Progressing to the stage of 'People's Mandate'
- Part 1 -

Akash Rajkumar *

Humans have come a long way. They had roamed, gathered, hunted for their survival. However, the ever evolving human brain capacity led him to make rational decision unlike his animal counterparts. The sense organs were a gift which gave him the capacity to observe and learn about the mysteries of nature.

Eventually, agriculture made him settle in a confined space territory limiting his roaming, gathering, hunting instincts. But, we can for sure say that those instincts are still with us and we tend to use them in flight or fight situations.

Settlement is, of course, a solution as well as a problem. Settlement and expansion of settlement is a major theme of many a history we study about the recent past. The never ending progress of expansion of settlement had produced many great kings and emperors. Kingdoms were created. Empires were forged out of many different cultures. History remains a standing proof to this claim.

The political achievements are illustrated in grandiose monuments, temples, palaces, cities, towns etc. We can recall a line by Genghis Khan which runs as "Conquering the world on a horseback is easy; dismounting and governing that is hard." We have seen a number a dynasty fall due to failure in its rights of primogeniture, or on account of mis-governance.

Ever since the origin of kingship, we have seen issues regarding the appointment of the next heir either through sheer merit or hereditary privileges. For centuries monarchy remained un-opposed as a legitimate form of government.

And it was only in the early half of the second millennial CE that people slowly and gradually realized that monarchy isn't as legitimate as it appears to be. But we can't brush aside the early Athenians or the Greek society or the Roman society which shows some crude nature of democracy or rather aristocratic form of governance.

The Glorious Revolution in 1688 CE Britain, the French Revolution in 1789 had changed the course of human history. Since then "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" have been the crying call of many agitations, movement, resistance or revolutions. With this, monarchical Government slowly gave way to republican form of Governments.

However the extent of rights exercised by a citizen in a particular country differs. But we can accept that democracy and election have been replacing many older form of governance. It had even claimed its victory over the communist form of governance, with the balkanization of the erstwhile USSR in the 1990s.

Advocates of democracy have been preaching it as the ultimate form of government. By democracy, we try to follow a simple definition articulated on 1st of August 1858 by Abraham Lincoln as a Government "of the people, for the people, by the people."

So the role of people is confined to exercising their right in electing the representatives and on criticizing the elected representatives and their policies when need arises. Thus, democracy and election goes hand in hand.

Election has been described as a 'festival of democracy'. We refuse to accept democracy without its festival. In fact election provides the citizens with a mechanism to change their representative if they fail to perform up to the expected bar.

So in a free and fair election, its citizen is guaranteed the 'right of adult franchise'. However we should not forget that elections are only a part of a certain political system and not an exhaustive factor.

In India, the right to vote is given to any citizen who has attained the age of 18 years and elections have been a part and parcel of our political system since the colonial period. Election is conducted for the Houses of Parliament, the State Assemblies, Legislative Councils, Local Self Governments. From the grass root level to the highest level, election is a key element of the selection procedure of the legislative branch.

The Election Commission of India conducts the official elections in India since its inception in 25th of January 1950 at regular intervals, which is a periodic cycle of 5 years.

In order to claim any conducted election as a mirror image of popular mandate, we need to see the procedure of Delimitation and the Electoral System adopted by India since attaining the status of a Republic on the 26th of January, 1950; which is nearly seven decades ago. Apart from changes in delimitation, no effective changes have been adopted for the past seven decades.

DELIMITATION

Delimitations literally mean the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or province having legislative body. Countries may vary on considering factor for working its delimitation procedure, but three generally accepted principle is considered.

They are
- Representativeness
- Equality of Voting Strength
- Reciprocity.

In India, the job of delimitation is done by a high power body established by Government of India, under the provisions of Delimitation Commission Act. The orders of the Commission have the force of law and cannot be called in question before any court. These orders will come into force on a date specified by the President of India.

The copies of the order will be laid on the floor of the House of the People and the State Legislative Assembly concerned. But no modification is permitted therein by the legislative bodies. The action will be taken accordingly based on a recent census. Delimitation Commission had been constituted four (4) times – 1952, 1963, 1973 & 2002.

Since 1976, delimitations had been suspended by the then Government so that State's family planning programs would not affect the procedure. The suspension was in practice till 2001. In the procedure of delimitation, the number of representatives from each State is not changed however the number of SC/ST representative may change accordingly to the referenced census.

The recommendation of the 2002 Commission was not implemented leading to the interference of the Supreme Court in 2007. The apex court demanded the reasons for non implementations. On 4th of July 2008, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs(CCPA) decided to implement the recommendations. The delimitations of four north-eastern states was deferred due to security reasons.

The states were Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur by a Presidential order on 28th February 2008. Assam was directed to implement delimitation on 28th of February 2020 and the remaining north eastern states along with Jammu and Kashmir on 6th March, 2020, all the four north-eastern states had been put to halt since March of 2022.

Moreover , the Constitution of India was specifically amended in 2002, by the 84th Amendment, to postpone any interstate delimitation till 2026 on the basis of 2021 census.

To be continued...