BY Karan Gupta.
Political obligation is a very important and determinative factor in the functioning and sustenance of a government. This concept becomes all the more important when we look at it in the context of a coalition government. India is a country fraught with political complexities of various kinds. Out of these various problems, one solution to a problem has emerged in the form of a coalition government.
India is a vast, complex and plural polity with disparate groups struggling for co-existence and achievement of a measure of cohesion and national integration. There are certain factors in India like linguistic diversity, political fragmentation of society, the uncanny coexistence of rural layers of India from the middle ages to the 21st century and the enormous immobility of the Indian population etc., which makes coalition government very suitable to Indian conditions. In fact, if we look at the present political situation, coalition governments seem to be the order of the day.
There are certain theories which have been propounded regarding political obligation. Eminent thinkers like John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau have talked of political obligation. A question arises as to how far the concept of political obligation justifies in a coalition form of government. Political obligation in very simple terms means that there are certain obligations on the part of the state towards the citizens.
A coalition government is formed when any single party fails to grab a majority on the floor of the house. Most coalition governments in India at the union or state levels have tended to be rickety, unsuitable, incoherent and weak. The success of a coalition government depends on multiple factors. Strong party loyalties and legislators’ respect for people’s mandate are absolutely essential for the survival and stability of an honest coalition. The rulers in the present day political regime are increasingly concerned with survival in power at any cost. The resultant distortions have made a mockery of our parliamentary system and severely undermined the legitimacy of authority and effectiveness of executive functioning.
All governance has now been reduced to patronage and transfers, and postings of bureaucrats. Money habitually lands for placement and continuity of public servants at various levels. Therefore in a coalition government, there has been embedded a vicious cycle of money power, bureaucrat placements, political power, muscle power and election battles, etc. This vicious cycle has led to the all-pervasive corruption in various walks of life for the normal citizenry. People are fooled in the name of participatory governance by providing them an opportunity once in a while to vote.
Ordinary people are not given an ample say in the various political procedures. One of the prime reasons of the present day coalition governments can be said to be the flooding of new entrants into politics. Very few people enter politics with intellect, integrity, commitment to public service and passion for improvement of the situation. There has been criminalisation of politics at various levels i.e. entry of criminals into politics. Then there are film stars and other eminent personalities of various fields which turns the whole political exercise into a big farce. But it has to be understood that there is no activity more vital and nobler than governance. Politics is about the promotion of happiness and public good but often contrary happens when the governance is given in the hands of a coalition government.
Coalition governments are also formed because of various small political parties. The individual voter gives vote to a party which really doesn’t have a chance of forming a government on its own. Therefore the power to vote results in a waste and thus there has to be political formations and alliances, which are haphazardly created for the formation of a government at either the central or the state level.
Coalitionary trends have not only prevailed in India but in other countries also. Some examples are Austria, Germany, Netherlands, etc. From 1952-1967, India witnessed one party dominant rule of the Congress with the non-Congress parties remaining in opposition. This was mainly because after independence, Congress had occupied a pivotal position and had retained its broad political appeal. But with time there was a gradual shift from the pattern of one party dominant rule. Different parties emerged which yielded varying degrees of influence in states. Over a period of time, an uneven scenario emerged. Coalition governments were formed in various states like Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The year 1967 turned out to be a watershed in Indian politics. Non-Congress coalitions in the form of Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments were formed in several states. They had ideological heterogeneity.
Famous Coalitions
The Samyukta Vidhayak Dal coalitions in the states collapsed in course of time as a result of inner contradictions and in the realm of ideology and political orientations of the constituents. The coalitions of mainly West Bengal and Kerala survived as they were fairly stable. The central government continued to be under the dominant Congress party rule. But one single event that brought about a cataclysmic change in the political scenario at the center was the imposition of emergency in 1975 and detention of many political leaders and activists including members of Parliament. In 1977 the Congress was replaced at the center by the Janata Party. Also the menace of corruption was slowly and slowly eating up the core of Indian politics. In 1989 corruption became the central theme of elections and it touched the innermost chord of the electorate.
The government formed under the leadership of V.P. Singh became the symbol of struggle against corruption. But this coalition experiment also failed and dissidents from the Janata Dal formed a new government with the support of the Congress. As a sequel to the communal frenzy released by the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya by BJP and its allies, a coalition government consisting of BJP, Shiv Sena and rebel Congressmen who won the elections and supported the BJP-Shiv Sena combinations came into existence in Maharashtra. After the 1996 Lok Sabha poll Atal Bihari Vajpayee was invited to form the government at the center.
Considering all this, there have been suggestions from various political quarters for a presidential form of government. But this cannot be supported because the founding fathers of our constitution created the constitution in the most unstable conditions of communal violence and bloodshed in the post-partition period.
Thus what is needed is the introduction of credible electoral reforms to give more stability to coalition governments in India. The influence of muscle and money power on the elections must be checked and the criminalization of politics should be prevented. The state funding to parties must be linked up with the percentage of votes secured by them in the previous election. This will prevent the large multiplicity of parties responsible for division of votes and consequent instability. Therefore it could be said that coalition governments have partially succeeded and partially failed in justifying the concept of political obligation.