EC and our Sikandars

One of the Election Commissioners, O P Rawat, is reported to have said “It appears... that we have been scripting a narrative that places maximum premium on winning at all costs — to the exclusion of ethical considerations”. He also talked of “creeping new normal of political morality”.

He was giving the keynote address delivered at the ‘Consultation on Electoral and Political Reforms’ organised by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).
 

Mr Rawat has touched India’s long open wound. But he perhaps forgets that “political morality” is an oxymoron, or self-contradictory. 

Politics and ethics operate on what in geometry is called different planes. They inhabit different universes.

Or, as Cassius said to Brutus the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. Or in this case, the system we have chosen.

The existing rules of the game encourage unprincipled behaviour because of a massive structural flaw: winner takes all. Jo jeeta, woh Sikandar.

This is the case in all democracies of the Westminster type. But in developing countries it is more in-your-face because legislators don’t represent any group interest. They merely represent their own interests.

This is how it used to be in Britain till the last quarter of the 19th century. Switching sides was not uncommon there. Political morality emerged there as social morality changed.

That aside, India, like Britan then, faces another massive problem: not only is the politician expected to pay his day to day costs which can be very substantial but also his political worth is judged by the extent to which he can finance his election.

This being the case, if a party offers him or an inducement whether before he is elected or after to switch sides, it is hard to refuse the money. It is, if you will, like a one-time grant to pay off all your debts.

A third problem that impedes moral issues is that this system discourages whistle-blowing because the whistle can only be blown by an insider and if she does so she not only incriminates herself also in the eyes of the law but also faces penal action by her peers.

Thus, there is no pressure from within the system to be moral. Indeed, if anything, it is the opposite.

Finally, the systemic flaw is such that in order to stay in the game each MP needs to spend more than every other MP whereas, in fact, he or she is better spending less.

This last is a variant of the Prisoners’ Dilemma in game theory where cooperation benefits all but because of the way the game is defined, no one cooperates.

There are two exceptions to these general features – the BJP and the CPI/CPM. Since both are driven by their respective ideologies, neither is driven by money.

That is why you never hear of “politically immoral” behaviour like defections by their members.

So what should be done? It has been demonstrated repeatedly by political theorists, sociologists, historians, psychologists and economists that a winner-takes-all system is inconsistent with humans. Yet the political systems of almost all countries have persisted with this.

It is not as if alternatives don’t exist. They do, in the form of multiple choices in an election so that a voter can vote for more than one candidate.

It might be a good idea for therefore for the Election Commission to start a serious debate on this. It is bound to lead to some positive changes eventually.

But even so, this would only take care of one side of the problem: voter happiness.

The other side, of monetary gains after a candidate wins, is related to something else altogether, namely, the notion that the state must spend a lot. This is a post Second World War idea whose time has gone.

But which government will agree to cut the tree on which it sits?