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Haryana law defeats spirit of universal suffrage
Highlights
Every elector, subject to the age, can be elected as President of India and the Prime Minister and to the representative bodies. Educational qualification was not prescribed to those who made the Haryana Law.
Every elector, subject to the age, can be elected as President of India and the Prime Minister and to the representative bodies. Educational qualification was not prescribed to those who made the Haryana Law. Haryana law is only a means to scuttle the themes and good intentions of the Seventy Third (Panchayat Raj System-Rural local bodies) and Seventy Fourth (Municipalities -Urban Local Bodies) Amendments to the Constitution of India on the devolution of powers to the local bodies
Your editorial ‘Full Bench Needs to Review’ (Dec 12) is timely. "As per the present law in the country, people convicted for criminal acts are debarred from contesting. The Haryana Law and the apex court thus equate a criminal act with being uneducated or indebted or having no toilet." As you have pointed: Is an illiterate worse than a drunkard? He drinks on his volition. Socio-economic conditions deny a person literacy.
First and foremost academic qualification is not 'Education'. They do not stand scrutiny of the definition of 'Education'; either ancient or modern. It is only 'literacy'. If we peep into the history of national movement, many stalwarts gave heed to the call of the Mahatma and gave up their studies to join the struggle for independence. Sardar Nagappa from Kurnool, a member of the Constituent Assembly, was a school dropout.
Gandhiji asked Kallur Subba Rao of Anantapur (also a member of the Constituent Assembly) “what is the rate of literacy in your town (HIndupur)?” Known for ready, wit, humour and sarcasm, Rao said: "Bapuji, 50 persons passed their SSLC and left the town. I have failed. So I am still there." Rao was a scholar in Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, English and Sanskrit. Kamaraj Nadar, just above the standard of 'thumb impression,' is one of the most outstanding and successful Chief Ministers in Independent India.
Though innocent and just a literate, T Anjaiah was endowed with abundant worldly wisdom and there was no charge of corruption against him. He fortified the public distribution system in AP by delivering the stock from the dodowns directly to the distributor, thus curtailing the chances of the midway leakage into the open market. Vavilala Gopalakrishnaiah, a seasoned legislator (five times) was a primary school dropout.
Replying to the debate after introducing the Constitution Bill in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, Dr Ambedkar voiced his opinion on adult suffrage: "Now I shall deal very briefly with certain aspects of the Constitution. I agree with my Honorable Friend, Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru, when he says that it might have been wiser for us not to have extended the franchise at one bound to universal suffrage. I recall the experience in Britain and the precedent of Britain. I am aware that the precedents and experience in other countries are not sacrosanct for us. But what happened in Britain in this matter of franchise? Representative parliamentary government was introduced in Britain in the 19th century but it was not till as recently as 1928 that universal franchise or adult suffrage was introduced. Though some of us are in the habit of talking about democracy without understanding its real purpose and its real content, to my mind a mere counting of heads has never constituted democracy.
Democracy has always carried the postulate, the implication that at least the exercise of the franchise would be made, if not on an essentially rationalistic basis, would be made at least on a common sense basis. And my own feeling is, sir, that if we had pursued the path of wisdom – more than that – of statesmanship, that we would have been justified to hasten slowly in this matter, that we would have not at one bound adopted the device of adult franchise but will have proceeded progressively not necessarily gradually but progressively.
As it is I am one of those who can only express the very sincere hope that when the next elections are fought or the elections after that and with an electorate which will be predominantly illiterate, with an electorate which will be predominantly unaware of exercising the franchise on a basis of being able to analyse political issues in a rational way, that this electorate will not be stampeded by empty slogans by meretricious shibboleths into chasing political chimeras which will not only lead to chaos but to the very destruction of the democracy which we have chosen to give them.”
Every elector, subject to the age can be elected as President of India and the Prime Minister and to the representative bodies. Educational qualification was not prescribed to those who made the Haryana Law. Haryana law is only a means to scuttle the themes and good intentions of the Seventy Third (Panchayat Raj System-Rural local bodies) and Seventy Fourth (Municipalities -Urban Local Bodies) Amendments to the Constitution of India: Devolution of powers to the Local bodies.
K C Kalkura
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