Elections are as sacred as Sankranti

Elections are as sacred to India's democracy as ritual observance is to India's pious. Campaigns are super-spreader events, and so is the Gangasagar Mela, where tens of thousands of the devout travel from across the remotest locations to take a dip and wash away their sins.

Just as Sankranti cannot be postponed, neither can the elections. Both are sacred in their own ways. There may be no perfect solution to the problem of people gathering in large numbers for the public performance of piety or politics in pandemic times. Banning the public from political events, as the Election Commission has decided to do, is to curtail and therefore deny to the citizen the opportunity to participate in the democratic process.

Using the pandemic as a reason to curb public meetings for fear that these have the potential to turn into super spreaders by increasing the rate of transmission and putting the imperfect healthcare system under greater stress is a high handed decision antithetical to the spirit of democracy and participation. That the Election Commission seems oblivious of the implications of its decisions, and political parties are willing to go along with exposes collusion between the political establishment and the institutions of State to chip away at the right of citizens to freely participate in the democratic and political process.

Those clamouring for postponement of elections, be they local government or state assembly polls, are making a judgment that effectively disregards the sanctity of the elected process. The process, once begun, is difficult to reverse for many reasons, not least of which is the paramount concern about the term of the government and the complications that would follow if that term were to be extended. The argument as it is framed in public debates seems to point to a consensus that elections are a necessary but not very important evil and can be put on hold till "things" are better.

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The demand for a postponement was raised during the eight-phase West Bengal elections in May last year. It is being raised again in West Bengal as four municipalities head for elections. The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh elections are prompting calls for a rethink about the schedule. The Election Commission has put on hold public campaigning, and already complaints have been filed against the Samajwadi Party for its January 14, ostensibly virtual, but actually physical, meeting to celebrate the party's success in wooing OBC and Dalit heavyweights from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The pandemic has thrown up challenges, the solutions to which must be always imperfect. Elected governments, local to national, have a best before date and keeping to the timeline cannot become a political negotiation between incumbents and challengers, with the Election Commission of India or the State Election Commissions playing favourites in the expectation of rewards at a later point.

The call to defer the date of elections, once they have been announced, is like shouting to shut the gates after the horse has bolted. The process of holding elections in India has its own complexities and without taking these into account, calls for postponement sound like ill-considered irresponsible noise by people who should know better, especially as most of them, including the lawyers, tend to belong to the political class, anyway.

The announcement of every election in India comes with a condition - the Model Code of Conduct, under which the usual acts of government are suspended for the duration of the polls and other than routine administrative and police work, almost everything comes under scrutiny and supervision of the election authority. The code was put in place to prevent misuse of power. The code itself is powerful, and once it is invoked, revoking it is infinitely complicated.

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Once elections are scheduled, the incumbent government effectively becomes an interim arrangement till the new government is elected and appointed. Halting the process would mean that the state government would be neither a full-fledged incumbent nor a caretaker. Political parties and influential persons with opinions that they freely air have a responsibility to think harder before proposing a measure that is fraught with difficulties.

In practical terms, the difficulties of putting off an election once it is announced seem far greater than getting the election over and installing a new government. If the elections in the five states heading for the polls in February-March are postponed, the first question that would demand an immediate answer would be what happens to the budgets for 2022-2023? In pandemic times, there is any number of urgent decisions that have to be taken to safeguard the public interest. How easy would it be for caretaker governments operating indefinitely under the Model Code of Conduct to do what it must?

At another level, the demand for postponement is both mischievous and dangerous. The political establishment and public opinion makers knew well in advance that the pandemic was not over. They also knew that a new variant that was highly transmissible was spreading rapidly across the globe. They also knew the approximate date for the announcement of the elections to the five states. If indeed the political class and public opinion makers were genuinely concerned about the effects of campaigning and polling in pandemic times, should they not have initiated a democratic debate on the scheduling of elections long before the Election Commission made the announcement?

There is a difference between faking concern and genuine concern. There is a difference between scoring politically and avoiding making mischief. The postponement of elections, before or after it is announced by the Election Commission, is not a demand that responsible political parties ought to ever raise. If at all such a decision has to be taken because of dire circumstances, then it is for the Election Commission to invite political parties to a discussion on it.

The implication of a postponement is that some other arrangement has to be put in place for the government of the state to continue to function. Under the Constitution, there is only one mechanism available, and that is the controversial and draconian provision under Article 356, otherwise known as President's Rule, whenever "a situation has arisen in which the government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution." The provision gives the president the power to govern. Since presidents do not govern, the power is appropriated by the Union Home Ministry.

Deferring an election mid-way through the process invites the danger of the government of the state being supplanted by the Centre. A deferment mid-way would set a precedent, and that would be infinitely more dangerous to the idea of democracy and elections. Stalling the process of free and fair choice through elections because political parties want to score points and skew the proceedings is not an option that should ever be considered as a means of containing a known and ongoing public health crisis.

Postponement is not the only foolproof means to safeguard citizens' right to life in pandemic times. The State is duty-bound to protect the citizen's life, but there is no foolproof method of doing so in Covid times. A postponed election is not a guarantee that elections will not trigger waves of infection in the future, so long as there is a pandemic raging. The best that the Election Commission can do is convince political parties to follow the rules and minimise the risk because there is no way in which risk can be eliminated.

The public performance of piety and the public performance of politics share the imperatives of all performances – an actor and an audience. Visibility as an essential in the performance of crowdsourcing is so crucial for communication even when social media and its multiple platforms almost instantly disseminate well and ill-considered content from political leaders that elections without the audiences are simply not an option.

Tampering with elections can never be an option in a democracy because elections are not a necessary evil but as fundamental a right of citizens as the right to life. Flawed as the election process may be, irrelevant as it is for those who do not vote out of cynical disregard, it is the only process that millions of Indians have to exercise the power of choice and hold power to account. The act of voting is as sacred as the Sankranti. If the state, in this instance, West Bengal, can arrange to reduce risks to pilgrims at Gangasagar, the Election Commission can find ways to reduce the risk to voters and hold elections on schedule without distracting and inappropriate discussions.

(Shikha Mukerjee is a journalist based in Kolkata)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.