Amendment to President's Address
POLITICS GAINS, NATION LOSES
By Amba Charan Vashishth
On March 9 the opposition led by
Congress succeeded in carrying through its amendment to the Vote of Thanks to
the President for his Address to the joint session of Parliament regretting
that the President's Address did not support the rights of citizens to contest
in panchayat elections, in the backdrop of restrictions imposed in Haryana and
Rajasthan. If the objective of was just to score a political point the attempt
did succeed. Deliberately or otherwise, however the Congress party glossed over
the fact that the constitutional validity of the law passed by the BJP government
in Haryana to which Congress referred to while pressing for the amendment, had
been upheld by the Supreme Court (SC) of India. The amendment is also, in no
way, a binding obligation on the government. In the process, however, it was no
gain for the nation.
Earlier, arguing that the amendment could not be moved in
Parliament as it was a State subject, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: “If we put this to vote, every State will
have the right to move a resolution criticising the decisions made by Parliament.” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah
Naidu pointed out that the right to contest elections was not a fundamental
right, unlike the right to vote.
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A bench
comprising justices J. Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre in December 2015
had dismissed a plea challenging the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act,
2015, and upheld all the amendments which provided for criteria of minimum essential
educational qualification of matriculation for general candidates and Class
VIII for women in the general category as well as scheduled caste candidates;
they should have a functional toilet at home, not having defaulted in
cooperative loans or having outstanding dues on rural domestic electricity
connections and not charged by a court for a grave criminal offence to be
eligible to contest local body elections.
“It is only education which gives a human being the power to
discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad,” the court said while
upholding the imposition of specific educational qualifications.
In December 2014, Rajasthan too had brought in the Rajasthan
Panchayati Raj (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2014 providing for a minimum
qualification of Class X for contesting the zilla parishad or panchayat
samiti polls and Class VIII to contest sarpanch elections.
It is pertinent to recall that a Cabinet minister in Bihar had
recently to be administered oath for a second time because he had failed to
read some words correctly. In the second attempt too, he fumbled. He had studied
upto XII and his brother, also a minister, had quit class IX.
A news channel recently showed that some candidates contesting
Panchayat Pradhan election in UP did not know even the name of the Prime
Minister and the President of India.
These incidents once again highlight the need for some minimum
educational qualification not just for Panchayatiraj and urban local body
institutions but also for our lawmakers both in the State and at the national
level. The quality of legislation is determined by the quality of our
legislature to usher in a better life for the people. Elected persons need to
be able to read, write and understand what is brought before them for
consideration and orders.
But, it looks the forces of status quo do not wish to come out
of the 20th century ethos to join the present 21stcentury
running in its second decade. They seem bent upon thwarting any attempt
at making the process of administration, legislation and justice more
relevant to the situation that has changed during the past 68 years.
In the Constituent Assembly Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who later
became India's first President, did insist on providing some minimum
qualification for legislators but Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru rejected the proposal.
Yet, the suggestion remains not unreasonable and illogical. Pandit Nehru was
then only trying to be more pragmatic to the situation then prevailing. When
the British left India free in 1947, the country had a literacy percentage of
just 12. Providing minimum qualifications then would certainly have deprived
an overwhelming majority of 88 percent from the opportunity to contest
elections. But the literacy situation in the country has gone through a
revolutionary upsurge since then. India now commands a literacy percentage of
74.4 in 2011 and it should have improved further by now.
It is also a fact that members of the Constituent Assembly
which framed our Constitution were persons of eminence in their own right despite
the fact that at that time there was no essential minimum educational
qualification to be a member of the house. So about the council of ministers
headed by Pandit Nehru at the Centre and Congress leaders in States at that
time.
It is a fallacious assumption and argument to say that the
Haryana law, in any way, deprives citizens of their "right to
participate in the affairs of the polity of the country" because persons
contesting an election to such bodies do not constitute even 0.00001 percent
of the total electorate.
Let us also not forget that on August 27, 2014 SC opined that
"time has come for Parliament to prescribe some minimum qualifications
for Parliamentarians/Legislators as prescribed in other fields". It
"recalled the words of the first President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, in the
Constituent Assembly that he would have liked to have some qualifications
laid down for Members of Legislatures".
A member of the zila parishad, panchayat samiti, and gram
panchayat — as also to State and Central legislatures — should be a literate
person able to appreciate and understand the intricacies of law governing
Panchayati Raj institutions. Otherwise, he/she will end up a parasite on
others unable to do justice either to the office to which he has been elected
or to those who elected him.
The executive, legislature and judiciary are the three pillars
of democracy. These must be run by literate persons of wisdom, intelligence
and merit and not by illiterate and mediocre ones. Some of the ills facing
the country owe their origin to the lack of essentials the States of Haryana
and Rajasthan have provided. Let us shun away from turning our executive and
legislature to be the institutions of the elite or aristocracy and, at the same
time, not reduce these to be institutions of mediocrity — a situation the
country can afford only at its peril.
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