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12-24-2007, 06:19 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Contributor
Join Date: 02-27-07
Location: India
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Prez system for India
Quote:
It's time to rethink parliamentary system
The recent political shenanigans in New Delhi have confirmed once again what some of us have been arguing for some time: that the parliamentary system we borrowed from the British has become, in Indian conditions, nothing but a recipe for governmental instability. And instability is precisely what India, with its critical economic and social challenges, cannot afford. We must have a system of government whose leaders can focus on governance rather on staying in power.
Once again there is talk of a new election sooner or later. But quite apart from the horrendous costs, can we, as a country, afford to keep expecting elections to provide miraculous results when we know that they are all but certain to produce inconclusive outcomes and more coalition governments? Isn’t it time we realised the problem is with the system itself?
Pluralist democracy is our greatest strength, but its current manner of operation is the source of our major weaknesses. India’s many challenges require political arrangements that permit decisive action, whereas ours increasingly promote drift and indecision. The parliamentary system has not only outlived its utility; it was from the start unsuited to Indian conditions and is primarily responsible for many of our principal political ills.
To suggest this is political sacrilege in New Delhi. None of the many politicians i have discussed this with are even willing to contemplate a change. The main reason for this is that they know how to work the present system and do not wish to alter the ways they are used to. But our reasons for choosing the British parliamentary system are themselves embedded in history.
Like the American revolutionaries of two centuries ago, Indian nationalists had fought for 'the rights of Englishmen', which they thought the replication of the Houses of Parliament would both epitomise and guarantee. When former British prime minister Clement Attlee suggested the US presidential system as a model to Indian leaders, "they rejected it with great emphasis. I had the feeling that they thought i was offering them margarine instead of butter."
Even our Communists have embraced the system with great delight, revelling in their adherence to British parliamentary convention (down to the desk-thumping form of applause) and complimenting themselves on their authenticity. One veteran Marxist legislator, Hiren Mukherjee, used to assert proudly that British prime minister Anthony Eden had felt more at home during Question Hour in the Indian parliament than in the Australian.
Yet, the parliamentary system assumes a number of conditions which simply do not exist in India. It requires the existence of clearly-defined political parties, each with a coherent set of policies and preferences that distinguish it from the next, whereas in India a party is merely a label of convenience which a politician adopts and discards as frequently as a Bollywood film star changes costume.
The principal parties, whether ‘national’ or otherwise, are fuzzily vague about their beliefs: every party’s ‘ideology’ is one variant or another of centrist populism, and with the sole exceptions of the BJP and the Communists, their separate existence is a result of electoral arithmetic or regional identities, not political conviction. (And even there, what on earth is the continuing case, after the demise of the Soviet Union, for two separate Communist parties?)
With few exceptions, India’s parties all profess their faith in the same set of rhetorical cliches, notably socialism, secularism, a mixed economy and non-alignment, terms they are all equally loath to define. No wonder, the Communists had no difficulty signing on to the ‘Common Minimum Programme’. (The BJP used to be thought of as an exception, but in its attempts to broaden its base of support it sounds - and behaves - more or less like the other parties, except on the emotive issue of national identity.)
So, our parties are not ideologically coherent, take few distinct positions and do not base themselves on political principles. As organisational entities, therefore, they are dispensable, and are indeed cheerfully dispensed with (or split/reformed/merged/dissolved) at the convenience of politicians. The sight of a leading figure from a major party leaving it to join another or start his own - which would send shock waves through the political system in other parliamentary democracies - is commonplace, even banal, in our country. (Ajit Singh, if memory serves, has switched parties nine times in the last 15 years.)
In the absence of a real party system, the voter chooses not between parties but between individuals, usually on the basis of their caste, their public image or other personal qualities. But since the individual is elected in order to be part of a majority that will form the government, party affiliations matter.
So, voters are told that if they want an Indira Gandhi as prime minister, or Karunanidhi as their chief minister, they must vote for someone else in order to indirectly accomplish that result. It is an absurdity only the British could have devised: to vote for a legislature not to legislate but in order to form the executive.
So much for theory. But the result of the profusion of small parties is that today we have a coalition government of 20 parties, some with just one or two members of parliament, which has succeeded an earlier coalition government of 23 parties. And, as we have just seen in the debacle over the Indo-US nuclear deal - which instead of being hailed as a major diplomatic triumph for India was stymied by the opposition of the Communists, without whose votes the government would fall - a small minority can hamstring the government. Under the current system, India’s democracy is condemned to be run by the lowest common denominator - hardly a recipe for decisive action.
The disrepute into which the political process has fallen in India, and the widespread cynicism about the motives of our politicians, can be traced directly to the workings of the parliamentary system. It is time for a change.
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Link: It's time to rethink parliamentary system-SHASHI ON SUNDAY-Shashi Tharoor-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India
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12-24-2007, 06:21 AM
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#2 (permalink)
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Contributor
Join Date: 02-27-07
Location: India
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Quote:
India should switch to presidential system
23 Dec 2007, 0217 hrs IST
In my last column, against the backdrop of current events, I inveighed against the parliamentary system as it has worked in India. The argument merits completion today.
To summarise (and extrapolate from) the case I made last time: our parliamentary system has created a unique breed of legislator, largely unqualified to legislate, who has sought election in order to wield (or influence) executive power.
It has produced governments more skilled at politics than at policy or performance. It has distorted the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants but not necessarily which policies. It has permitted parties that are shifting alliances of individuals rather than vehicles of coherent sets of ideas. It has forced governments to concentrate not on governing but on staying in office, and obliged them to cater to the lowest common denominator of their coalitions. It is time for a change.
The fact that the principal reason for entering parliament is to attain governmental office poses two specific problems. First, it limits executive posts to those who are electable rather than to those who are able. The prime minister cannot appoint a cabinet of his choice; he has to cater to the wishes of the political leaders of 20 parties. Second, it puts a premium on defections and horse-trading.
The Anti-Defection Law of 1984 was necessary because in many states (and, after 1979, at the Centre) parliamentary floor-crossing had become a popular pastime, with lakhs of rupees, and many ministerial posts, changing hands. Now, musical chairs is an organised sport, with ‘‘party splits’’ instead of defections, and for much the same motives. I shudder to think of what will happen after the next elections produce a parliament of 40 odd parties jostling to see which permutation of their numbers will get them the best rewards.
The case for a presidential system of either the French or the American style has, in my view, never been clearer. The French version, by combining presidential rule with a parliamentary government headed by a prime minister, is superficially more attractive, since it resembles our own system, except for reversing the balance of power between the president and the council of ministers.
This is what the Sri Lankans opted for when they jettisoned the British model. But, given India’s fragmented party system, the prospects for parliamentary chaos distracting the elected president are considerable. An American or Latin American model, with a president serving both as head of state and head of government, might better evade the problems we have experienced with political factionalism.
A directly-elected chief executive in New Delhi, instead of being vulnerable to the shifting sands of coalition support politics, would have stability of tenure free from legislative whim, be able to appoint a cabinet of talents, and above all, be able to devote his or her energies to governance, and not just to government.
The Indian voter will be able to vote directly for the individual he or she wants to be ruled by, and the president will truly be able to claim to speak for a majority of Indians rather than a majority of MPs. At the end of a fixed period of time - let us say five years - the public would be able to judge the individual on performance in improving the lives of Indians, rather than on political skill at keeping a government in office. It is a compelling case.
Why, then, do the arguments for a presidential system get such short shrift from our political class? At the most basic level, our parliamentarians’ fondness for the parliamentary system rests on familiarity: this is the system they know. They are comfortable with it, they know how to make it work for themselves, they have polished the skills required to triumph in it. Most non-politicians in India would see this as a disqualification, rather than as a recommendation for a decaying status quo.
The more serious argument advanced by liberal democrats is that the presidential system carries with it the risk of dictatorship. They conjure up the image of an imperious president, immune to parliamentary defeat and impervious to public opinion, ruling the country by fiat.
Of course, it does not help that Mrs Gandhi, during the Emergency, contemplated abandoning the parliamentary system for a modified form of Gaullism, thereby, discrediting the idea of presidential government in many democratic Indian eyes. But Mrs Gandhi is herself the best answer to such fears: she demonstrated with her Emergency rule that even a parliamentary system can be distorted to permit autocratic rule. Dictatorship is not the result of a particular type of governmental system.
In any case, to offset the temptation for a national president to become all-powerful, and to give real substance to the decentralisation essential for a country of India’s size, an executive chief minister or governor should also be directly elected in each of the states. The case for such a system in the states is even stronger than in the Centre.
Those who reject a presidential system on the grounds that it might lead to dictatorship may be assured that the powers of the president would thus be balanced by those of the directly-elected chief executives in the states.
Democracy, as I have argued elsewhere, is vital for India’s survival: our chronic pluralism is a basic element of what we are. Yes, democracy is an end in itself, and we are right to be proud of it. But few Indians are proud of the kind of politics our democracy has inflicted upon us. With the needs and challenges of one-sixth of humanity before our leaders, we must have a democracy that delivers progress to our people. Changing to a presidential system is the best way of ensuring a democracy that works.
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Link: SHASHI ON SUNDAY: India should switch to presidential system-All That Matters-Sunday Specials-Opinion-The Times of India |
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12-24-2007, 06:26 AM
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#3 (permalink)
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Contributor
Join Date: 02-27-07
Location: India
Country:
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I agree with this completely. The British parliamentary system is not working for India very well. Its a Khichadi (Spaghatti) of Legislative and Executive responsibilities with people getting elected to legislature in order to be eligible for the execultive.
Its leading to all kinds of problems with governments focussing more on longevity and making all sorts of compromises to achieve that instead of governance which should be their primary objective.
All they talk about now in the common minimum programme while they should really be trying to deliver on the maximum possible good governance.
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