'Majoritarian Forces Must Be Counterbalanced, Abuse Of Electoral Process Way To Grave Of Democracy ': Top Quotes From Supreme Court's ECI Verdict

In a landmark decision, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a high-power committee consisting of the Indian prime minister, leader of opposition, and chief justice would henceforth pick the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs), to ensure that the poll panel is really insulated from political pressure and elections and held in a free and fair manner. Although the entire 378-page-long judgement (leading judgement by Justice K.M. Joseph and concurring opinion by Justice Ajay Rastogi) is full of impactful discussions on Indian realities, we have compiled a list of 15 impactful quotes. Ballot is more potent than the most powerful gun Unlike demands of a formal democracy, the hallmark of a substantive democracy and if we may say so, a liberal democracy must be borne in mind. Democracy is inextricably intertwined with power to the people. The ballot is more potent than the most powerful gun. Democracy facilitates a peaceful revolution at the hands of the common man if elections are held in a free and fair manner. Elections can be conflated with a nonviolent coup capable of unseating the most seemingly powerful governing parties, if they do not perform to fulfil the aspirations of the governed…Democracy is meaningful only if the sublime goals enshrined in the preamble to the Constitution receive the undivided attention of the rulers, namely, social, political and economic justice. The concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity must not be strange bedfellows to the ruling class. Secularism, a basic feature of the Constitution must inform all actions of the State, and therefore, cannot be spurned but must be observed in letter and spirit. Democracy can be achieved only when the governing dispensation sincerely endeavours to observe the fundamental rights in letter and spirit. Democracy also, needless to say, would become fragile and may collapse, if only lip service is paid to the rule of law. [Para 92] Majoritarian forces must be counterbalanced by protection accorded to minority The founding fathers have contemplated that not only must India aspire for a democratic form of government and life but it is their unambiguous aim that India must be a Democratic Republic. The conventional definition of a ‘Republic’ is that it is a Body Polity, in which, the Head of State is elected. However, the republican character of our democracy also means that the majority abides by the Constitution ensuring rights granted under it and also pursues goals enshrined in it. A brute majority generated by a democratic process must conform to constitutional safeguards and the demands of constitutional morality. A Democratic Republic contemplates that majoritarian forces which may be compatible with a democracy, must be counterbalanced by protection accorded to those not in the majority. When we speak about the minority, the expression is not to be conflated with or limited to linguistic or religious minorities. These are aspects which again underly the need for an independent election commission. [Para 92] Unrelenting abuse of the electoral process over a period of time is the surest way to the grave of the democracy. The basic and underlying principle central to democracy is power to the people through the ballot....The purpose of achieving power is to run the Government. No doubt, the Government must be run in accordance with the dictate of the Constitution and the laws. Political parties not unnaturally come out with manifestos containing a charter of promises they intend to keep. Without attaining power, men organised as political parties cannot achieve their goals. Power becomes, therefore, a means to an end… The assumption of power itself through the electoral process in the democracy cannot and should not be perceived as an end. The end at any rate cannot justify the means. The means to gain power in a democracy must remain wholly pure and abide by the Constitution and the laws. An unrelenting abuse of the electoral process over a period of time is the surest way to the grave of the democracy. Democracy can succeed only in so far as all stakeholders uncompromisingly work at it and the most important aspect of democracy is the very process, the electoral process, the purity of which alone will truly reflect the will of the people so that the fruits of democracy are truly reaped. The essential hallmark of a genuine democracy is the transformation of the ‘Ruled’ into a citizenry clothed with rights which in the case of the Indian Constitution also consist of Fundamental Rights, which are also being freely exercised and the concomitant and radical change of the ruler from an ‘Emperor’ to a public servant. With the accumulation of wealth and emergence of near monopolies or duopolies and the rise of certain sections in the Media, the propensity for the electoral process to be afflicted with the vice of...

'Majoritarian Forces Must Be Counterbalanced, Abuse Of Electoral Process Way To Grave Of Democracy ': Top Quotes From Supreme Court's ECI Verdict

Awstika Das

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