Questions every educated INDIAN citizens
must answer;

Are you concerned about your COUNTRY?

Do you REACT, when you see something wrong?

Are you a CONTRIBUTING citizen ?

Burning Brain Society organised a talk show for deliberation on our democratic structure and the scope of improvement in it. The focus area for the talk-show was the representation of the public through elections. The two main topics discussed were;

1. Do political parties serve any purpose? Why have political parties?
   Background: Despite being an elaborate constitution, the Indian Constitution is silent on political parties or their role. (The first and the only reference is in the Tenth Schedule, after the Constitutions 52^nd Amendment in 1985 regarding the provision of disqualification on account of defection.) It is felt by many that the political parties thrive and grow at the cost of Indian Democracy and helps in promotion of an organized lobby of selfish people. The spirit of the constitution demands that good people contest election on their own, reach the parliament and then select a leader and work on a National agenda and not on the agenda of a political party.
2. Is our system representative enough? How to make it more representative?
   Background: Even a person who gets 25-40% of the votes can reach the parliament (There are cases where candidates with even 18% of the polled votes have reached the parliament). This can very well mean that there is a 60 to 75% voting against him. Isn’t this system of election faulty which fails to address the sentiments of the majority of the voters? What are the alternatives? Is the Rajya Sabha the real voice of the people or just a back door entry for the rich and the resourceful with the right political connections?

The main objective of the show was to start talking about possible solutions instead of just harping on the problem. The other intention of this talk-show/discussion/brainstorming exercise was to sensitise the political people and the public towards the requirement of a clean and a better democratic system.

Burning Brain Society in association with Punjab University, Department of Law organised a talk show on the possibilities of improvement in Indian democracy. The panel of political leaders and legal luminaries who brainstormed about the scope of improvement in the democratic structure included the Chairman of the Punjab University law department, Prof. Dr. Bal Kishan, Professor of the law department, Dr. V. K. Bansal; Member of Parliament (13th Lok Sabha), Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal &  M. P. of the 12th Lok Sabha Mr. S. P. Jain. The two main topics which were discussed were the role of political parties in the Indian democracy and the ways to make our democracy more representative.

Mr. Hemant Goswami, Chairman of Burning Brain Society who moderated the talk started by mentioning that the Indian constitution is silent on the role and scope of the political parties to the extend that even the word “Political Party” is not mentioned in the constitution. Mr. Goswami mooted a solution by suggesting that all the candidates should contest the election on their own merit without the umbrella of the political parties and once the winning candidates are elected to the parliament they should choose the Prime minister in the parliament. He suggested that this way no Parliament shall be dissolved for want of majority support of the elected representatives, besides by adopting such a system, only those candidates who have done some work in the area shall get elected. The idea was partially supported by Dr. Bal Krishan & Mr. O. P. Goel; both of them were of the opinion that though there is no mention of political parties in the constitution but there are orders promulgated by the Election Commission using its powers granted under the constitution & The Representation of People Act. They added that specific laws regulating the political parties, their role and scope is lacking which make them virtually unaccountable, so there is an urgent need to make such laws.

It was also suggested that instead of having the symbol of the political parties, a system started to handle the problem of illiterate voters; we should now print the photographs of the candidates on the ballot paper. This will eliminate the advantage secured by National parties, who have the advantage and the opportunity to highlight their election symbol all round the year. Mr. K. D. Singh, a participant suggested that the poor printing technology must have been a reason for not printing the photographs on the ballot earlier but now we use offset printing which enables the printing of candidates’ photographs with ease (instead of the party symbol), moreover with the electronic voting process, only limited number of printed papers are required to be pasted on the machine.

Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal & Mr. Satya Pal Jain both were of the opinion that the political parties perform an important function in the Indian democracy and we can not do away with. However they stated that there is a lot of scope for internal party democracy and transparency in all the political parties. Mr. Jain also stressed the importance of casting the vote on which Mr. Bansal also agreed. Adding to it, Mr. Bansal said that the need of the hour is that people should vote on individual performance rather than just voting for the parties.

The second issue debated was the poor representation of the people in the parliament. Mr. Hemant highlighted the fact that most of the candidates get elected by securing between 20-45% of the polled votes which means that the voice of the majority of people never reach the parliament. Dr. Bal Krishan mentioned incidences where people have won election by just securing 13% of the polled votes. One of the proposal put forth to increase the representation of the people suggested that the first two candidates securing the highest votes should both be elected to two different houses of the parliament provided that they both together secure 60% of the polled votes. It was also mooted that in place of the present “Rajya Sabha” which serves little purpose, a new house of the parliament, constituting of the candidates securing second highest votes should be formed.

Mr. Satya Pal Jain said that the idea of two candidates being returned from the same constituency is a good one and should be explored further. Col. Kulbir Singh, a participant, said that this way over 60% of the people shall be represented in each & every constituency which will definitely increase the representation of people in the parliament.

For a change both Mr. Satya Pal Jain & Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal agreed that the need of the hour was that criminalisation & regionalisation in politics should go and the political parties must be made accountable for their actions.

Mr. Hemant Goswami informed that there shall be many more such talk shows to further explore the possibility of improvements in our democratic structure. All such discussions and the possible proposed solutions shall be published in a book and forwarded to the competent authorities to further explore the ideas, added Mr. Goswami.

(A Newspaper report)