Now, not only women’s reservation but also the equally important process of delimitation of constituencies, as mandated by the Constitution, will become a political football. The government has no option but to seek consensus once the Census results are out.
For democracies to thrive, many things have to work in unison. But at the core, there is a simple formula: D x D = D Square. Democracies are strengthened when delimitation, which is essential to maintaining the sanctity of universal franchise by periodically equalising the value of each vote, is accompanied by devolution of power. Those two Ds are critical to democratic functioning. We have kicked both cans down the road — delimitation based on population since the 1970s, and devolution since the 1950s.
The word federalism that many use to avoid dealing with the delimitation issue is not useful, for federalism is not an essential feature of democracy. You can have unitarian and federal structures, but the critical difference lies in how power is devolved so as to maximise citizen rights and governance. In a very small country, a town hall meeting would be good enough as a consultative process. In a massively diverse country like ours, devolution of power must mean that sovereignty is sensibly shared between the Centre, state and local governments. Federalism is not about asserting the rights of one tier of government over another, as the southern states are seeking to do, but to push decision-making as far down as possible in order to be closer to the citizen.
When the southern states argue that they have brought down birth rates and must, therefore, have a larger share of voice in Parliament than they are currently entitled to under the one-person, one-vote, one-value formula, they are essentially saying that power structures must be frozen, regardless of how demography has changed. If they further argue that they contribute more to the exchequer than some states that may now gain in terms of Lok Sabha seats, they are, in effect, saying: We are the rich, and we are special. In fact, this kind of democracy existed in many parts of the world a century or more ago, where one had to own property or pay taxes in order to have the right to vote. Universal adult suffrage was devised in order to prevent the elite from deciding everything. An equivalent today would be for taxpayers in general to demand more votes than the poor, since they are bankrolling the exchequer. If this is what the southern states are arguing in order to maintain their Lok Sabha seats, they should say so openly instead of talking of federalism.
But here’s the counterpoint: You cannot know whether states want more power or more seats unless the tradeoffs are made clear. For example, if the southern states believe they must maintain their share of Parliament seats, they should not object if that same Parliament decides they must contribute more to subsidising the poor. Conversely, it is entirely possible that the more populous states may choose fewer Lok Sabha seats if the alternative is a reduction in subsidies from the Centre.
What if Bihar accepts that in its current state of development, more subsidies are better than more fiscal autonomy and economic powers? In that case, there would be no need to change too many seats during delimitation. Of course, the ideal solution is a bit of both.
In developing economies, the poor are always willing to trade votes in order to access economic benefits (which is why the freebie culture is growing exponentially), and the rich are willing to pay more taxes (even bribes) in order to retain their political and policy influence.
Delimitation is not going to be a painful tooth extraction exercise if the Centre brings both the populous and less populous states on one platform to work out the compromises each one is willing to make in order to produce a fair outcome on both delimitation and devolution. The least the Centre can do is to create a wishlist of tradeoffs where both more powers to states, and more seats in Parliament, are discussed together to work out a wholesome compromise. More than politics, it is economics that should drive the give-and-take between rich and poor states.
The Modi government should be clear on one thing: It must not turn delimitation or women’s reservation into purely political theatre, though some degree of that is unavoidable in our sharply divided democracy. This is no different from other democracies. We must build consensus into our vocabulary, and not majority voting as the primary route to legislative, social and economic reform.
A good place to start is by setting up a committee comprising both Bharatiya Janata Party and Opposition members to begin consultations on delimitation and women’s quota before the problem gets out of hand. Broadly speaking, one can support the idea of expanding the Lok Sabha for two reasons: First is the obvious one of not making existing male politicians enemies of women’s reservation. It is better to grow the pie than to merely seek to divide what is there. So the Modi formula of increasing the size of the Lok Sabha is sensible. Second, if there is to be a shift in the proportion of parliamentary seats allocated to various states based on 2027 Census results, a larger number of seats will allow even the states losing relative share from delimitation to have some additional seats. The possibility of expanding the Rajya Sabha to partially compensate states losing seats in the Lok Sabha should also be on the compromise agenda.
Democracy is not diminished by decennial changes in parliamentary seat allocations, nor will it lose if the Centre devolves more power to states, and the states further to local bodies. DxD is D Square, a win-win for all.
The author is a senior journalist
 "Delimitation, Devolution, Indian Politics, policy making")