The manner in which India conducts elections is globally acclaimed. Once the poll dates are announced the model code of conduct comes into action. The model code is nothing but crystallized dos and don’ts for the political parties and candidates and its underlying wisdom is the democratic values of the Constitution. The credibility of the electoral process would be compromised in the absence of such rigorous code of conduct. Admittedly, elections deciding the destiny of the nation for at least five years have to necessarily take place in an atmosphere of peace, equality and fairness.
It is customary for the media to show the privileged ministers and political leaders standing in the queue at the polling stations, literally rubbing shoulders with the poor and the less privileged citizens, who are subsumed in the simple and resounding phrase, We, the People of India. They of course are used to standing in long queues! The sense of equality of all, literally felt during an election, somehow has not been internalized in our body polity. Once elections are over and the mantle of state authority falls on the winners, the ethos of equality lapses into an abstraction.
While the Constitutional values are visibly operative as during the polls, the citizens, no doubt, feel important and empowered. They become aware of their promised dignity, rights and guaranteed equality. The model code reiterates these fundamental values and offers to penalise those who violate them. Beyond the polls, the onus of sustaining these very values in our polity is on the elected government of the day. However, the Constitutional promises of equality, freedom and dignity remain elusive for the majority of ordinary citizens. Unless these values become a reality for all, democracy will remain an unfinished project.
The litmus test of democracy is the sense of freedom, equality and human dignity. The apathy and unfairness of administrative systems, corruption, arrogance and indifference of the ruling class, the several draconian legislations that deny justice to the citizens are all contrary to the promise of equality and freedom, hailed and practiced during elections.
Recently the Official Secrets Act was in the news. Voices that seek to either scrap this century-old law or at least harmonise it with the values of democracy and modern technological realities are not even a whimper in our national debates. It can always be claimed that we have enacted the Right to Information Act. However, experience has shown that governments are more comfortable holding back information than sharing it.
A casual reading of any communication received from a government office will vouch this. The ‘information’ offered under the Right to Information Act is often thrifty and conceals more than what it reveals. The Right to Service Act which seeks to guarantee the citizens, services notified has been half-heartedly implemented or shelved by several state governments. (Karnataka seems to have taken it up seriously.)
We have witnessed time and again how the magic wand of state power transforms the VVIP who once stood in the queue on the polling day into an exclusive incarnation cordoned away by the security personnel. The dominant view is that the freedom and rights of the ordinary citizen can wait for this cavalcade to pass.
This is almost a fait accompli and we the people are used to it. It would appear that Indian democracy places a higher value on the privileges of the government and its functionaries than the rights of the governed. Once such an idiom is accepted without demur, it becomes easy to enact stringent laws and justify them. Human rights and activism become suspects. Then talking truth to power becomes dangerous. Voicing concern over human rights violations and anxiety over environmental devastation are no longer looked upon as necessary alerts.
Constitutional rights highlighted and enforced during the electoral process are not special privileges available to the citizen only during elections. They are only specially flagged by the model code to facilitate free and fair election. It does not imply that once the model code ceases to be operational, the fundamental rights which have enlivened it cease to be relevant. Sadly enough, in the larger canvas of governance, freedom and equality get routinely compromised without being questioned, except in individual instances when the matter is brought before a court.
True, the Constitution gives power to the executive to impose ‘reasonable restrictions’ on these rights in the larger public interest. We have seen that ‘larger public interest’ has been defined variously, ranging from political convenience and calculation of the ruling party, VVIP security, terror threat, national security, law and order, resource crunch, administrative exigency and several such alibis. Regardless of the special laws enacted from time to time to safeguard the vulnerable sections of the population, sluggish and mechanical implementation often thwarts the very rights they seek to protect.
That such apathy is nothing but an abject denial of the Constitutional rights and entitlements of the citizens is hardly ever appreciated in bureaucratic or political discourse. Even as the model code of conduct regulates the performance during polls, there needs to be a stricter model code of governance for the elected. That model code of performance and accountability should have the values of democratic freedom, equality and dignity of the citizen as its inner core.