Jagdeep S. Chhokar 
Political commentary comes in two broad forms. The commentator either supports a particular ideology or political thinking, or tends or pretends to be neutral and tries to explain events or situations seemingly “objectively”. Regardless of the form, most political commentary tends to count trees and overlook the forest. Here’s an attempt to look at the forest.
After the Delhi assembly elections, it is time to congratulate the Bharatiya Janata Party and acknowledge that they have not only succeeded in achieving their avowed goal of Congress-mukt Bharat – India free from Congress – but have almost achieved an opposition-mukt Bharat. Despite the hopes of the ever-optimistic commentariat, there seem to be only one and a half regional parties standing – the one being the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the half, the Trinamool Congress. Given that the BJP juggernaut has tamed all the rest, it possibly is only a matter of time before these also fall or decide to follow the line.
It is often said that opposition parties are short-sighted or selfish, are not able to control their egos to unite in the interest of saving the nation or democracy. It is also said that the juggernaut is too smart or powerful, or both, and is able to create conditions that the opposition parties cannot come together, a repetition of the familiar “divide and rule” that we often used to blame the British for.
Both of the above may well be true but are those the sole explanation of the phenomenal success of the juggernaut? Unlikely. There are two others that need mention: religion and institutions.
Enough, or more, has been written about religion but I believe it is the institutions, or more specifically, institutional capture that has contributed very significantly to this success.
Academic and journalistic discourse on democracy has often discussed and underscored the critical role of institutions in preventing a democratic society from sliding into majoritarianism. It was highlighted by Fareed Zakaria in his 2003 book titled The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. The matter has also been explained by two political science professors from Harvard University, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their 2018 masterpiece How Democracies Die. While focussing more on the US, they also use experiences of some other countries to explain ‘democratic backsliding’ where elected leaders can use the tools of the democratic process itself to increase their power to the extent that they overpower democracy.
This is the process that is in evidence in how democracy’s institutions have been compromised here too. Institutions most often mentioned in this context are the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Income Tax department. There are, however, more fundamental institutions, constitutional institutions – those set up by the constitution itself. Some of these are discussed below.
Institutions captured: President
The first and foremost institution that has been compromised is the institution of the presidency, or the president.
Article 55 of the constitution provides that “The President shall be elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of: (a) the elected members of both Houses of Parliament; and (b) the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States.”
The president is thus elected by the people of India but indirectly, through their elected representatives. As we will see below, the election of the so-called elected representatives depends on the process that elects these representatives. The question of the election of the president has been raised earlier as far back as 2012. Citizens have approached the president for violations of democratic norms repeatedly. See for example here, here, and here. All such letters have not brought forth any response.
It is recognised that, as provided in Article 74 of the constitution, the president is required to “act in accordance with” the advice of “the Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head”, “in the exercise of his functions” but there is no express bar for the President to act in accordance with her/his conscience in unprecedented situations. It is for such contingencies that Article 86 of the constitution provides for the president to either “address either of both Houses assembled together” or “may send messages to either House of Parliament, whether with respect to a Bill then pending in Parliament or otherwise, and a House to which any message is so sent shall with all convenient despatch consider any matter required by the message to be taken into consideration.”
Article 86 has not been used by any of the recent presidents. As a matter of fact, there has been an unprecedented situation of a former president heading a committee set up by the government of the day.
This is not a comment of any individual incumbent but on the discussions (if they happen at all) in the few sittings, the time spent on discussion of bills, following its own laid down procedure during introduction and processing of bills, sense of decorum (or lack of it), or anything else, Parliament is no longer the “temple of democracy” it was supposed to be. This is not new. It has been going on at least for over 13 years because it was also written about in 2012 under the title ‘Denigration of Parliament.’
Institutions captured: Judiciary
Then follows the judiciary, represented at the very top by the Supreme Court of India, famously referred to as the ‘last bastion of the common man’. The history of our Supreme Court has been mixed over the years. It has also been said that the behaviour of the judiciary tends to oscillate between strong and weak depending on the strength it perceives with the executive. The judiciary tends to be brave when it perceives the executive to be not so strong, in the form of a coalition government, but its behaviour becomes softer when there is single-party government with a strong majority.
This has been in evidence over the last few years. The Supreme Court has blown hot and cold. There have been many brave obiter dicta but the judgments have been mixed. Its behaviour in the recent case about the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the Election Commissioners (ECs) is illustrative. Many other examples can be cited but it is not necessary to do that. The behaviour of some of the former Chief Justices post-retirement, and that of several judges of the Supreme Court has also not inspired much confidence in this extremely important institution.
Institutions captured: EC
The next institution of tremendous concern is the Election Commission of India (EC). The EC also has had a mixed history. Despite its stellar and path-breaking work in the early days of the republic, it was hardly in the public eye till one particular individual, T.N. Seshan, was appointed as the chief election commissioner (CEC) in 1990. He remained in the job till 1996. His tenure also made the nation aware of the importance of the institution and the enormous power it could wield under the constitution. After him, there have been many CECs who carried on his legacy and the EC earned the encomium of the gold standard among election management bodies all over the world. This well-earned reputation seems to have been gradually eroding over the last few years. The root cause has been traced to the process used to appoint incumbents to the positions of the CEC and the ECs.
The issue of appointment of the CEC was discussed at length and vigorously in the Constituent Assembly. All the participants in the debates in the Constituent Assembly unambiguously wanted that the CEC should be completely independent of the executive and not be under any influence of the executive at all. The difference of opinion was on how should this be ensured.
Several ways of ensuring this were debated and the final compromise arrived at came in the form of Article 324(2) which said that the CEC and the ECs will be appointed by the president “subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by parliament.” The parliament never made any law and these appointments continued to be made by the president at the advice of the prime minister. This matter was brought to the attention of the Supreme Court, and the court, on March 2, 2023, directed the parliament to make a law as mentioned in Article 324(2) and suggested a collegium for this purpose till the parliament made a law. Following the letter of the Supreme Court’s judgment, the parliament did make a law in December 2023 but this law completely overlooked the spirit of the Supreme Court’s judgment and changed the composition of the collegium from what was suggested by the Supreme Court.
This law has been challenged in the Supreme Court and it was the hearing of this petition that was mentioned as an illustration of the vacillating behaviour of the Supreme Court.
Institutions captured: CAG
The last of the constitutional institutions that seems to have been captured is the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). Till about 10 to 15 years ago, the CAG was considered to be a very important institutions which kept a hawk’s eye on the expenditures incurred by the government. Its reports often proved to be of great public importance and were discussed in depth not only in Parliament but also in the public sphere. The importance of its reports can be gauged from the fact that one of its reports can arguably be held to be the major contributory cause to the fall of a union government.
Also read: Looking for a ‘Lapata’ Vinod Rai
Over the years, however, the CAG appears to have almost disappeared from the public eye. One hardly hears of its reports, to the extent that it is not clear if it has submitted any reports in recent years. No report seems to have been presented and discussed in the parliament.
Institutions captured: RBI
Another institution, though it is not a constitutional institution, worth mentioning is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It is a statutory body because it was set up through the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1935. Traditionally, it has had considerable, almost total, institutional independence although it has been under the control of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India after it was nationalised in 1949.
It is headed by a governor who has traditionally been appointed by the government of the day. Traditionally again, its governors have been persons with reasonable knowledge of economics, often well-known economists even internationally. These traditions have often been ignored in recent years, also resulting in some unprecedented actions by the RBI like transferring parts of it surplus to the government. This ‘surplus transfer’ is done under the Economic Capital Framework (ECF) which was developed in 2014-15 and operationalised in 2015-16. Later, The central board of the RBI, in consultation with the Government of India, constituted an expert committee chaired by Bimal Jalan, on December 26, 2018. The central board of the RBI accepted all recommendations of the committee in its meeting on August 26, 2019.
The latest indicator of the RBI’s independence, or otherwise, came just as this piece was being written. A Governor of the RBI who recently demitted the position, has been, on February 22, 2025, appointed as a second Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Lessons from constitution-makers
Before we draw any conclusions from the above, it is worth recalling what two of the major architects of our constitution had to say. B.R. Ambekar said the following on November 25, 1949, during his last speech in the Constituent Assembly:
“I shall not therefore enter into the merits of the Constitution. Because I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how the people of India and their purposes or will they prefer revolutionary methods of achieving them? If they adopt the revolutionary methods, however good the Constitution may be, it requires no prophet to say that it will fail. It is, therefore, futile to pass any judgement upon the Constitution without reference to the part which the people and their parties are likely to play (Italics added).
The next day, on November 26, 1949, Rajendra Prasad, the president of the Constituent Assembly, while putting the resolution moved by Ambedkar (“That the Constitution as settled by the Assembly be passed”) to vote, said the following:
“After all, a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them. There is a fissiparous tendency arising out of various elements in our life. We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences. We can only hope that the country will throw up such men in abundance” (Italics added).
Both these constitution-makers are telling us that guiding documents, instruments, institutions, all depend on one single factor: the people who run or work them. People work at several levels. First, The People, we, elect those who, in turn, work the constitution and its instrumentalities. Among the instrumentalities are the institutions that have been discussed above. These institutions are worked by a different set of people, who are appointed by those who are supposed to work the constitution.
To extract and paraphrase from Rajendra Prasad, institutions acquire “life because of the men who control (them) and operate (them), and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them.”
In conclusion, it can be said that
- The BJP deserves to be congratulated in almost achieving an opposition-free political landscape.
- This seems to have been achieved by decimating the opposition parties and institutional capture.
- Since a strong opposition is a necessity for an effective democracy to function, the opposition parties have failed the nation and its people.
- Going by the observations of B.R. Ambedkar and Rajendra Prasad on the importance of people who elect the people to work the constitution, the People of India have failed the nation.
Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a concerned citizen of India.