Dr. Manoj Dash, Bhubaneswar, 30 May 2024
If men and women were angels, the whole humankind would never need a government. If divine beings were to govern men and women, neither external nor internal controls on a government would ever be considered necessary. In placing our collective trust on a government which is to be administered by some of us over millions of others, who also belong to us, we often encounter the most complex of challenges. An elected government faces two daunting issues. One, it needs to control the governed and two, it needs to control itself. While performing the second task, experience has taught us that many precautions are required so that a government is perceived as people focused. Its dependence on people to derive its own legitimacy is also an effective control which is always felt by all governments in the context of a democracy.
One of the basic constitutional principles of a liberal democracy like ours is a clear and stated intent for separation of powers. Separation of legislative, judicial and executive powers is deemed essential to avoid usurpation and tyranny by the very people who hold these powers. In our case, while the judiciary has distinctly exercised the powers allocated to it quite honourably, thereby upholding the constitutional provisions, in the case of the legislature and the executive, there have been many instances of obfuscation and overreach leading to misgovernance and undermining the collective will of people.
The present case of Odisha is a classic example of creation and continuance of a peculiar situation in which all the executive powers got centralised in the hands of only one person for many years and the well-established systems and institutions stood severely undermined as a result. Odisha is a state that has traditionally seen very low level of political awareness because majority of its people are very accommodative to different situations and are of milder nature. Electoral processes in the past indicate that Odias do not appreciate a lot of aggressive political posturing and appreciate politicians who are mild mannered. Naveen Pattnaik sat comfortably in their political psyche and commanded their support of an unprecedented level and for a very long period. Consequently, one political party – Biju Janata Dal (BJD) – remained at the helm of affairs for twenty four years that spanned over five terms of government formed by this party. This led to excessive concentration of political and administrative power in the hands of this political party and the party in power not only crushed all other political parties to a very significant extent, it also vitiated the governance system at all levels which has turned thousands of government officials/employees into workers of the ruling party, most of which could be involuntary.
If the voters of Odisha like to vote a political party back to power ad infinitum, why should someone have a problem about that at all? It is very important to answer this question in detail.
In a political regime characterised by representative democracy, like we have in our country, political parties are vectors of a vibrant democracy. They are essential to the functioning and durability of democracy since they are not only the instruments through which power is attained by means of free, fair, and transparent elections, but are also the setting for working out practical ideas and proposals, which may constitute alternative programmes to help people realise their maximum potential that they aspire for.
However, the questions that come to one’s mind are: (a) whether citizens are confident that elections are conducted in a free and fair manner?; (b) whether the party in power has an undeniable advantage in the way various factors play out on the ground?; (c) whether political parties that provide numerous welfare assistances to the people through various government schemes and programmes, unduly induce people to vote a party back to power many times over?
If the party in power is manipulative and desires to capture power by hook or crook, the answer to all these questions would be in the affirmative unless the anti-incumbency sentiments work like a tsunami or super-cyclone that blows away all efforts of the ruling party to come back to power. The perception that is gaining momentum during the last few years is that, due to continuance in power for a long period, some particular persons have developed a vested interest to keep power concentrated in their hands and they have been deliberately crushing all efforts made by rival political parties to gain popularity as well as support among the voters. This seems to have been possible because the current Chief Minister (CM), for some unknown reasons, has handed over the strings of power and authority to one person who was his Private Secretary for many years and privately continued to play that role in the eyes of the public, even though he was given a different post in the government because rules did not permit him to remain the Private Secretary after a certain point in time.
However, the person wielded a lot of power that was visible to the public eye and a handful of officials who formed a cosy team remained in certain key positions for a longer period of time, which is not usually permitted in order to make the system unbiased and easily accessible to the citizens. This included a few officers from his own state, his own spouse, and his batch mates from other services. The officer’s growing clout became so concentrated that political colleagues of the CM got side-lined and it was visible that many senior law makers of BJD were working overtime to collect people wherever the most influential official and trusted aide of the CM decided to travel and conduct public meetings. Opposition to this blatant misuse of power gradually became shriller and the person had to resign from his post and quickly became a very important decision maker of the ruling party.
Although many people have targeted the former official of playing an unfair game and trying to usurp power in another state, which is not his native place, such criticisms are unfair to say the least. It is so because it was the CM who asked for votes from the people and, instead of empowering his political colleagues, he passed on all his political authority to one person or to a group of persons. So, it is basically the CM who undermined the political system and also played fraudulent games with the trust people placed in him. The officers took advantage of this peculiar situation created by the CM himself and started managing the party affairs, such as selecting candidates who do not have any political clout of their own and would never question the people who made their selection possible. That the officials who drew their salaries from the public taxes became political workers was possible due the CM’s wilful approval.
So, what are the political opportunity costs of such a vitiated system and how people can play an active role to correct the situation in future? The political opportunity costs are that the CM now stands significantly discredited in the eyes of millions of voters and the matter is being discussed openly, which was not the case earlier. Politicians from rival parties arriving in Odisha for campaigning stoop to low levels and make very unpalatable comments about the CM and his most trusted political lieutenant who comes from the bureaucracy. Opponents are raising ugly questions as to how the CM knowingly allowed an officer to participate in political activities and management of party affairs. Candidates from other parties are even making allegations that the “trusted” lieutenant may have directly played a role in causing deterioration in the health condition of the CM and gained control over his private life so that the CM has no other option but to dance to his tunes. All these indecent political exchanges were never witnessed in Odisha, which is long known for its decent and civil ways of political fights during elections.
People of Odisha, especially the youth, must know that when a government makes unusual attempts to remain in power indefinitely, there will be enhanced efforts to make and enforce laws and rules to benefit government actors and their allied client networks at the expense of the public at large. Long-lived governments will have scope and incentives to implement a broader range of corrupt policies and practices than short-lived governments.
Democracy evolved because of centuries of struggle by people all over the world including our very own. Hence, periodic elections have been brought in to give an opportunity to citizens to regularly change the set of people who will govern them for a particular period of time. Continuance of the same set of people or the same political party in power for a longer period would invariably breed arrogance, opacity, and deterioration in the quality of governance, ignoring individuals and their voices, and alienation of conscious citizens from asking the right questions to those in power. A fair level of political competition that results in change of a political party in power would yield much larger tangible and intangible benefits to citizens that they may be missing out by not consciously exercising their power to change the government. It would be hugely beneficial to allow the system of elections to bring in change than making it ineffective by choosing a specific political party time and again. Voters may keep in mind that change of power in a democracy is beneficial not only to the people but also for the institutions, the governance system, and community groups by creating a level playing field. Above all else, it empowers the individual voter to the maximum extent.
