<p>India’s recent state elections emphasise the extent to which the country’s political landscape is changing. Amidst growing polarisation, parties are playing on identity issues to further their electoral goals ahead of the 2024 elections. Despite the entry of young blood in politics and the increasing role of ‘merit’, dynastic representation is alive and well. At a recent joint session of the India CEO and CFO Forums in Delhi, Jaiveer Shergill, a practising lawyer in the Supreme Court and a National Spokesperson of the BJP shared his insights on India’s political future.</p><h2>Mapping the Political Landscape</h2><p>India’s political past was dominated by caste and religion but this is now changing. Tellingly, in UP state elections, a minority-focused party contested 100 Muslim-dominated seats but lost its deposit in 99 of them; in Gujarat, the Congress lost its deposit in 44 seats, including 17 Muslim-dominated ones (the BJP won 14 of those). On the other hand, in Punjab, the AAP recently rode to power on the back of a desire for new leadership. Often, it is observed, Indian voters choose the dominant regional parties in state elections but vote for strong leadership at the Centre. In the 2019 general elections, for instance, BJP had a higher vote share than the INC and the regional parties combined.</p><p>The current electoral funding system is designed to ensure transparency. The Representation of People’s Act requires parties to report any donation exceeding Rs 20,000 for income tax purposes. Further, the electoral-bond system mandates the investigation of corrupt practices. Going forward, any systemic reforms to improve transparency will need to balance various priorities. For instance, if an individual or company donates to a certain party and another party happens to win the election, the donor should not be penalised.</p><p>India’s culture of providing freebies (<em>‘revari’</em>) is a complex and divisive issue. Here again, reforming the system will require nuanced thinking. For example, a recent RBI report argued that any welfare scheme should make a positive net contribution to the economy. Under such a framework, providing a bicycle to a girl child to attend school helps ensure that she does not drop out of school, so furthering her education. In the longer run, this would contribute to social and economic growth, and is thus not a freebie. On the other hand, free electricity arguably does not generate any such benefits. In any event, what is crucial to ensure is that empty promises of freebies should not be allowed to be used to lure voters.</p><h2>Youth in Politics</h2><p>Young politicians are romanticised but the reality is that fewer than 8% of politicians under the age of 40 received tickets to contest in the 2019 elections. The first two Lok Sabhas each had 164 MPs under 40 but by the 1980s, this number had dropped to 100, and it currently stands at 94. Consequently, India faces the conundrum of being a young nation with an ageing parliament.<em> </em>There is a demand for young politicians but a lack of supply. The reasons include the lack of a proper recruitment process and the high costs of campaigning.</p><p>Globally, there is a steady decline in the participation of youth in politics. In countries such as the US and the UK, voter turnout is low and declining – to the extent that some countries may soon start to incentivise younger people to vote. In the Indian context, the challenge lies not in low turnout but in poor youth representation. To tackle this challenge, countries like Rwanda have introduced a quota system for under-40s, and India might also consider adopting a gender-neutral age-based reservation system. Quotas would go some distance to ensure effective representation in a country that takes pride in its ‘demographic dividend’. In politics, there are no ‘training grounds’, so a quota would ensure that young politicians are brought to the forefront by their parties.</p><h2>Delimitation</h2><p>The current division of parliamentary seats across states is highly skewed, with many large and populous regions being under-represented. Carrying out a delimitation exercise is thus the need of the hour, and doing so would increase the size of the Lok Sabha to at least 800 seats. What has so far held back such as exercise is the fear that it would unintentionally penalise the Southern states for their effective implementation of population-control measures. However, it must be noted that this is not a matter of states competing with each other but of ensuring effective representation. To break the impasse, India may look at a system such as Australia’s where the number of seats allocated to each region is based on the effective representation of population, community and gender.</p>
<p>India’s recent state elections emphasise the extent to which the country’s political landscape is changing. Amidst growing polarisation, parties are playing on identity issues to further their electoral goals ahead of the 2024 elections. Despite the entry of young blood in politics and the increasing role of ‘merit’, dynastic representation is alive and well. At a recent joint session of the India CEO and CFO Forums in Delhi, Jaiveer Shergill, a practising lawyer in the Supreme Court and a National Spokesperson of the BJP shared his insights on India’s political future.</p><h2>Mapping the Political Landscape</h2><p>India’s political past was dominated by caste and religion but this is now changing. Tellingly, in UP state elections, a minority-focused party contested 100 Muslim-dominated seats but lost its deposit in 99 of them; in Gujarat, the Congress lost its deposit in 44 seats, including 17 Muslim-dominated ones (the BJP won 14 of those). On the other hand, in Punjab, the AAP recently rode to power on the back of a desire for new leadership. Often, it is observed, Indian voters choose the dominant regional parties in state elections but vote for strong leadership at the Centre. In the 2019 general elections, for instance, BJP had a higher vote share than the INC and the regional parties combined.</p><p>The current electoral funding system is designed to ensure transparency. The Representation of People’s Act requires parties to report any donation exceeding Rs 20,000 for income tax purposes. Further, the electoral-bond system mandates the investigation of corrupt practices. Going forward, any systemic reforms to improve transparency will need to balance various priorities. For instance, if an individual or company donates to a certain party and another party happens to win the election, the donor should not be penalised.</p><p>India’s culture of providing freebies (<em>‘revari’</em>) is a complex and divisive issue. Here again, reforming the system will require nuanced thinking. For example, a recent RBI report argued that any welfare scheme should make a positive net contribution to the economy. Under such a framework, providing a bicycle to a girl child to attend school helps ensure that she does not drop out of school, so furthering her education. In the longer run, this would contribute to social and economic growth, and is thus not a freebie. On the other hand, free electricity arguably does not generate any such benefits. In any event, what is crucial to ensure is that empty promises of freebies should not be allowed to be used to lure voters.</p><h2>Youth in Politics</h2><p>Young politicians are romanticised but the reality is that fewer than 8% of politicians under the age of 40 received tickets to contest in the 2019 elections. The first two Lok Sabhas each had 164 MPs under 40 but by the 1980s, this number had dropped to 100, and it currently stands at 94. Consequently, India faces the conundrum of being a young nation with an ageing parliament.<em> </em>There is a demand for young politicians but a lack of supply. The reasons include the lack of a proper recruitment process and the high costs of campaigning.</p><p>Globally, there is a steady decline in the participation of youth in politics. In countries such as the US and the UK, voter turnout is low and declining – to the extent that some countries may soon start to incentivise younger people to vote. In the Indian context, the challenge lies not in low turnout but in poor youth representation. To tackle this challenge, countries like Rwanda have introduced a quota system for under-40s, and India might also consider adopting a gender-neutral age-based reservation system. Quotas would go some distance to ensure effective representation in a country that takes pride in its ‘demographic dividend’. In politics, there are no ‘training grounds’, so a quota would ensure that young politicians are brought to the forefront by their parties.</p><h2>Delimitation</h2><p>The current division of parliamentary seats across states is highly skewed, with many large and populous regions being under-represented. Carrying out a delimitation exercise is thus the need of the hour, and doing so would increase the size of the Lok Sabha to at least 800 seats. What has so far held back such as exercise is the fear that it would unintentionally penalise the Southern states for their effective implementation of population-control measures. However, it must be noted that this is not a matter of states competing with each other but of ensuring effective representation. To break the impasse, India may look at a system such as Australia’s where the number of seats allocated to each region is based on the effective representation of population, community and gender.</p>
