Minimum government, maximum governance: A mess of electoral legitimacy |
The three democratic tools available to us are vote, court and protest. The only one on which Indians have true agency is protest.
Voting is considered to be the same thing as democracy as if democracy vanishes between elections. For decades, the election process in India has been accretive in adding prestige and credibility. That phase is behind us.The constitution says that every Indian over 18, who is not "disqualified under this Constitution or any law made by the appropriate Legislature on the ground of non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practice," shall be entitled to be registered as a voter at any such election.This direction is more like a suggestion to the present election commission. It assumed, no doubt on the orders of the government, that its exercise to gratuitously put crores of people through trauma, would carry on undisturbed.
A survey of how many rollbacks and clarifications it has issued over the last four weeks throws up a list of about one dozen.
These include a ’special enrolment drive’ to bring in people left out by the previous special disenfranchisement drive. Then there is the removal of a declaration for some people, a waiver for in-person appearance for other people, reviewing of flawed software, limiting (but not ending) the malicious practice of objections being filed by third party individuals........