Governing Democracy Outside the Law: India's Election Commission and the Challenge of Accountability

Comparative law and politics literature widely recognizes the role of election management bodies (EMBs) in securing the well-being of constitutional democracies. Scholars have noted the political desirability of both independence and accountability of these institutions. But striking balance between these two values is easier said than done. This Article highlights the dilemma of accountability by focusing on India's Election Commission (ECI) as a paradigmatic version of a powerful EMB. Scholars of Indian politics have long noted the institution's widening powers – often beyond the original constitutional intent or parliamentary legislation – over the last few decades. This, they argue, has impaired its institutional accountability. This Article adopts a fresh perspective on the ECI's expansive functions, and the attendant concerns these raise. It argues that the ECI regulates the electoral process not through what we may ordinarily identify as the law. The most compelling and consequential of its functions are through extra-legal modalities of regulation. Drawing from recent scholarship on regulation, the Article argues that the ECI shapes the electoral environment and behaviour through non-legal modalities of architecture, nudge and notice-based regulations. Much like the other fields where they are deployed, these extra-legal modalities exhibit unique, and in many ways, inherent limitations with respect to transparency. It is thus this character of the ECI's functions – rather than only their widening breadth – that poses the most significant challenge for democratic accountability. Based on this assessment, the Article notes that for powerful EMBs like the ECI, accountability in the form of on-going operational accountability is inherently limited in compelling ways. This increases the stakes for accountability of these institutions through other means, particularly by securing their constitution, composition and tenure.

Cultivating Democracy

Cultivating Democracy is the first study of its kind of the world’s largest democracy that shows how the values of republicanism are essential for successful democratic practice. In 1950, after independence, India constituted itself as a sovereign democratic republic. While democracy indicated the character of the vertical representative nature of the relationship between citizens and state, the term republic outlined the horizontal relationship of fraternity between people and an active engagement by citizens. The discussion of Indian politics in this book thereby attends to both its institutional form and its democratic culture and shows how the project of democracy is incomplete unless it is also accompanied by a continual cultivation of active citizenship of republicanism. This book is an anthropological study of the relationship of formal political democracy and the cultivation of active citizenship in one particular rural setting in India, studied from 1998 to 2013. It draws on deep ethnographic engagement with the people and social life in two villages, both during elections and in the time in between them, to show how these two temporalities connect. The analysis shows how an agrarian village society produces the social imaginaries required for democratic and republican values. The ethnographic microscope on a single paddy growing setting allows us to examine how the various social institutions of kinship, economy, and religion are critical sites for the continual civic cultivation of cooperation, vigilance, redistribution, inviolate commitment, and hope—values that are essential for democracy.

Of Caste and Indian Politics: A Detour Through D. L. Sheth and Beyond

Stemming essentially from D. L. Sheth and the work embodied in his 1999 essay ‘Secularisation of Caste and Making of New Middle Class’, the article attempts to outline the pathways for an alternative engagement with caste and politics. In perspective is what is termed the ‘triumphalist’ mode of encountering caste identities; and, along this course, the extant possibilities of the constructivist understanding of caste are addressed. The stakes of the exercise are largely theoretical and conceptual, although a further thought is thrown in about the contemporary ground of caste politics in India as well.

ASSASSINATION OF GANDHI: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

This article investigates into the murder of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Bapu. Godse the assassin stated that he killed Gandhi as he divided India and also defended the Muslims. His presence was weakening the concept of Akand Baharat. The study delves the motives of fanatic Hindus and protagonist of Hindutva behind the murder of Gandhi. Nehru became the visionary leader of India. The Muslims were further kept aloof. Schism was manifest between the nationalist Indians and fanatic Hindus. The element of Hinduism prevails the Indian politics today in which Muslims have been marginalized.

West Bengal Assembly Election 2021: An Analysis

West Bengal Assembly election was one of the most keenly watched assembly elections in India in 2021. One of the reasons for this interest was the unexpected rise of the Bhartiya Janata Party in a state mostly known for its contests between the Left parties, the Indian National Congress, and the All-India Trinamool Congress. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had only 3 seats in the last assembly election of 2016, whereas the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC) party had 212 seats. The BJP was never a major player in the state except during the last parliamentary election (2019) when BJP bagged 18 out of the 42 parliamentary seats. The analysis presented in this paper analyzes the constituency-wise figures for each of the 294 constituencies spread over 19 districts of the state of West Bengal in India. The TMC emerged victorious with 48% of the total popular votes, while the opposition BJP got 39% of the popular votes. Also, TMC won 213 (73%) of total seats, whereas the BJP came to a distant second with 77 (26%) seats, even though it raised its stock significantly in the West Bengal Assembly from its 2016 tally of a meager 3 seats. After the West Bengal 2021 election results, Mamata Banerjee emerged as one of the main challengers of BJP at the national arena of Indian politics. This paper will benefit and help anyone interested in Indian political analysis and would also provide key insights for the political analysts and the political parties interested in a seat-by-seat deep dive. The analysis was done with the help of Microsoft Excel and R Software.

Mass Mobilization in Indian Politics: A Case Study of Non-Cooperation Movement

Mass-Mobilization is one of the key ingredients for not only launching a movement but also for spreading any political agenda. The involvement of the masses always plays an important role in a process of bringing change anywhere and at any time. The history of South Asia, however, witnessed that in the struggle against the colonial rulers, to begin with, started by the elite alone. Politics was considered as the domain of a selected few and the common men were considered as ignorant and perhaps irrelevant and thus were kept at a distance. It was only after the beginning of the twentieth century and especially after the entrance of Gandhi on the political screen that the masses gained importance and were directly involved in political affairs. They not only became part of the Non-Cooperation Movement but also played an important role in spreading the movement all across India. In this paper, an attempt has been made to highlight Gandhi’s efforts to mobilize Indian masses during the Non-Cooperation Movement and its impact on the future politics of the region. The paper also discusses in detail different groups of society that actively participated in the process of mass-mobilization.

Chremacracy

This chapter studies how Indian politics is becoming a chremacracy—a system in which big money rules supreme. In 2018, the already shady party finances system took a quantum leap towards absolute chremacracy when the Modi government introduced electoral bonds, an instrument that allows individuals, corporations, and other legal entities such as trusts and associations anonymously to channel unlimited amounts of money to political parties. Under this new measure, anyone is allowed to buy tax-free bearer bonds for specified amounts via the state-owned State Bank of India (SBI) and then deposit them into the registered bank accounts of political parties. Like political violence, the organized secrecy over money irreversibly distorts the spirit and institutions of electoral democracy. The misallocation of resources that results from poorly regulated campaign spending ensures that elections and governments are captured by special interests. Ultimately, the grip of private money on electoral politics is detrimental to the quality of representation as it skews the field of available choices, and a system of free choice is gamed into one of prompted selection.