The Delimitation Commission of India possesses two critical functions. The first constitutes determining boundaries of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies based on census data. The second – as stipulated by Article 82 of the constitution – requires that the number of Lok Sabha seats per state is recalibrated after each census, by the Delimitation Commission, in accordance with the population numbers and ratios of all states.
The second function has remained dormant for nearly 50 years since the Emergency. The last census upon which delimitation took place was conducted in 1971. The Finance Commission currently apportions funds based on population figures from the 1971 census. In 1976, then prime minister Indira Gandhi placed a suspension on the delimitation of seats for 25 years, until 2001.
The suspension on changes to the apportionment of seats was extended in 2002, per the 84th amendment to the constitution, and is due to expire by 2026. Any upcoming delimitation would have very real and significant implications for all states in the country. Prudence and pragmatism are needed in ensuring that the changes reflect the holistic democratic interests of the country.
Concerns and principles
There are certain guiding principles that should prove to be rather uncontentious.
The first consideration is that the best-performing democracies are often ones that are undergirded by a unifying sense of purpose and commitment to national development. Economically productive states, buoyed up by slower population growth rates and more concentrated investment into the stock of human capital, play a key role in ensuring India’s continued rise on the global stage as a genuine powerhouse. India’s three richest states (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat) are three times richer than its three poorest states, and have also been some of the most forward-looking and compliant states on population management.
A state’s successful management of fertility rates goes hand-in-hand with strengthening its economic bargaining power, quality of innovation, and ‘investability’. As V. Venkatesan noted in an article for The Hindu in 2001, the Constitution (Ninety-First) Amendment Bill was implemented to ensure that states were not penalised for sound track records in family planning and containing their population growth rates.
For Indian democracy to sustainably flourish, we must take into account the incentive structures engendered by public policies.
The second consideration concerns fairness. Fair play is necessary but insufficient for democracies to succeed. As it stands, the Indian political system is somewhat skewed against more economically developed states, which include but are not limited to states in the South. With 21% of the national population, South Indian states contribute over 30% of India’s national GDP. Select states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu received less than Rs 30 from the Union government in 2016-2017 per Rs 100 they contributed towards the Central government, whilst states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh received around Rs 200 and Rs 150. Reforms since then have not performed the much needed redistribution in favour of states that have taken up the lion’s share of burdens in driving the Indian economy forward through digitalisation and agrarian modernisation.
Indeed, a delimitation – at this point – would only further exacerbate already-rife inequalities that place into question the fairness of this country’s fiscal and taxation system. If we believe that democracies should recognise hard work, net utility, and economic productivity as instrumental in establishing institutional fairness, then we must think twice about delimitation as a practical proposition.
Also read: Census, Delimitation and the Increased Seating Capacity of New Parliament
The third consideration concerns the importance of balancing the plurality of interests and demographic groups whose buy-in is vital to the sustenance of the Indian democratic project. Estimates suggest that the new delimitation would give rise to 222 seats for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (as compared with 120 at present), 165 for the five Southern States (129 at present). The net result is a substantial reduction in the proportion of seats for states that have adopted more proactive measures in restraining population growth over the past decades.
To put this into further perspective, the proportion of seats accorded to states where the BJP is dominant may increase from 40% at present to about 51%, whilst reducing the percentage of MPs in the South from 25% to 18%.
The authors of this piece do not agree completely with simplistic narratives portraying this as purportedly unfair or procedurally unjust. The level of support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has enjoyed across vast swathes of the Indian demographic should be acknowledged as valid and significant. Yet such support must also be balanced against the interests, preferences, and values of states that are not conventional BJP strongholds. Both the North and the South matter. Robust regional representation is crucial for long-term political stability.
A commonly lodged challenge is that without the upcoming delimitation, the average number of people represented by each seat in the Lok Sabha would vary precipitously across states, thereby precipitating an inequality in representation. Are we not all equal?
An underlying issue
Yet this argument merely conceals the fact that the underlying problem that has long plagued Indian democracy: the fundamental hegemony of the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system gives rise to unhealthy, winner-take-all vicious politics on a state level. FPTP renders it the case that all who vote for candidates who do not belong to the plurality-winning party within a particular constituency are fundamentally voiceless. It means that a party with perhaps just slightly over 30% vote share in a constituency can acquire the purported right to rule with a complete majority, shutting out the remaining 70% of voters who may be split between 4 to 5 parties.
We would do well to remember that FPTP tends to work best in small or medium-sized homogenous countries where ethnic rifts and sectarian rivalries are less stark and apparent. In a country as heterogeneous and complex as India, then, the quest for preserving a healthy, thriving democracy motivates an electoral system that can proportionately and accountably represent the voices of all individuals, regardless of their race and ethnicity, religiosity or caste.
Delimitation would not only exacerbate the disparities between states and regions, but it would also conceal the underlying roots of the democratic deficit we experience today. Most worryingly, it pits Indian citizens against one another across arbitrary, divisive cleavages – North vs South, Hindi vs non-Hindi, so on and so forth.
The Indian citizenry, in theory, united by a shared love for a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, and all-encompassing Indian identity could well be split asunder by the untimely reopening of historical wounds and ideological debates.
India could do better than to submit to the volatility and vicissitudes of ceaseless and ultimately futile bickering over the number of seats assigned to different states and cities. It could do better by focussing on improving accountability of the Union government to its people, and the strengthening of ties and mutual assistance between wealthier and poorer states, without imposing undue burdens or restrictions on voters.
Salem Dharanidharan is a spokesperson for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and a Co-Founder of the Oxford Policy Advisory Group. He also serves as Tamil Nadu state deputy secretary for the DMK IT wing. Brian Wong is a Rhodes Scholar and DPhil in Politics candidate at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and a Co-Founder of the Oxford Policy Advisory Group.