Why did the government introduce the Delimitation Bill? Two reasons have been offered. The first is that it believed that by linking delimitation with the women’s reservation issue it would force the Opposition to support it. Plus, the BJP’s political management is so superb that it was confident of ‘persuading’ opposition members to vote for the Bill.
The second possible reason is that it believed it would win either way. The government knew how hard it would be to get the two–third majority required to pass the Bill. But it reckoned that even if the Bill failed, it would have ‘trapped’ the Opposition by forcing it to vote against women’s reservation.
And sure enough, after the defeat of the Bill, news channels sympathetic to the government have been playing down the controversial delimitation aspect of the Bill that led to its defeat. Instead, it’s being called the “Women’s Bill” and the usual angle is that the Opposition voted against women’s reservation.
Why now?
If the second reason is what actually motivated the government, then it seems extraordinarily cynical. To add women’s reservation, on which the government has not moved for 12 years, to a contentious Bill only ‘to trap’ the Opposition makes a mockery of the BJP’s commitment to the reservation issue.
But even that explanation is not entirely adequate. Why try and ‘trap’ the Opposition now? Why not do it before the Assembly election campaigns got underway? It’s a bit late now to raise it before the Bengal election. Why not wait till nearer the Lok Sabha elections? I doubt if the actual provision of reservation will make much difference to the results. But it could have been a symbolic issue for the Prime Minister to campaign on.
Or maybe not. There is very little evidence that the women’s reservation issue, which has been debated for over two decades, actually swings elections. And besides, would women voters really be convinced by elderly male politicians claiming that they wanted to help them but only after they had already been in
office for over a decade? Given a choice between a campaign led by, say, Priyanka Gandhi and one led by the BJP’s venerable male leaders, would women voters necessarily believe that it was the men who were really on their side?
In reality, I am not even convinced that most women would have identified with the potential beneficiaries of women’s reservation. In today’s India, participation in politics (and politicians themselves) seem so far removed from ordinary people that I wonder how many women voters would have said, “Wow! this means I can be an MP too?”
And that is one of the primary problems with the joint women’s reservation-delimitation Bill. The main reason why the Opposition united to defeat it is because the Bill would have vastly increased the number of MPs from the Hindi belt states where the BJP is strongest. Later, the government verbally offered to guarantee that the proportion of MPs from each state would remain the same in an enlarged Parliament, but this provision was not included in the language of the Bill. But even assuming that the government meant to keep its word, all that it would have meant was the Bill would have given us hundreds of new MPs.
And that, I think, was one of the Bill’s major drawbacks. It assumed that the people of India wanted more MPs.
But do they? I doubt it very much.
Also read: Opposition is shortsighted on delimitation. Don’t reduce it to North-South divide
A logic destroyed
Such is the disdain with which politicians are regarded that it is very hard to persuade the people of India that their lives would improve if tax payers were made out to dish out billions of rupees just to provide a cushy living for even more politicians.
There are arguments in favour of altering the composition of Parliament; ‘our population has grown, so Parliament should reflect those changes’ is the principal justification offered for delimitation. ‘And the size of constituencies varies too much’, is the other argument.
The southern states counter this position by saying that the population increase is largely in the Hindi belt while the South, where literacy and income levels are higher, should not be penalised for controlling population growth. Why should less successful states be rewarded for failing to control the size of their populations?
You can argue this both ways, but the underlying argument on both sides is that MPs make a real difference to the lives of people.
But do they? Consider the manner of their election. Each constituency sees an expenditure of at least a hundred crores in campaigning costs. Most of this money is illegally collected from businessmen and industrialists in the form of cash. The money either comes from bribes (because every contributor wants something in return) or outright extortion.
Add over 200 more parliamentary constituencies to this list, then not only do you see a massive increase in wasteful expenditure but you also see a rise in corruption and extortion.
And then there is the cost of each MP to the nation; the crores spent on
nice houses in Central Delhi and the travel and other perks. Moreover, having taken black money to fight their elections, most MPs don’t necessarily stop there. Being a politician is an expensive business.
People might be willing to overlook this if they believed that MPs performed a crucial function. In fact, most MPs are perceived as being lobby fodder. They have no input in government decisions. These are taken by a tiny cabal at the top and all that the MPs do is turn up to vote when ordered to do so.
You could argue that opposition MPs perform a valuable function by holding the government to account. But because of the partisan nature of the presiding officers of both houses, they are rarely allowed to do so.
So it is very difficult to persuade people that MPs perform the functions that the framers of the Constitution envisaged for them. And it’s even more difficult to get them to believe that their lives will change if hundreds of more MPs are created.
If the government wants to spend taxpayers’ money to make India a better place, then spend it on building more courts, appointing more judges, training more policemen, and improving the collapsing bureaucracy. But, of course, politicians will only think of themselves.
There is a certain logic to delimitation. But it is a logic destroyed by the actual functioning of Parliament and by the reality of India’s politicians.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)