JOIN USElection Commissioner OP Rawat has done well to draw the nation’s attention to the degradation in the nature of politics and the deterioration in the conduct of its practitioners and to sound a warning about the direction of the polity. Although such cautionary statements are not new, they have a special meaning when constitutional authorities make them. At a conference on political and electoral reforms in Delhi, Rawat spoke of the increasing moral deficit in politics and about the “maximum premium on winning at all costs — to the exclusion of ethical considerations”. He also pointed to the narrative in which poaching of legislators is extolled as smart political management and the use of money and intimidation is commended as resourcefulness. A culture in which the winner can commit no sin and a defector is freed of all guilt and criminality has taken hold, and this is the new normal of political morality.
Rawat made the comments soon after the drama over the election to a Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat in which every act of malfeasance mentioned by him was in full play. Some Congress MLAs were coaxed to support the BJP, the residual Congress flock was herded to Karnataka for safekeep, the keeper was raided, and all this happened in a murky world of allurements and intimidation. If these were the lows of politics, the Election Commission’s invalidation of the votes of two rebel Congress MLAs marked a high and was in the best tradition of institutional vigil and supervision. The EC’s action retrieved the credibility of the system, but it should be noted that the commission could act only because fortuitously there was photographic evidence of a malpractice. Rawat’s point is that the malpractice is held to be a virtue and becomes the new normal in a vitiated milieu.
Rawat’s warning has a meaning and significance that goes beyond what happened in Gujarat. The leader who does anything to win is lauded as a Chanakya and so his every activity and move is aimed at victory. But democracy is about values and fair play and respect for the opposition. It is as much about losing as about winning. Most numerical majorities in legislatures are based on a minority of votes in a first-past-the-post system, and that should make the winners aware of the majority of voters that are stacked against them. Basically, Rawat was reminding parties that democracy is more about means than about ends. Elections are its life-blood, but politics should not be only for winning them. The man who holds elections has put them in the right perspective.