Electors & the elected

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment and he betrays you instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.
Edmund Burke, speech at Bristol 1774

It’s a strange coincidence that just when Parliament is celebrating its 60th anniversary, the disconnect between the electors and the elected is becoming more and more pronounced. After Arvind Kejriwal now it is Baba Ramdev who has indulged in name calling of our members of Parliament. Expectedly, both of them have received flack from the parliamentarians and others as well. While members of the civil society and Parliament may continue with their war of words, it is enlightening to know how members of the public view these allegations and counter-allegations. If the comments that readers routinely post below a news item on a newspaper portal are any indication, eight out of 10 see nothing wrong about such comments, no matter how irresponsible they are.
But the real issue is not the comments or the objections to them. What is more important is looking into the factors that have adversely affected the relationship between people and their representatives. Withering away of the bond between the voters and the voted doesn’t augur well for the health of our representative democracy. If this distance is not bridged, democracy will not be deemed as “of the people” as envisaged by US President Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysberg speech.
Why do the very people who elect a representative tend to disown him/her almost the very next day? Why do those who praise an elected representative publicly assail almost the entire politician community privately? Why is there so much derision and contempt all around about those whom we do not mind voting for? Why has the sense of belonging towards our elected houses been evaporating so unmistakably every time? Where exactly has the bonding between the electors and the elected gone?
There are obviously multiple factors responsible for this situation. Not that people do not want to love the leaders they elect. Quality deficit in their leaders understandably puts the people off. More importantly, the crisis of purpose that has haunted politics of today has now got on the nerves of the people. They hardly believe that politicians fight elections genuinely for the cause of serving the people. The sensationalism of our media does not help matters; the media tends to overlook the contribution of serious, silently functioning, committed and studious elected representatives. As a consequence, the image of an elected representative today is far more distorted than ever before.
Another important reason behind the public disdain for elected politicians is the weak connectivity between the electors and the elected. People who face some problem approach an elected representative with the hope of redressing their grievance. Rarely, those who want to offer some suggestions or give some policy inputs also meet an elected representative. But those who do not seek any favour or have no particular work with the elected representative hardly think of visiting him and nor does the elected representative care to keep in touch with his electors after election. The majority of the electors end up feeling that the one whom they have elected hardly bothers for them. This adds to the existing chasm.
Third and, perhaps, the most vital reason is the nature of our electoral system. First-past-the-post system adopted by us has done much harm to our body polity. It has converted electoral battle into a matter of mastering the technique of winning elections. Besides, it has promoted divisive tendencies, as the victory in our elections hinges more on dividing the negative votes than accumulating the positive ones. If an electoral system facilitates the victory of a candidate who gets a mere 20 per cent votes and ignores the huge (80 per cent) popular opinion that has rejected him/her outright, how would the elected have legitimacy in the eyes of the electors?
All this has contributed to the chasm between the electors and the elected. And what we see today is that the aam aadmi does not think twice before denouncing the politician or calling him names. This crisis of disconnect has been compounded by our continued neglect of political parties as institutions. With no mechanism for monitoring the functioning of political parties and a deafening silence on the front of electoral reforms, let alone all encompassing political reforms — this distance is bound to grow. It was proper on the part of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to admonish Baba Ramdev and members of Team Anna for their intemperate utterances. But let’s not forget that if these overzealous activists keep their mouths shut, that will not bring back the missing bond between electors and the elected or will lead to self-correction of the system. In the United Kingdom, in 2000, a commission headed by Lord Norton was set up to look into the ways and means of strengthening Parliament. In the foreword of his report, Lord Norton observed, “Parliament has a number of functions that it has generally fulfilled effectively. However, there is an imbalance in the relationship between Parliament and the Executive. There is a need to ensure that Parliament can
call government to account.”
Sixty years ago we decided to institutionalise our democracy on the British model. Now we realise that we have inherited the infirmities of the system as well. But in Britain there is a quest for solutions. There is no reason why this passion for finding answers should be in short supply here.

The writer is director of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an academy for elected representatives in Mumbai