Disenfranchising the poor

The right to contest elections may not be a statutory or legal right but it definitely is the essential feature of democratic process

Last month, the Supreme Court in a far reaching judgement upheld the Haryana government’s decision to bar certain categories of citizens from contesting local elections. The judgement delivered by a two-judge bench in the Rajbala and others versus the State of Haryana maintained the constitutionality of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015, which listed the following categories as criteria for ineligibility to contest local elections: (i) persons against whom charges are framed in criminal cases for offences punishable with imprisonment for not less than 10 years, (ii) persons who fail to pay arrears, if any, owed by them to either a Primary Agricultural Cooperative Society or District Central Cooperative Bank or District Primary Agricultural Rural Development Bank, (iii) persons who have arrears of electricity bills, (iv) persons who do not possess the specified educational qualification and lastly (v) persons not having a functional toilet at their residence.

While there is no disagreeing with the court’s verdict on legal grounds of the supremacy of the state legislature to define criteria for eligibility to contest elections, the issue at hand is not the legality of the decision. As the judgement rightly points out, there have been various disqualifications for contesting elections at different levels and these have also been modified from time to time. The issue is not whether a certain category of citizens can be debarred from contesting, but what kind of disqualifications can be treated as valid. And it is this issue which is at the core of not only the functioning of the democracy in the country but, more importantly, the relationship between state and citizens.

There are certain categories of disqualifications which are applicable in the case of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, too. These are, apart from age restrictions, mostly on whether the candidate is of sound mental health or has any criminal convictions, both of which are individual traits—either a health condition or activities that make a person unfit to be elected. The problem lies in the judgement treating education and toilets as essential qualifications for contesting elections. In these cases, the state uses its authority to decide what kind of representatives the citizens choose, thereby subverting the very foundation of democratic polity which is built on the notion of people deciding what kind of state they want.

Both these are traits which are as much in the domain of the individual as they are the outcomes of the social and economic policies of governments. Since acquiring an educational degree is as much an outcome of the existence of proper schooling facilities, availability of teachers, cost of acquiring the educational qualifications and so on, the state has no right to disqualify a citizen for the inadequacies or inefficiencies in the proper provisioning of these. The same is true of a proper functioning toilet which is also a function of the availability of money, land and housing, most of which are lacking in rural areas for a significant section of the rural population. The fact that a substantial section of the rural population lacks even proper pucca housing despite the government’s efforts to provide these, implies that the poor can hardly be blamed for not having a proper toilet at home. It is a classic case of the state blaming the poor for not acquiring physical or moral assets which are beyond the control of the individual. The class of citizens that is most affected by these are also the ones which the state should try and protect and empower through the democratic process.

The issue is essentially one of the role of the state which instead of empowering these communities is now penalising them by disenfranchising them. And it is important to note that the process of empowerment is not just the right to vote but also to contest elections and thereby raise the voice of the marginalised. The right to contest elections may not be a statutory or legal right but it definitely is the essential feature of democratic process.

Unfortunately, such contempt for the poor is not new. A classic case is a petition filed in the Bombay high court in 2005 to take away the voting rights of slum dwellers by actor Sadashiv Amrapurkar, writer Subhash Bhende and other personalities. The arguments then were similar to those made this time which essentially defined the characteristics of a good citizen. It is worth reminding ourselves that the long history of democracy is full of such discriminations— whether against blacks, women or poor. In most developed nations, some of these categories were not allowed to be part of the democratic process as late as the 1950s.

It was these concerns which led our Constitution makers to opt for a system of universal adult franchise. It was not just limited to the right to vote but also the right to contest, where the limitations are kept to a minimum. So much so that even in the case of separate electorate for certain categories such as graduates and teachers in the case of state legislative councils, the limitation was on the constituents of the electoral college and not on the candidates.

The problem is not just these disqualifications. These are just the beginning, with many states already having passed similar laws which disqualify candidates on various attributes ranging from open defecation, education, family planning norms to being sick with leprosy or tuberculosis which are beyond the control of the individual and are certainly discriminatory. The larger issue is the state using the democratic process to cover its own inadequacies in providing basic services to the citizens. By defining these as individual traits, the state is also altering the basic foundation of the Constitution where most of these have been treated as fundamental duties of the state. By doing so, the state is not just washing its hands of protecting these basic rights but is ensuring the voices representing these communities are muted. The danger of the democratic process being usurped by the elites and the executive to penalise the poor is not just redefining the relationship between the state and citizens but is also an attack on the basic intent of the Constitution and the democratic functioning of our country.