My Hope and Wishlist for Indian Democracy by 2050 and Beyond

 

A lot of our young children and youth will be entering the voting process from 2025 onwards. Between 2025 to 2035, over 60 crores of young Indians will become eligible to vote for the rulers of the country. This phase of ten years I believe, will shape the way India will be for the next 25 years and beyond. In the General Elections of 2029 and 2034, I am assuming the governments formed in 2024 and 2029 will complete the 5 years terms, which will define how India’s democracy will fare for the rest of the 21^st Century. I am quite hopeful, that a lot of young leaders who are educated and skilled in a domain area and trained in public policy will be part of the political and policy dispensation by 2050. The process will start from 2025 onward just after the next General election in 2024. The table below demonstrates how each cohort of the Indian population will become eligible for voting in the coming years.

Born in the Year	In Crore	percentage	Remarks
2021-2017	11.69	8.47%	This cohort will vote in the 2035 National Election
2016-2012	11.80	8.55%	About 25% of this cohort will be part of the 2030 elections
2011-2007	12.62	9.14%	11 to 15 years old now, will be getting into the voting in the 2030 election
2006-2002	12.60	9.13%	16 to 20 years old now, at least 6 Crores new voters for 2024 election
2001-1997	12.25	8.88%	21 to 25 years old now, will be part of the 2024 election voting

 Despite all the challenges, we have done fairly well as a country as a democratic republic. Thanks to the foresightedness of our founding fathers. When India become independent, the society was very illiberal with all the challenges of religion, caste, languages, 650 plus princely states loosely administrating their respective territories. 

Our fathers were visionaries of the highest order as they could imagine unit such a diverse region with so much of differences into a single democratic republic. They created a very liberal constitution to rule this highly illiberal society in a hope that the top-down process will eventually change the bottom-most part of the society. This was the flaw in the thinking. Even today we have remained highly illiberal as a society. The only reason we have survived the majority illiberal conduct of people is because of a few good people across every level of our society who have acted in a very liberal and large-hearted manner and kept the essence of togetherness, social justice, and respect for all the elements of society. 

Political dispensations all along the way only misused the differences in religion, caste, language, and region. The process continues even today. The new technology, social media, is only augmenting the narratives both positively and negatively. The concept of propaganda is now being played every moment as hundreds and thousands of WhatsApp videos, Facebook, Instagram posts, and Twitter posts, get generated every minute and broadcast across to the ever-increasing Indian population with access to digital media. One can be only part of the new age media and society to be able to reach out to a large part of our population who will rule our country too far greater prosperity and greatness.

My objective in writing this article is to somehow reach those 60 crores young population and give my version of India’s Democracy. In a way, I am also trying to use the propaganda technique to convey my thoughts on what could be a useful form of our democracy in 2050.

Our young generation should bring the following changes in the political system.

1.      Education and Qualification of Politicians

For doing any job, one has to be qualified, so why not the politicians?

Set the minimum education qualification for the politicians. At least graduation if not better. At the time of the making of the constitution of India, the first president Dr. Rajendra Prasad was aware of this flaw in the system and expressed this in one of his speeches in the constituent assembly;

“…I must share with the honorable members I would have liked to have some qualifications laid down for the members of the legislatures (MLAs/MPs). It is anomalous that we should insist upon high qualifications for those who administer or help in administering the law (Indian Administrative services) and none for those who made it except that they are elected.”

“A lawgiver required intellectual equipment but even more than that capacity to take a balanced view of things to act independently and above all to be true to those fundamental things of life – in one word – to have character. It is not possible to devise any yardstick for measuring the moral qualities of a man and so long as that is not possible our constitution will remain defective”

Even after so many years of our independence, still, about 27% of our MPs are not even graduates. How can we expect good governance from someone who has not even completed formal education till graduation?

2.     Knowledge about Public Policy

Make public policy a mandatory subject to qualify and enter into politics. Politicians are supposed to be the change agents for their constituency and bring overall positive development for people concerning the economic state of the people and all other associated parameters to achieve that level of development. So, without the formal knowledge about public policymaking, how can one expect them to be able to deliver on those aspects?

3.     Know our History and Making of Constitution of India

Knowledge of the Constitution of India and the process of making it, should be made mandatory for every politician to learn. Again, this should be a mandatory requirement to be part of the political system. Just, to quote from the speeches of Dr. Rajendra Prasad during the constituent assembly debates;

“…when the British came to India, they did not conquer the country as a whole or at one stroke. They got bits of it from time to time. The bits which came into their direct possession and control came to be known as British India, but a considerable portion remained under the rule of the Indian princes. The British thought, at that time, that it was not necessary or profitable for them to take control of these territories, and they allowed the old rulers to continue subject to their suzerainty. But they entered into various kinds of treaties and engagements with them. We have something near six hundred states covering more than one-third of the territory of India and one-fourth of the population of the country. They varied in size from small tiny principalities or big states like Mysore, Hyderabad, Kashmir, etc. when the British decided to leave this country, they transferred power to us; but the at the same time, they also declared that all the treaties and engagements they have with the princes have lapsed. The paramountcy which they have so long exercised and by which they could keep the princes in order also lapsed. The Indian government was faced with the problem of tackling these states which have different traditions of rule, some of them having some form of popular representation in assemblies and some having no semblance of anything like that, and governing completely autocratically.”

The pain and agony of our forefathers, have to be understood in letter and spirit, and that is possible by studying the history and the constituent assembly debates in making the constitution of India. Because every elected member is supposed to be one who will be amending rules of the past and making new rules for the new India and for that knowledge of the past thoroughly is very important.

4.  Age Limit for MPs/MLAs/Ministers

Age limit for politicians to be part of the government positions (MP, MLA, any Ministerial position). They can continue as leaders without any position in a government office for Max. 65 years. Then only new leaders will always come into the system and bring new ideas.

Also, the representation of women in the Indian parliament is only 15%. If we have to progress as a nation, we have to get more women’s representation in the parliament.

5.   Different Political Systems for Sates and Nation

  National political parties cannot rule in the states directly, they can be part of the ruling coalition along with the regional parties. States should be governed by local parties for better administration. We have seen how most of Southern and Western India have done better with local parties being actively part of the political ruling. Gandhi Ji believed in the concept of a bottom-up approach to democracy, hence according to Gandhiji, the federation will be brought about not by coercion or compulsion but by the voluntary offer of every village republic to join such a federation. The work of the central authority will only be to coordinate the work of different village republics and to supervise and manage things of common interest, like education, basic industries, health, currency, banking, etc.

Gandhi firmly believed that village republics can be built only through the decentralization of social and political power. In such a system decision-making power will be vested in the Village Panchayat rather than in the State and the national capital. The representatives would be elected by all adults for a fixed period of five years. The elected representatives would constitute a council, called the Panchayat.

Extrapolate this concept to the states, if we can, with suitable amendments to our constitution, make it mandatory, that states can be ruled only by regional political parties and not by national parties.

A regional party will have more ownership, and commitment to the people of that particular state, compared to the national parties.

The federal government will be responsible for the Defence, Internal Security, National Infrastructure Development and management, International Trade, International Relationships, Central Tax System, Judiciary and Finance, etc.

The state governments can take care of all other aspects, including, Health, Education, States Trade, Finance, Law and Order, etc. It is time, the states got their lion’s share of revenue generation to be invested in the state itself rather than the other way around. Only a handful of states are mostly in the southern and western parts of India and few in the northern part are contributing to the GDP of the country. There have to be larger incentives for better contributors and disincentives for the poorer performers, which might bring the urgent need for financial prudence and accountability on the states to become self-reliant as states.

When the States and National Govts are run by different political parties, there is far better accountability to the public and overall governance. Let’s take some examples here. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, AP, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, & Haryana have remained under the control of the local political parties for a major part of the last 75 years of India’s democracy. And most of these states did fairly well in terms of the overall development of these states on a lot of economic parameters. Of course, we have some exceptions to this rule as well, West Bengal and Orissa, despite being by and large under the rule of local parties have not progressed economically compared to the southern and western states of India.