The defection of legislators from the Aam Aadmi Party, the Trinamool Congress, and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) is a shameless spectacle dressed as a morality play. Its script seeks to obliterate the already-weak opposition, and bestow overwhelming power upon the Bharatiya Janata Party, a political behemoth that already straddles India. Such a scenario will slowly strangulate Indian democracy.
The morality play has had the legislators of the three parties to justify their defection as a “call of conscience” that prodded them into rebelling against their leaders, who have been accused of deviating from the foundational ideology of the parties they lead, or engaging in corruption, or wielding power imperiously. It’s better to desert such leaders in favour of assisting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build a new India, some defectors have argued.
Yet the irony is that in a representative democracy, the right of legislators to have a conscience, that innate sense of distinguishing right from wrong, is severely circumscribed. They are in the Lok Sabha or the State Assembly not because they passed an examination to enter it. They are sent to the legislatures by the people who voted for them because of the party ticket on which they stood. Their victory suspends their right to have a conscience.
This is because, typically, the leader gives the ticket to a party candidate; the leader is also often pitched to become the Prime Minister or Chief Minister on securing a majority of seats in the legislature, regardless of his or her perceived venality or imperiousness or ideological hypocrisy. When people vote in a constituency, they vote not just for the candidate, but also subliminally for the party and its leader. Their vote is an expression of their judgment that the troika—the candidate, the party, the leader—they endorsed is the best among all the competitors for the greater good. This fact gives an ethical basis to the exercise of franchise.
This judgment of theirs constitutes the kernel of the collective conscience. The legislator’s conscience can’t but echo the collective conscience. He or she can’t substitute the collective conscience with his or her own. To do so would be tantamount to subverting the will of those who elected him or her.
The anti-defection law, too, pivots on the presumption that the legislator doesn’t have the right to a conscience. Legislators, after all, risk being disqualified in case they choose to vote on an issue against the direction of the party, which is the repository of the collective conscience. It therefore decides which measures are in consonance with the collective conscience—and which are not. This power is given to the party because legislators won on the strength of the party. In reality, the leader increasingly delivers victories for the party.
Yet, quite absurdly, the anti-defection law recognises the right of an MP or MLA to have a conscience as long as his or her call is shared by two-thirds of their colleagues in the party—and who then choose to merge with another political entity. This provision is absurd because the people did not vote for the new entity, which cannot therefore become the custodian of the collective conscience.
The unity of purpose among two-thirds legislators cannot also be interpreted to mean they were the recipients of the majority, let alone two-thirds, of the votes cast for their party. This is particularly true in scenarios as in West Bengal and Maharashtra, where the leader whose name they invoked to garner votes does not endorse their decision of a merger. The anti-defection law is woefully out of sync with the Indian political reality.
Legislators can obviously reclaim their right to a conscience by resigning from the legislature, and re-contesting in the by-polls to prove that their interpretation of the collective conscience, not that of the party, was correct. This test has not been taken by any of the defectors from the Trinamool or the Shiv Sena (UBT). Although the AAP’s Rajya Sabha members were not directly elected, they were sent to the House of Elders by electors whom the people voted for in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections. They, too, are thus guilty of violating the collective conscience of AAP supporters.
The three parties that have witnessed defections fought elections on an anti-BJP platform. Yet the legislators of two of the three parties have joined either the BJP or its ally. The defectors from the TMC have merged with the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India, but they are expected to support the BJP in Parliament.
What desertions do to opposition
These desertions have shrunk the opposition space and incredibly enhanced the BJP’s existing dominance. This outcome distinguishes the defections since 2014, when Modi swept to power, from those seen in the era preceding it. The defining moment in this saga is 1967, when Congress’ fortunes declined, parties split and re-split, and State governments fell within a few months, with legislators switching their allegiance at an astonishing frequency.
Yet these desertions challenged power, then synonymous with the Congress, expanded the opposition space, and were responsible for spawning multipolarity in Indian politics. The more famous departures from the Congress were often triggered by substantive differences. Take Charan Singh, who left the Congress because Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister C.B. Gupta included in his ministry those whom the former wanted excluded as they were corrupt. With no anti-defection law in place, Singh left the Congress with 16 others. He formed the coalition government of Samyukta Vidhayak Dal, which lasted less than a year.
Morarji Desai fell out with Indira Gandhi over the choice of candidates to succeed President Zakir Hussain, who died in office in 1969. Desai opposed the names Gandhi suggested on the grounds that they were either corrupt or did not adhere to democratic norms. He is also said to have opposed the policy of nationalising banks that Gandhi favoured. She divested Desai of his Finance Ministry portfolio but let him continue as the Deputy Prime Minister. He promptly resigned, deepening the crisis in the Congress that ultimately led to it splitting.
Chandra Shekhar became the general secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party in 1967, yet did not desist from being the voice of dissent. He was arrested after Gandhi imposed the Emergency. Shekhar subsequently joined the Janata Party. V.P. Singh raised the issue of bribery in the Bofors deal, to the chagrin of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and was expelled from the Congress. He floated the Jan Morcha, which merged with other opposition parties to become the Janata Dal.
The four leaders cited above eventually became Prime Ministers, testifying to how defections led to the dispersal of power that the Congress had monopolised. To this process other defectors, such as Jagjivan Ram and H.N. Bahuguna, too contributed.
Defections today
What we are experiencing today is the opposite—defections rarely occur because of ideological differences and are palpably geared towards concentrating power in the BJP. These twin outcomes are because of the Modi government deploying Central investigative agencies to scare MPs and MLAs with court cases and jail, in addition to offering them sweeteners such as ministerial berths.
This is why the spectacle of defections has to be dressed as a morality play, however faux. It is shameless but also dangerous, for methodically shrinking and defanging the opposition is as good as killing democracy. It is imperative for the people whose collective conscience the deserters have violated to rise in protest against their betrayal.
Ajaz Ashraf is a senior journalist from Delhi and the author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.
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