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We keep talking about ways to make our democracy more robust, increase citizens’ participation and devise new ways to review the performance of our elected representatives. Basically, we’re talking about ‘direct’ ways to go bravely beyond electoral democracy as we know it in India today. But the way this is playing out in one district of India would probably make the sage advocates of direct democracy turn in their graves.

Mostly, those who talk about greater citizen participation in decision-making love giving the example of Switzerland’s direct democracy, where the Swiss public has long been collectively making decisions for themselves via instruments like referendums. Representative democracies essentially allow for any of these three variations of direct political action by citizens: referendum (plebiscite); initiative (where citizens propose laws or amendments, and follow this up with a referendum); and recall (of public elected officials before the end of their terms). Then there is the futuristic version of the same – open source or collaborative governance, better known as electronic direct democracy or just e-democracy that uses new ICT technologies to give citizens a stronger voice in decision-making.

The merits of each of these in the Indian environment would make for a lively discussion, but the strange campaign of the Anna Hazare camp in a by-election in Haryana’s Hisar constituency has cut to the chase in a bizarre way. Riding high on Mr. Hazare’s ‘successful’ fast, which accompanied his demand that Parliament vote in a hawkish new Jan Lok Pal Bill (Ombudsman law), they are now asking people to not vote for someone from a specific political party that they deem unfit to rule – the Indian National Congress.  It’s a different matter that the other candidates in the fray (the late Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldip Bishnoi and INLD candidate Ajay Singh Chautala) are ostensibly more corrupt than the one Mr. Hazare and his friends have trained their guns on (Jai Prakash of the Congress). It is bound to also help their cause that their chosen one is widely expected to lose anyway. Easy peasy. More scope for victorious posturing.

Most importantly, and I have argued this in a previous post, how can democracy be strengthened by undermining the very institutions that underpin it? First it was the Indian Parliament and now it is the electoral process that is in the Hazare camp’s crosshairs. How can emotional appeals to people to not exercise their free will further the agenda of better governance?  Most importantly, how is this not political? As the Anna juggernaut rolls all over the very democratic conscience of India that they themselves have been exhorting us to awaken, it’s difficult to remember the message that made a friend’s six-year-old daughter fast with Mr. Hazare for a day. The holier-than-thou attitude of these so-called civil rights’ activists is at cross purposes with their use of typically Indian poll tactics – targeted attacks on those who are viewed as political threats.

Above all, the same Prime Minister (and the de facto head of the Indian State) whose saner judgement they have often appealed to is not good enough when it comes to getting narrow-minded assurances on the fulfillment of their one-point wish list. Only a letter from the Congress President Sonia Gandhi would do, they say. And then they go right ahead and tell you not to vote for the Congress. I’m confused. Aren’t you?

Do write in with your comments/ suggestions.

- preeti.singh@9dot.in