One Nation One Election: Some conceptual and political fallacies

Mondeep Borah, KalimNews, October 31, 2024 : The theoretically odd experiment of democracy in India often demands a conceptual universe of its own in order to make sense of its proper functioning. The building blocks of this universe derive their meanings from the political practices that often bear unpredictable results, rendering the meaning making tools derived from the West or other non-Western countries unfit for their understanding. Democratic values and their practices in this land of contradictions manifest themselves in ways that cannot be brought under control through one size fits all approaches or comprehended through overriding principles.

The debate around simultaneous elections, coined as “One nation, one election” in line with the popular narrative styles of our times, must be looked at in this context of the peculiar political experiment that Indian democracy is. Even when we acknowledge that the electoral system in the country demand reforms both at the levels of practice and institutions, it needs a more nuanced understanding of their normative significance before any reforms are aimed at. For, elections in India play a role which is not limited to an instrument to elect a representative government. They constitute a plebiscite on the idea of an Indian nation, besides giving ordinary Indians the most effective means of articulating their political wisdom. What follows from this is that the peculiarities of Indian elections represent the unique character of Indian nationhood, which needs a particular emphasis in this context as the thrust for simultaneous elections (one election) has been derived as a logical corollary of “one nation”. This is not to entangle the debate in a theoretical maze but to counter the plain simplifications of fashionable catch-phrases.

We begin this essay by trying to understand the conceptual and political implications of the very coinage of “One nation, one elections”, and then we proceed to analyse the circumstances that led to need for this, which is followed by an attempt to examine it’s assumed advantages and limitations.

The underlying assumption of “One nation, One elections” is the imagination of a uniform Indian nation, with an imposed singularity in political values and demands. This overlooks the multinational character of the Indian state, with myriad regional identities. Unlike the homogeneity of western nation states, India constitutes a “non- nation state”, to borrow it from Sudipta Kaviraj. The most evident political implication of this conceptual underpinning of Indian nationhood is the breakdown in the simultaneity of the general and state elections by the late 60s. In the debate surrounding the simultaneous elections, the prevalence of the practice in the initial years after independence has been put forward as a rationale for its feasibility, as has also been emphasized in the report of Ramnath Kovind Committee. But what these arguments have not taken into consideration is that such a practice could not continue solely because of this multinational character of Indian polity that democratic politics gives prominent expression to. As the vocabulary of democracy got more and more vernacularised with the emergence of social communities earlier deprived from power, politics no longer remained monopolised by the hegemonic hold of the Congress system. This made politics messy, unstable and unpredictable, adding to the agony of the upper-caste elites and middle classes whose certainty to power no longer remained so. The state level issues no longer remained elided in the sweeping narratives of the centre but both the realms began to be guided by political logics of their own. The multiple elections in the country, therefore, are testaments to the diverse identities,  issues and norms that characterize the “nation” in India that find their expression in the vernacular vocabulary of democratic politics that emerged in the country. If they have emerged as a problem today, they are arising out of the success of the democratic experiment, rather than its failure.

It is not to undermine the various maladies that characterize the electoralpractices in the country. From ever increasing expenditure to policy paralyses due to the frequent imposition of the model code of conduct have been identified as factors that pose the demand for simultaneous elections. Both the law commission in 2018 and the Ramnath Kovind Committee identified these problems that make simultaneous elections and urgent call in the country. Both claimed the broad objectives of reducing poll expenditure and quality of governance as the motives behind the push for “One nation one election”, although the latter identified another interesting and innovative problem of “voter fatigue” to place its argument.

This whole project is based on some distorted understanding of parliamentary democracy in India and its federal scheme.

Firstly, it emphasizes the same old dichotomy of democracy and development. The history of independent India remarkably proves it to be flawed and misplaced. India has seen the highest economic growth in the years when it was more politically “unstable”, an elitist preference to describe the period that marked the most powerful “democratic upsurge” in the country. Democracy has never been a hurdle for development and development at the cost of democracy is unsustainable and steeped in insecurity. Elections, no doubt, are an expensive affair. But it is the political parties that pour in crores and crores of money. What is required is reforms within political parties and their functioning, rather than a complete overhaul of the electoral system.

Moreover, the standstill that governance comes to as the Model Code of Conduct kicks in can also be solved through interventions other than simultaneous elections. As political analyst Yogendra Yadav argues, “Instead of a blanket ban on policy decisions, the Election Commission (EC) should ensure that the central government offers no electoral bribes targeting voters in these states.” Moreover, the duration of the elections can also be shortened by the Election Commission.

Secondly, the idea goes against the very spirit of parliamentary democracy in that puts the logic of collective responsibility of the government to the parliament upside down. When a government loses the confidence of the legislature, either there needs to be a re-election but only for the remaining period of the tenure, or in case of a state government, imposition of president’s rule. While the former will render the logic of reducing costs of elections redundant, the latter will be complete violation of representative government. Some of the proponents of simultaneous elections also pitch in the idea of a “confidence motion”, that is an alternative government in place once a government loses power. But this is practically near to impossible in India where coalition rule seems to be emerging as the norm.

Thirdly, an imposed simultaneity in the general election and the state elections will lead to the regional issues being overshadowed by “national” comcerns, consequently weakening the practice of federalism in the country. The federal structure of the country has not merely been realised through constitutional provisions, but through democratic politics as it evolved with the end of the era of one party dominance by the Congress. With the assertion of regional identities in electoral politics since the late 60s, federalism attained a new impetus, strengthening the unity of the country in the most unlikely ways. With the idea of a one nation one election, there will be a reversal of the process. Moreover, the regional parties, the most significant instruments for the articulation of regional interests will find themselves in a an unfavorable position, compared to the dominant national parties.

But underlying all these arguments for simultaneous elections is a middle class, privileged apathy towards politics in general, the “voter fatigue” being a euphemism to describe this. Frequent elections, despite all its apparent flaws, give the country a democratic passion which has practical implications in the most unrecognised and counter- intuitive ways. But this also sustains the political mobilization of the masses, while frequently bringing up issues that often make the well off classes uncomfortable. The ideas like one nation one election that seek to increase administrative efficiency by reducing the pervasiveness of politics, an anachronistic idea of early 20th century, is based on this elitist understanding of politics.

As we discuss these issues, it must be remembered that the unprecedented experiment in human history that Indian democracy is has been attained through radically new conceptions of democratic practice and delicately woven political arrangements. Disturbing this arrangement through arbitrary interventions may eventually end up in a reversal of the political evolution of democracy in the country in the last seventy years. The journey that Indian elections traversed from being the “biggest gamble in history” to the most vibrant political exercise of such large a scale has been possible not through plain calculations of cost benifit analysis but through a recognition of its complex nuances.

Mondeep Borah is a postgraduate student of Political Science at Delhi University.