Walter Hahn

Founder – Coordinator, German Dalit Solidarity Platform.
Founding Member, International Dalit Solidarity Network.
Strong supporter of Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India

In October 2008 the “Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India (CERI)” was launched in Dhaka with an international conference after a preparation phase of more than two years. CERI is aiming to change the present Indian electoral system of “First Past the Post (FPTP)” (also called “Winner Takes All”) to any electoral system based on the principles of proportionality, preferably the Mixed Member Proportionate System (MMP). The protagonists of CERI are convinced that a proportionate electoral system (PES) is more conducive to create a society that provides a more genuine political space not only for the Dalits, but also for all minorities and pave the way for a society, which will be more egalitarian and more inclusive. Since its launch the campaign has made a very impressive progress, having been able to already convince some parties and people’s movements to join the campaign and/or also favour the PES. Meanwhile the Chief Elections Commissioner has constituted a Special Committee for Proportional Representation System to deal with this issue and reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of different electoral systems within the Indian context.

Disempowerment of Dalits in the present electoral system

For anyone who joins the international lobby and advocacy work, with the final goal of promoting the Dalit-issue, it will be unavoidable to hear the argument from parliamentarians of the EU or the European countries and also from diplomats from all over the world, that they can’t really understand or believe the ongoing suffering of the Dalits.  This is because this group of people has political representation not only in the national parliament, but also in the State Assemblies. Such statements though simply echo the view of all Indian governments, and carry the insinuating question: why the Dalits did not and do not use this leverage to improve their political influence and put an end to caste-based discrimination and improve their economic situation? This is a very strong argument and it usually needs an elaborate explanation about why this actually has not happened and is still not happening.

Whenever one talks with Dalit activists in India about this predicament one will hear lamenting complaints and pejorative remarks about the ineffectiveness and self-centered attitude of Dalit representatives, their lack of leadership and visionary power. As a beginner working on Indian issues, I was always asking myself how this is possible, as 16 % of the seats in a parliament is indeed quite a substantial representation and should really lead to a remarkable influence! For a person, living in a country where, for example, “The Greens” with a poll of around 10 to 12 % can influence the societal discourse and not merely environmental issues to a considerable extent, this is really astonishing. Though the answer from the Dalit activists to all the related questions was not fully convincing, I could frequently read that the Dalits feel betrayed by Gandhi, particularly because of the election mode for the Dalit representatives. This mode is the result of the so-called “Poona-Pact”, a compromise to which the Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was forced to agree, threatened by Mahatma Gandhi’s fast unto death in the year 1932 in Poona, where Gandhi was in jail.

Ambedkar suggested at the round Table Conferences in London to apply the concept of “Separate Electorates” also for the “Untouchables”, in the same way, as it was similarly already available for other minorities, such as Muslims, Christians, Anglo-Indians and Sikhs. The British government agreed with Ambedkar’s suggestion and was prepared to foresee this system to be incorporated into the constitution for independent India. Gandhi strongly opposed it on the ground that it would disintegrate the Indian (Hindu) society. This argument doesn’t seem to be very convincing, as the system of “Separate Electorates” would allow the minorities not only to vote in their “own” electorate, but also in the general (i.e. common) one. It could be argued against Gandhi that this “double voting” could serve a twofold purpose: to strengthen on the one hand the identity of the respective community and, at the same time, give them the feeling of being part of a larger nationhood. Ambedkar’s suggestion thus could have become a real (dialectical) acid test for Nehru’s slogan of India being a being a nation of “unity in diversity”.

As Gandhi had not opposed this model in the case of the other minorities, there is definitely some logic in the argument that Gandhi has orchestrated this massive and coercive resistance towards Ambedkar’s move, because he deliberately wanted to perpetuate the dominance of the Brahmanic order over the Dalits and hold up their political powerlessness. One wonders, why Gandhi had not opposed this system of “Separate Electorates” on the ground of being “undemocratic” as it violates the iron principle of “one man/woman, one vote”, as it was coined later by South Africa’s Blacks freedom struggle. It may be due to the time that this argument was not used, when still not all democratic principles where ingrained in the minds of even freedom fighters. Anyway, this argument nowadays prevents CERI to simply revert back to Ambedkar’s ideas of “Separate Electorates” for Dalits when suggesting a new electoral system for India.¹

What does the Poona-Pact-compromise look like and why did it actually have such disempowering consequences for India’s minorities, though also providing a representation in both the national and the state parliaments (“legislative assemblies”) equivalent to their proportion of the population?

As the FPTP system foresees one delegate from each constituency only, the number of seats in the parliament is always the same as the number of constituencies. It is, therefore, quite simple to provide a certain percentage of seats in the parliament for any minority: if a minority has, for example, a proportion of 15% of the population it will be only necessary to make sure that in 15% of the constituencies members of this minority will be elected. In the case of Indian Dalits it was decided that in 16% of the constituencies that are reserved for Dalits, all the contesting parties have to nominate a candidate hailing from one of the Scheduled Castes communities living in this constituency. Thus automatically Dalit representatives will occupy 16% of the seats in the parliament. The earmarked constituencies are called “Reserved Constituencies” and they are normally selected based on a high proportion of Dalits/Scheduled Castes in the population. Changes in the earmarking of the constituencies are possible.

This is a very simple solution and it could be argued that it will also contribute to the integration of the minorities into the political power system, if any party is forced to nominate Dalit candidates. However, if one analyses the realities of how this system of representation is used by the parties, one will find the following factors contributing to the disempowerment of Dalits:

• The Dalit parliamentarians depend largely on the party establishments (who generally do not hail from the Dalit communities) for getting a ticket even in the ‘reserved seats’. It is quite natural that the party leaders don’t select very strong personalities, but rather those ones who will be always loyal to them. These representatives tend to follow their guidelines rather than developing their own Dalit agenda and consequently following a Dalit perspective for their political activities. Would they do this, they may be punished in not getting the ticket for their constituency again, thus forfeiting their political career.
• In the FPTP system any parliamentarian who wins the constituency is the only representative of this area in the parliament. Hence it is his/her duty to “transport” all the political demands from all the different interest groups to the parliament, no matter how contradictory they may be. For a Dalit parliamentarian this may mean that he/she has to push for interests that may be detrimental to the interest of the Dalit people in the area. The usual argument for overcoming this quandary is that this very situation contributes to reconcile the contradictions in the interests of the different groups of people. This may hold strong for countries, where even the poorer sections have sufficient organisational strength to counter unilateral decisions, but it is hardly true for Indian circumstances. How can a Dalit parliamentarian develop a concise policy in the eyes of “his/her” people and struggle for it with credibility, if he/she has also to fight for the dominant interests?
• The Indian polity has developed a law making strategy, which is all kippers and curtain, i.e. it is important to have a law as a showpiece only and hardly anyone is interested in its implementation and its actual effects on the life of the people. I would even go so far to say that – at least with regard to some laws concerning Dalit issues – most of the politicians support the law in parliament with the strong hope or even some certainty that nobody will take it seriously in its implementation. This means that most of the Dalit politicians are blinded by the fact that they have succeeded in getting quite a few progressive laws in their favour, (e.g. SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act or the Special Component Plan/Tribal Sub Plan in the budgets, or The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act etc.) but have not led to real changes in their societal position so far, as even they themselves have not done the necessary follow-up for effective implementation.

Can Dalits be empowered by a different electoral system?

This analysis leads to the question whether another electoral system can avoid such predicaments for parliamentarians and will provide more space and power for politicians belonging to minorities. The answer is ‘yes’, at least if a Mixed Member Proportional System (MMP) is chosen, which is one particular variant of the proportionate model.

In order to follow the arguments why this is the case, it is necessary to explain how the MMP-system works in comparison with the present FPTP-system.

The present electoral system in India is inherited from the British Colonial Powers and has definitely the advantage of being very simple, transparent and easily comprehensible, though not able to properly transform the will of the people into appropriate political power constellations in the parliament. For this system the country is divided into that many constituencies, as there are seats in Parliament. That candidate wins the constituency, who has gained most of the votes. The winning candidate usually comes from the largest community in that area and is additionally able to give some others the impression that he/she will also effectively represent their own communities. For minorities it is practically impossible to gain a seat, as they don’t have sufficient voters and usually the potential to convince other groups to vote for a candidate of their minority group. The votes from all the other competitors are lost and not counted, which means that in most of the constituencies 60 to 70 % of the voters are not represented with their will and interest in the parliament.

This problem is somehow balanced out only under the condition that there are only two larger competing parties, though it is still possible even under such a condition that the party gaining more votes will end up with fewer seats than its competing counterpart (e.g. in the US-election between Bush and Gore)!

Any sort of proportional voting system avoids such mishaps and ensures that the parties get exactly that number of seats which is in proportion to the share of votes the parties have gained, i.e. if party X has gained 16% of votes it will accordingly get 16% of seats in the parliament. This procedure allows also minorities to send their representatives into the parliament (at least as long as they are not too small in number) and, therefore, practically no votes (or only a small number) will be lost. Turning the will of the people upside down, (the party with fewer votes gets more seats), as can happen in the FPTP system, cannot occur at all in the proportionate systems. There are proportionate systems that are also very simple: the parties running for election put up lists of candidates and the voters just make their choice for one party. After the election the party chooses as many candidates from their list as it is eligible to send into parliament according to their percentage of votes. This system has the disadvantage that the candidates on the list may remain rather anonymous for the voters and may not develop a close link to a certain constituency or region.

The Mixed Member Proportionate System (MMP) tries to combine the advantages of systems, the majoritarian FPTP and the proportionate system, and to avoid their disadvantages. The MMP system, recommended by CERI, will have two votes for all voters – one for a candidate in the constituency and the other one for voting the list of a party.² It will still remain fully pproportional, because all votes for the parties in all constituencies are summed up on the national (or the state, in the case of legislative assembly elections) level and then are transformed into parliamentary seats.  That is the list-votes only decide the political composition of all seats in parliament in proportion to the votes, the parties obtain in the whole country or the whole state. This means that all seats, not only the 70% of the seats elected under the List-PR-system, are distributed according to the overall vote-share of the parties. The 30% of seats gained and distributed under FPTP (from the constituencies) do not interfere with this principle, but will become part of the “contingent” of seats a party gets under its share from the List-PR-votes.

With this combination, the MMP-system combines the direct connection (“rooting”) of candidates to a region (constituency), which provides for a rather high degree of accountability and “politics with a face” with all the advantages of proportionality, particularly the high probability that minorities can represent themselves in parliament.

The other important additional feature is that with the reservation component within the party lists, as proposed by CERI, it is quite likely to make the parliament truly inclusive with genuine representation of all groups of the society, though this will most probably be only a necessity for a limited period of time.³

What will be the effects of the different components of the MMP chosen by CERI on the Dalits and other minorities? How will the proportionate system avoid the factors (mentioned above) that contribute to the disempowerment of Dalits?

It was said that a Dalit politician, who develops a clear Dalit agenda and follows a clear Dalit perspective will most probably get into difficulties with its party establishment, as they are usually members of parties of higher and dominant castes. Hence he/she will be punished in developing such perspectives and will, therefore, most likely avoid doing so, as it is contrary to its own personal interest. In a PES, however, the Dalits will see sufficient space for making their own way, form their own party and exercise their political influence within the political arena. As such a party is in need of politicians with a clear agenda and a vision, any Dalit politician who will develop such qualities will be rewarded with leadership – and not punished, as it happens in the present system.

• Further to this the “Winner takes All – system” discourages minorities to form their own parties, as they will hardly have a chance to win a constituency, as long as they are not making some deals with other groups. Therefore, I am quite convinced that an electoral system based on proportionality will soon lead to the foundation of a Dalit party or a coalition of Dalit parties, which will be in a position to follow a clear Dalit agenda.⁴
• The MMP-system not only allows that two or, in a few cases, even three representatives from one constituency, sent by different parties, will get seats in the parliament. This makes it much easier for the individual representatives to follow their own priorities (resp. that of their respective parties) as they are not anymore the only one representing a particular constituency. If people want to present any issue in parliament they will approach that parliamentarian of their constituency who is closer to them in their political thinking and interests.
• This, in general, will also lead to a shift from a very strongly person-centered type of politics to a more programme and concept oriented policies. Parliamentarians will more likely be individual representatives of their party’s policies rather than their own opinion leader. This consequently leads to more accountability and responsibility.
• The third condition is surely the one, which will be least changed by the electoral system, though it will also have its influence – particularly if an emerging Dalit party will be able to gain power within a coalition government. Being then responsible for certain fields of politics their voters will also expect changes in their living conditions and in the implementation of laws and programmes created with the zeal to support them and improve their situation.

Having these ideas in mind I frequently discussed the question of political representation with the Dalit colleagues in India. It was an amazing experience that for most of them it was really difficult to even imagine an electoral system, which was so different to what is existing already. This is quite understandable, as the most important reference countries for them, Great Britain and the USA, both have the same or a similar system. The lack of imagination and research in this direction is also there in the intellectual and academic circles – therefore it was a real breakthrough when activist-intellectuals from CERI ventured into this completely new area of campaign and a very different approach to empower Dalits and other minorities in India.
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1. While studying other electoral systems the activists from CERI discovered that New Zealand, when reforming and changing its electoral system under the motto “Towards a Better Democracy” from 1992 onwards, found a brilliant solution to avoid the “democracy-gap” when introducing more than one electorate into their new system. In order to give a more genuine representation to the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Maori, two electorates were introduced, the “General Electorate” and additionally a “Maori Electorate”. To avoid double voting by the Maori people, every voter has to make a choice before voting: to vote either in the General or in the Maori Electorate. In order to keep the proportionality, the Maori electorate has as much constituencies as seats in the parliament would make up its proportional representation. In spite of this, any Maori person has still the choice to contest in the general electorate. This solution could also be applied to the Indian situation, thus ingeniously taking up Ambedkar’s ideas and making them practicable under present conditions, avoiding that members of the minorities would have two votes, whereas the members of the general population would only have one. Following this line of thinking and introducing e.g. a “Dalit Electorate”, other minorities may also demand for such a solution and, in fact, it would be logical to also introduce other electorates at least for Muslims and Adivasis/Tribals.

2. CERI recommends a distribution with a ratio of 30% FPTP seats elected from single-member constituencies (“direct seats”) and 70% party list seats (“list seats”) though such a system may appear too complicated for the Indian situation. CERI is, however, convinced that the Indian voters (particularly the poor ones) have sufficiently proven during the last 60 years that they are fully aware of the power of voting – probably the only real power they have – and will also be able to understand and handle the system with two votes. Bringing in MMP (instead of the option of having different electorates, as explained in footnote 1) will further not mean a total departure from the past electoral praxis in India, while at the same time it will integrate the important principle of proportionality in political representation in India and keeps the “reservation principles” within the party-lists. Anyway, it was indeed a difficult decision for CERI to choose MMP, but it was finally felt that the shift to the New Zealand model would be too a drastic change in view of the present situation in India.

3. The principle of proportionality and the reservation system are two methods to basically achieve the same goal: to provide a genuine representation for any relevant group in a given society. It is assumed that within the Proportional Electoral System (PES) any relevant group will form its party in order to push its interest into the political decision making process. Hence (theoretically), it doesn’t need any quota or reservation system for minorities, as they can form their own party, if they feel the need for political representation. However, the example of the insufficient women representation also in parliaments of countries with a PES shows that the proportionate representation of different societal groups is not at all a “natural” process, emerging automatically. That some parties even within these countries have introduced quotas for women (e.g. “The Greens” and the “Left” in Germany) clearly shows that disadvantaged and marginalized groups need both systems, at least for a certain period of time until the conditions of their participation have improved.

4. There is not sufficient space here to analyse the example of BSP. It is, however, clear that even BSP always had to make considerable offers to other groups in order to gain power. That the BSP example could not be replicated in other states also shows that BSP’s success story has some very specific conditions, which need further analysis. I am, however, convinced that the shift to PES provides much more political space for Dalits all over India, provided they will also find the strength to make reasonable compromises amongst themselves – between the different jatis. But these should be much easier to achieve compared to the ones necessary with other political parties and societal groups.