“If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot. …the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”
– Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
Universal adult franchise – the right of every adult citizen, irrespective of caste, class or gender, to cast a vote or contest an election – is a basic principle of democracy. The Supreme Court verdict in the recent Rajbala case has shamefully undermined this principle by upholding the Haryana panchayat law that fixes minimum qualifications for candidates in rural body elections.
Section 175 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act 2015 stipulates that those who lack minimum educational qualifications, or have electricity bill arrears, agricultural loan arrears, or do not have a functional toilet at home cannot contest elections to be sarpanch of a village panchayat. Similar restrictions were introduced by the Rajasthan Government in 2015. The Bihar Assembly also introduced the stipulation of a functional toilet as a prerequisite for contesting panchayat elections.
The Panchayati Raj is meant to deepen democratization and decentralization, and panchayats are the only elected bodies where women in India have reservation (50%). These restrictions threaten to undo the very raison d’être of the Panchayati Raj – because they will end up keeping out women, Dalits and the poor, and will concentrate power in the hands of the privileged.
By upholding such restrictions as valid, the Supreme Court has effectively disenfranchised the poor, Dalits and women. The Supreme Court is validating the elitist logic that blames and shames the poor for indebtedness and lack of education and sanitation. Instead of seeing poverty, illiteracy, indebtedness and lack of sanitation as a failure of the State to meet its obligations and responsibilities, such elitism holds the poor responsible. The Supreme Court has gone one step further – to disenfranchising the poor for such ‘failures.’
What do such restrictions mean in the context of rural Indian reality? The socio-economic caste census (SECC) 2011 found that almost half of rural India is illiterate or semi-literate, lives in kutcha dwellings and is landless, surviving on casual manual labour. 33% of rural households resides in single room dwellings. 75% of rural India, according to this census, lives on less than Rs 35 per day. And the SC/STs and women in rural India are considerably worse off on all these indicators than the rest. Should the vast mass of rural Indian citizens be prevented from contesting panchayat elections because they lack education? Because they are either homeless, or their single-dwelling hovels have no place for a toilet? Because their access to running water, covered drains and other essentials of good sanitation and clean toilets is negligible or non-existent? Because their meager earnings, exploitative work conditions and the Government’s agrarian policies systematically trap them in debt?
Supreme Court advocate Ms Indira Jaising notes that “The judgment effectively disenfranchises – and it recognises this – 68% of Scheduled Caste women, 41% of Scheduled Caste men and over 50% of all women in Haryana from contesting a panchayat election.” (A Judgement on Democracy That is Frightening in Its Implications, Indira Jaising, 11/12/2015)
The reasoning used by the Supreme Court in this verdict is a study in elitism. The verdict claims, “It is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad.” So, according to the Supreme Court verdict, the uneducated are more prone to being corrupt or criminal!
Rural Haryana and rural India are rife with examples of educated, landed, privileged men – with toilets in their homes – killing their daughter and her lover for having married in defiance of caste restrictions. Similarly, it is common in rural India for the educated, upper caste elite – including teachers and school administrators – to force Dalit children to sit and eat separately from non-Dalits, and to prevent Dalit cooks from cooking mid-day meals. It is a well-established fact that in India, sex-ratio falls corresponding to rising wealth, education and privilege.
Education – and enlightened thinking and egalitarianism clearly, do not necessarily go hand in hand. What a wealthy and privileged, educated person thinks is ‘right and good’ or ‘wrong and bad’ may actually be unconstitutional and terrible for society.
The poorer and less educated in a panchayat may vote to disallow corporate grab of rural land. A poor illiterate Dalit woman without a home, let alone a toilet in her home, who defends land from being grabbed by the privileged or by corporations, and who upholds the Constitutional rights of Dalits and women, is certainly a far better panchayat representative than a more privileged one who does the opposite.
The right to contest elections has to be a Constitutional right – not an incentive or disincentive by the State. And the poor cannot be punished for the failures of the State to fulfill its obligations.