The Law Must Bite

It has been said often, but not often enough, that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. According to Marcus Olson, power makes all politicians behave like robbers, of whom some are very bad and others less so. The first kind encounters his victims but once. He acts like a highway robber and takes away all he can. The second kind lives with his victims and milks them. In order to get a good yield, he nurtures the sufferers quite well. We cannot prevent politicians from exploiting us. At best, we can induce them to milk us gradually rather than rob us of everything.

Democracy divides the polity into opposing parties and sets up periodic battles among them. In the process, neither victory nor defeat is permanent: after a while, victors have to prove themselves, and losers get a chance to redeem themselves. In that manner, no one is allowed to acquire absolute power and thus become absolutely corrupt. Thus, even though democracy may not do away with political corruption completely, it'll keep venality within tolerable bounds.

This kind of check collapses when warring politicians unite. There is no greater danger to the ordinary citizen than unity among politicians emerging out of self-interest. In India, apart from occasional sparring, politicians of all hues and creeds have been united on the issue of corruption. That is the main reason why, as Transparency International has pointed out once again, India ranks amongst the most corrupt nations in the world. While true democracy is a deterrent against corruption, the kind India practises is hardly capable of that.

There are three levels of wrong-doing. At the lowest level, laws are transgressed secretly, with fear and shame. On the second level, there's no fear and bad deeds are committed openly albeit a little shamefacedly. In the final stage, there is neither fear nor shame. India's politicians have, in their corruption, arrived at this ultimate destination.

So, all political parties in India have come together to resist the Election Commission's order asking all candidates to disclose their antecedents. In self-defence, senior politicians have put forward four main arguments: one, the EC has exceeded its jurisdiction. Two, the goodness or badness of a candidate cannot be legally defined. Three, the EC order will hurt good candidates no less than the bad ones. Four, the voters do not care whether a candidate is illiterate, criminal or corrupt. Hence, why bother.

These politicians are clever enough to persuade the gullible. Hence, their arguments require a rebuttal. One, they are right when they argue that the EC has exceeded its brief. That does not, however, imply they themselves have the absolute right to stop voters from knowing the antecedents of candidates. Two, it is true that judgements are often self-contradictory. That is because legal tradition prefers to set a hundred criminals free rather than convict one innocent. But legal convention can't be an excuse to let a hundred criminals enter the legislature for fear of blocking one innocent aspirant. Three, it is true that voters have elected a number of suspected criminals. If criminals have succeeded, that is because they have used criminal methods to prevent voters from electing honest aspirants. The fact that criminals have been elected in the past is no proof that voters want criminals.

Our politicians have taken to robbing, and not milking, because they have little hope of (or interest in) contesting from the same constituency twice. Suppose it's ruled that sitting legislators and MPs can't switch constituencies and may contest only in their old constituency and from nowhere else, then they'll have a greater incentive to nurture their constituency well. That may lead to "pork barrel" kind of politics that prevails in the US.But that is better than outright robbery.

According to a recent study, a minimum of Rs 80 lakh was spent by serious candidates in the last parliamentary elections, and the average cost was twice as much. That high cost drives away many honest aspirants. State funding of elections is the only remedy. However, that raises the question of who all should be funded by the state. At present, there are over 600 parties recognised by the EC. That is ridiculously large. We need a simple, transparent rule to bring down that number so it's within manageable limits. In developed democracies, the quantum of state funding is decided by the amount a candidate is able to raise from the public. In India, this method is unlikely to check black money and the criminalisation that goes with it because our politicians have a convenient way of whitewashing black money. They organise large gatherings where "a grateful public presents them with a large purse".

A better option is to conduct a poll among taxpayers, and let the state equally fund every candidate who has at least 3-5 per cent of taxpayer support. Then, political parties will be forced to source their funds from genuine taxpayers rather than from the black market. The figure of 3-5 per cent is so small that a candidate who cannot gain even that minuscule a support from taxpayers is unlikely to be a winnable candidate. Besides, anyone who can't gain even this support from genuine taxpayers, but is glad to accept black money, doesn't deserve state support to fight elections. Since the rule ensures the same level of state funding for all the 'legitimate' candidates, it can be said to have a satisfactory dose of socialism too.

Just as the devil quotes the scripture to suit its purpose, our politicians are quoting the law to further their own hegemony. When the Supreme Court takes up the issue, it would do well to insist that however supreme Parliament might be, it is not above the law of ordinary morality.