Uncommon Presidents

“Poor cow
Pulls the plough
Poor horse
Whipped on the course
Poor tree
Rooted, unfree;
Poor earth
That gave us all birth...”
From Diseased Crocodiles by Bachchoo

Shenanigans in the Lok Sabha and the momentary paralysis of parliamentary rule have put the old debate about the form of democracy enshrined in the Indian Constitution back on the argumentative agenda. This time the debate can be heard at great distances from the select dining rooms of South Delhi’s chatterati.

It has been taken up by august opinion leaders such as Shashi Tharoor making a case for change.
Mr Tharoor argues, convincingly in many respects, for a presidential form on the American model involving the direct election of the President by the entire electorate.
The US does it through a collegiate system with each state having points in proportion to population. These are added and the winner takes all.
In the case of Al Gore being beaten by George W. Bush in 2000, the winner was a handful of votes ahead of the loser in Florida, a state whose governor was the winner’s brother. That narrow majority contained the postal votes of American soldiers overseas, a ballot whose proneness to “rigging” was questioned by very many observers and psephologists.
Mr Bush was elected and the US (and the world) had a President who led his country and its allies into two of the world’s most recent wars — the necessity for and outcome of both being still in question.
Mr Tharoor’s argument also gives the debate its historical context, beginning with the strictures against the presidential model offered by Dr B.R. Ambedkar himself while framing the Constitution under which India is governed today.
While agreeing with other critics of India’s existing arrangements and clearly seeing the advantages that a new system may have, even an outsider (I am a British citizen with no vote in India compared to Mr Tharoor who is an Indian MP) can spot some clear objections to the presidential mode.
Compared to America or Russia, India is a very diverse country. The US has, over the last 200 years, evolved what is loosely called the “the American dream”. This is, of course, a mythical construct and perhaps no two Americans will agree on its precise definition or on the 20 most important ingredients of the intangible dream. And yet I am willing to bet that if one draws up a list of ideals which contribute to the dream and ask Americans to tick the ones they passionately believe in, a vast majority will tick the boxes next to the same ones. “All Americans are born free” will not be contentious. “Competition not communism” would be another winner. I invite readers to think of 18 more — not a taxing task. Especially if you get into the territory of “America was born to kick foreign a**!”
This commonalty of a “dream” and a set of aspirations contribute to the facility with which any candidate, Republican or Democrat, can address electorates from New England to New Mexico. The states of the US certainly have characteristics and variegated needs, but there is a commonalty of electoral will with which the citizens go to the ballot box to choose candidates who may have contrasting views on gay marriage, on abortion, on the speed of withdrawal from foreign wars, on how to provide healthcare for all etc.
India, from Nagaland to Punjab to Kerala has no such common dream. The electorate which brought chief minister Mayawati to power in Uttar Pradesh voted on a caste basis and for a dream of pride and prosperity which manifestly didn’t appeal in other states where her party fielded candidates.
The strength of the Indian system is that it has allowed, if not a thousand, a good few bouquets of flowers to bloom. The ballot box has been the conduit to an imperfect but tangible beginning of caste emancipation, which, in a civilisation with severe vertical divides was absolutely necessary. Such emancipation may have occurred under a presidential system too, but it would have required a President who would extend patronage to those whom he or she selected or those whose votebanks were solicited to come to power.
The present Constitution, which allows numbers to speak for themselves, has more of a voice in a powerful Parliament (and remember India has had coalitions for very many of its 65 years) than in one that stamps the diktat of a President and his unelected Cabinet.
Would the Communist voice, prominent in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, have ever been heard under a presidential dispensation? Would President Indira have ever given former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu a ministerial berth or would a presidential India be reduced to an American-style two party choice with other parties getting no share at all?
In India the big question is who would the parties choose as their presidential candidates? In the first years of the democracy it would almost certainly have been Jawaharlal Nehru. But suppose in subsequent years through some quirk of Indian sentiment or piety a strong, strict Gandhian was chosen and won. Would our textile industry now consist of a few million charkhas making homespun fabric and our armed forces white-clad satyagrahis?
Assuming that Rahul Gandhi, by the time a new Constitution came into play, would be the Congress presidential candidate, would the BJP, the Left, the South, the Northeast, the Yadavs United and Mayawati field their own?
The Republicans in the US today are spoilt for choice between bigots and unelectable airheads. But even so, when they do choose it will be a run-off between their person and US president Barack Obama. In India if Mr Gandhi won against eight or 10 other candidates, what would become of his proposed legislation in a “Senate” and “Congress” that was divided 10 ways? If his party had a clear majority in both those Houses, he could have a clear run at government. If not we would have an even worse muddle and impasse than we have today.