Sunday, April 05, 2009

Indian Democracy and Section 49-O
Democracy is not simply voting or making Head or hand counts. It is much more than that. It is spirit, it is culture, it is a way of life, it includes tolerance, balanced thinking and approach to every issue that a society faces during its existence. A good number of people especially the educated ones assume that the elections are throwing up very nice, efficient, competent leadership for governance of the State. And further that Rule 49-O will hamper that process and throw up incompetent ones. It is not so. Rule 49-O was not there originally in the Election laws of १९५० (http://sharmavn.blogspot.com/2008/12/summary-of-i-vote-nobody-rule-49-o.html). Though leadership of then India was born out of struggle and dedication and devotion towards the Motherland yet with some experience of 1st & 2nd general elections they introduced Section 49-O in 1961 Amendment. By this, people who neither wanted a नागनाथ nor a सांपनाथ had an opportunity to say so in stead of sitting at home. This required much more of a democratic strength than needed to go to the booth, vote or cancel your ballot by innumerable no. of methods described in the Rules. This is neither anti - democracy nor non-constitutional. Just make a difference between those who profess that Elections are farce and those who go to say that none of the candidates is genuine or not worth my vote as in Section 49-O.

Presently what is happening? A nice, knowledgeable, well meaning person cannot be a candidate as he knows his fate if he is not heading a goons brigade, he is not backed up by Moneywallahs. I know of a few candidates who tried their hands at the elections and left a message for us. One example was late Shiv Verma, a comrade of Sardar Bhagat Singh and overtly a much respected person living in Kanpur and was working with the Trade Unions for protecting the workers from exploitation and for defending their rights. He took part in 1971 Elections from Kanpur constituency He had only 3000+ votes in the count. Elections today need money and muscle power and both are interrelated. Section 49-O is a safety valve for those who are frustrated with the present election system. It would be more meaningful if larger votes under Section 49-O leads to cancellation and a Re-election in that constituency. That will keep the candidates under some control.

As said earlier much better would be the inclusion of Voters' Right to Recall their incompetent representatives from Parliament and State Assemblies and all other public offices.