”, should be more than a footnote in modern India’s intellectual history. There are many more.

So why not share who you think ought to be considered a maker of modern India in the comments space? (Note: if you are linking to a URL, please ensure that you enclose it in valid HTML tags)

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Socialism and the Supreme Court (2)

By on 13th July 2010 in Public Policy

Forcing parties to be socialist is not an academic question

Strange are the ways of the Supreme Court. Ruling against a petition to expunge the adjective “Socialist” to describe the Indian republic in January 2008, the Court said socialism “hasn’t got any definite meaning. It gets different meaning in different times.” If we are to accept this bizarre logic, why not declare India a Variable Republic, because the word variable is the most appropriate to describe something that “gets different meanings in different times.”

Yesterday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, presided over by the Chief Justice, turned down the petition again:

saying though the PIL raised an important question of law, it was purely academic in nature at present. “The court will decide such a question as and when a political party which is refused recognition by EC raises it.” [TOI]

(Also see J Venkatesan’s report in The Hindu)

This is equally bizarre. Even if we were to grant that the Supreme Court should decide only on non-academic questions—and requiring every party to swear by socialism is certainly not academic—hasn’t the Bench heard of Swatantra Party’s case that is with the Mumbai High Court?

It may well be that the petitioners presented their case as a question of law and principle. That it is. But it is also more than that. Next time, the petitioners should present socialism as the cause of India’s poverty and a threat to its development. (See Atanu Dey’s recent post)

Related Posts: The background; the petition to expunge socialism from the Constitution; the first dismissal.

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Against reserving seats for women

By on 10th March 2010 in Economy, Public Policy

Empowering women is not quite the same as creating powerful women

(From this blog’s archives, a post first published on August 23rd, 2005.)

No nation can stand proud if it discriminates against any of its citizens. Certainly no society can claim to be part of the modern civilized world unless it treats its women on par with men. The time for genuine and full empowerment of women is here and now.” (the Indian prime minister) asserted. [IE]

Dr Manmohan Singh is on the money when he identifies discrimination against women as one of the biggest problems that India faces. Unfortunately, his government is not quite on the money as far as the solution goes — reserving a third of seats at the national and state legislatures does not sufficiently guarantee that India will change its attitude towards women. Worse, it may convey an impression that the problem is being addressed while not amounting to much in reality. But this may explain why Indian politicians are excited about the move in the first place.

Firstly, reservations and entitlements are not the best way for a democratic country to order its society. History has shown that once an entitlement or a reservation is put in place, it is impossible to revoke — regardless of whether the purpose for which it was intended has been achieved or not. Reservations create no incentives for those entitled to them to break away from them and enter the mainstream. Besides it is a fallacy to believe that women legislators solve women’s problems better. And the idea of free and fair elections is for the electorate to choose who, in its combined opinion, is the best person for the job. Interfering with the course of free and fair elections seriously undermines democracy.

Secondly, reservations for women are ineffective from another, practical, point of view. That is because while it will empower those women who make it to parliament, it will not do much for the majority of women who don’t. Creating powerful women is not quite the same as empowering women. And that is an important distinction. The streets of Chennai, New Delhi or Lucknow, all in states ruled by a powerful women, are no more safer from the streets of Bangalore or Kolkata which have male chief ministers.

Forget empowered women. In the worst case, reservations may not even create those powerful women. Packing parliament with 150 ‘Rabri Devis‘, elected as proxies for their male relatives will defeat the spirit and the purpose of the entire idea. Worse, it will also create 150 ‘Laloos‘ who can enjoy all the privileges of political power without being accountable to anyone. (Perhaps with the exception of their wives. But the jury is out on this.). Given the way electoral politics has come to be practised in India, this is a real possibility.

What then is the appropriate public policy response to what is arguably India’s single biggest challenge? Actually, Dr Manmohan Singh alluded to it further down his speech.

“We are pursuing legislation that will provide flexibility in working hours to women and encourage women’s employment in the industrial and services sector”, he said adding a Bill on protection of women from domestic violence has been passed and changes had been effected in the criminal procedure code and the Hindu Succession Act to empower women. [IE]

Indian women have been politically empowered (in law) since 26th January 1950. But economic and social empowerment has been elusive. Laws and regulations — sometimes introduced with the intention to protect them — have only led to their economic marginalisation. Other laws, like those allowing Muslims to follow a different civil code from people of other faiths, have led to cases like Shah Bano or Imrana.

For India to truly empower women, it does not need to have ‘gender sensitive legislation’ as Dr Manmohan Singh has proposed. It just needs to clean up the gender sensitivities in the existing body of legislation that distort the equality and undermine the empowerment that they already enjoy under Indian constitution.

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Experimenting with compulsory voting

By on 22nd December 2009 in Public Policy

Let’s find out whether it works

This blog has long argued that for governance to improve more citizens must vote. So what should we make of the Gujarat state’s decision to make voting compulsory in all local body elections?

Constitutional and philosophical reasons apart (see Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s op-ed for this) this is an interesting experiment and it will be valuable to see what it leads to.

Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister and a proponent of compulsory voting calls it a “historic move to strengthen democracy” that will take “drawing room politics to the polling booth level.” But Mr Modi might be making the OMIPP—mistaking correlation for causation.

High voter turnouts might bring about responsive accountable governments because voting rate is a sign of an engaged electorate. But forcing everyone to vote might not have the same effect, because the people are merely forced to queue up and press a button on the voting machine—they are not being forced to “engage”. A non-engaged, apathetic electorate when forced to vote, might vote randomly, whimsically or spoil the ballot.

So compulsory voting might be equivalent to introducing a political wild-card without necessarily improving governance outcomes. The effect might vary ward by ward, constituency by constituency and region by region—it’s hard to answer the question of “who will it benefit?”

The experiment should be allowed so that we can add empirical evidence to the list of criteria we use to assess whether the idea of compulsory voting is a good one.

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My op-ed in Mint: The lines of nuclear succession

By on 12th February 2009 in Public Policy, Security

The nuclear factor renders unacceptable practices that stem from the compulsions of coalition politics

In today’s Mint, I argue that “the nuclear factor thus calls for both the declaration of a line of succession as well as ensuring that key cabinet portfolios are entrusted to separate individuals. It renders unacceptable practices that have either become norms or are compulsions of coalition politics. Parties preparing for the coming general election, therefore, would do well to go beyond announcing their prime ministerial candidates. They should announce their leadership succession strategy and the line-up for key cabinet positions.”

Read the entire article over at LiveMint.

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Vote, you fools!

By on 13th January 2009 in Public Policy

There are no shortcuts to good governance. Certainly not negative ones

A group of well-meaning citizens and organisations came together in Mumbai on 11th January and “discussed strategies for networking, shortlisting common activities and adding value to each others’  core competencies”. Among those present were members from Youth For Equality, Yuva, Association For Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Praja. Also present were incipient political parties like Loksatta, Jago Party and the Professionals Party of India. [Update: See ADR's clarification at the bottom of the post]

These groups “consensually decided” that  “a pan-India platform of groups, individuals and political parties should be formed  with an  initial focus on Mumbai in the lead up to the April-May Lok Sabha elections.”So far so good. Greater middle class engagement in civic life is a good thing. Until you see that these groups—which includes political parties and a well-regarded election monitoring NGO—”consensually” decided to

4. Have a single point “NO VOTE” campaign for the April-May 09 (Lok Sabha) elections. The plan is to tap into  public disgust with political incompetence by asking people to vote for candidates who add an alias “No Vote”to their name, thus giving voters an option to use a NO VOTE option even though there is no such provision in the Constitution. [via email]

What an astounding waste that will be! Some of the most promising, public-minded young people come together and decide not to vote! Just why couldn’t these ingenious people decide to put up one good candidate and campaign for him? Wouldn’t this send an even more powerful signal to those incompetent politicians?

Isn’t it tragic that when the decent citizens decide to engage in civic activities that they long neglected, they come back to trivialise, undermine and ultimately subvert Indian democracy? The Mumbai meeting did mention some other proposals to improve governance—but the adoption of as wretched an idea as a “no vote” campaign fatally undermines its credibility. The good people behind this ill-considered move would do well to jettison the “no vote” plan when they meet later this week.

On the importance of voting: A common bank of votes & notes, on DCubed; Vote, you fools! here on this blog; Rohit Pradhan’s article in Pragati; V Anantha Nageswaran in Mint

Update: ADR’s Professor Trilochan Shastry writes in an email:

We never said this. There is some mistake.

We are only saying there should be a button on the EVM saying “None of the above”. This is also a demand of the election commission.

If you have been sending out emails on this, please send out corrections as well.

The paragraph you have highlighted below is not from ADR.

Since the minutes of the January 11th meeting are of public interest, I have decided to make them available here, sans phone numbers and email addresses to protect privacy. The minutes indicate that the “no vote” plan was agreed upon consensually in the presence of an ADR representative. Professor Shastry’s clarification is therefore welcome.

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