The Changing Role of Elected Representatives

How has the role of the elected representative evolved in India? Pranay Kotasthane looks the question in Missing in Action. The usual question worldover has been whether the representative is a delegate or a trustee of the people? What do the terms mean?

“In the delegate model, the representative is a mere mouthpiece for the will of her constituents and has limited autonomy of her own.”

On the other hand, a trustee is allowed to exercise her discretion, her judgment and her conscience in how she votes in Parliament.

 

In most democracies, including India, representatives gradually became trustees.

 

By the 80’s and 90’s, India found these representatives would be bought over, flip parties, and bring down governments. When this problem got out of hand, the anti-defection law was framed – representatives had to follow their party whips; if they didn’t, they would be disqualified. An unintended effect of this new law was that the representative didn’t couldn’t vote anymore as either a delegate or a trustee. She just had to obey the party high command. Political power had gotten centralized in the hands of political parties.

 

Another major event in India was the rise of identity politics. It started off with regional parties based on group-based identities – Marathas, Dravidians, Muslims, Dalits, OBC’s…

“It was more important for the representative to reflect the identity of her constituents…”

This was deeply divisive. But it won state elections. It also meant regional and state identities kept getting stronger, and no one party could win at a national level anymore.

 

We have seen the consequences of that. It ain’t pretty.

 

The disgust and revulsion of where identity politics had taken us is one of the factors that brought the BJP under Modi to power – a unifying theme (at least on some fronts and to some groups):

“The nationalist, Hindu, and resurgent India narrative is attempting to subsume the local identities…”

Tongue-in-cheek, Kotasthane says this is why we see so much of the “One Nation, One X” philosophy, where X can be anything from ration card to election.

 

This then is a recurring theme of the book – path dependence. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Long chains of events from the past matter. They continue to influence present day events. Refusing to study that or acknowledge it only reduces our understanding of what’s happening at any given point in time.