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Hans Calss Room.
Highlights
The Supreme Court has upheld the Haryana Panchayat Law disqualifying illiterate people from contesting polls. This law prescribes SSC as minimum educational qualification for contesting in the elections to local bodies. The Haryana act and the Supreme Court judgment upholding it go contrary to the fundamental feature of universal suffrage guaranteed to all citizens of India by the Indian Constitution. It’s wrong to interpret universal suffrage as only right to vote. It implies right to contest, too. The right to run for office is sometimes called candidate eligibility, and the combination of both rights is sometimes called universal suffrage.
The Supreme Court has upheld the Haryana Panchayat Law disqualifying illiterate people from contesting polls. This law prescribes SSC as minimum educational qualification for contesting in the elections to local bodies. The Haryana act and the Supreme Court judgment upholding it go contrary to the fundamental feature of universal suffrage guaranteed to all citizens of India by the Indian Constitution. It’s wrong to interpret universal suffrage as only right to vote. It implies right to contest, too. The right to run for office is sometimes called candidate eligibility, and the combination of both rights is sometimes called universal suffrage.Universal suffrage for all adult citizens aged 21 or older, irrespective of caste, religion, sex, race or property, was established under the Article 326 of the 1950 Constitution of India, unless that citizen is “convicted of certain criminal offences” or “deemed unsound of mind.” The minimum age was reduced to 18 years by the Constitution (Sixty-first Amendment) Act, 1988, with effect from 28 March 1989. USA in 1920 while UK in 1928 allowed women to vote in elections. Switzerland was as late as 1975 to allow women suffrage.
In most countries, suffrage is limited to citizens and, in many cases, permanent residents of that country. Naturalized citizens do not have the right to vote or to be candidate, either permanently or for a determined period.
During the pre-independence era, only 13 per cent of Indian citizens used to enjoy the right to vote. The demand for universal adult suffrage had been gaining momentum few decades prior to the independence. The Motilal Nehru report was among the first proponent of “unlimited adult franchise and equal rights for women.” It was in 1928 when Dr B R Ambedkar appeared before the Simon Commission and insisted on incorporating universal adult franchise in the Constitution of India. According to him, elections were “a weapon in the hands of the most oppressed sections of society” and voting rights will give them the politico-legal equality. Ambedkar found a like-minded colleague in Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who also subscribed to his liberal views.
Granting voting rights to all, according to Ambedkar, provides the government with “unchallengeable legitimacy against any military intervention” or secessionist movements. Besides achieving gender equality by giving women the right to vote, it eliminated untouchability and ensured equal opportunities for backward class people as well.
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