Problems of representation in India: Conflicting obligations of an elected representative

By Rithvik Mathur

In his article India’s Crisis of Representation, Shashi Tharoor has highlighted how present developments in the Indian State have reduced the citizen’s say in how he or she is governed. The article mainly focused on how anti-defection laws have contributed to this crisis of representation.

Although this point is very valid, it still falls short of explaining the entirety of this crisis. However, it does explain one of the factors that contribute to this crisis of representation and for this reason, it cannot be ignored. This article seeks to approach the same topic addressed in Shashi Tharoor’s article from a different angle. Rather than discussing the relationship between the party and a representative, this article approaches the issue by looking at how the conflicting obligations of an elected representative led to this crisis.

The origin of the crisis

This crisis began with the society becoming bigger and more complex. To institutionalise democracy, it became necessary to choose somebody to represent a group of people. For example, presidential systems elected presidents to represent the entire country and Parliamentary systems elected members of parliament to represent a constituency.

In such democratic representative systems, citizens are given the power to decide on their governance collectively. This power is drawn from elected representatives when deciding policy matters. This means that the Parliament gets the power to make the law from the citizens. In exchange for the power, the representatives are given the responsibility of ensuring that the interests of the constituency are adequately represented in the decision-making forum and to ensure that the problems of the constituency are addressed adequately. The representatives are held accountable for all action and inaction through elections.

The Indian context

In India political parties such as the Congress and the BJP soon emerged as the representatives of the people. The people elected MPs and the majority formed the government. However, amongst this majority, it was a smaller group of high ranking members who decide policies.

The anti-defection law was used to ensure that the entire party voted according to party policy. As highlighted by Shashi Tharoor in his article, party policy is not always decided democratically, with higher ranking officials almost dictating terms while deciding the party’s stance on policies.

Here, we see two obligations being placed on an elected representative; while one remains to the party the other obligation of the representative is to the constituency. Performing both duties tends to become mutually exclusive at times, especially when in Indian politics, the prevailing narrative assigns the Government’s job to propose and the opposition’s job to oppose. The prescription to this prevalent narrative is not limited to the politicians and their parties but includes most of the stakeholders in the matter.

The power of representatives

It is exactly at this intersection that we see which obligation is more binding; we see that representatives are bound by the dictates of the party more than representing their constituents’ interest. When considering a more realistic scenario where constituencies have competing interests, we see that the representative has tremendous power to choose which interests to represent, of course running these interest through the party’s ideological sieve first.

Thus, we can see that though the representative derives their power from their constituency and are supposed to be an extension of their constituents, they become separated from their constituents’ interests when they begin to prioritise other interests.

Shashi Tharoor emphasises on a different angle, one that is less critical of representatives. He points out that it is widely known that it is no small quantity of resources that are put into getting elected. No elected representative would want to or should be expected to forego the fruits of those efforts and resources put into winning elections over this avoidable clash of duties.

This conflict between the different obligations of an elected representative seeks to highlight how displaced the will of the people is in governance. There have been several other intrusions that have displaced the will of the people made by all three wings of the executive. This conflict of obligations just highlights one systemic feature that has created a lacuna through which the poisons of vested interests have seeped in and obstructed better governance. A more vigilant public is the need of the hour to ensure that the interests of the constituents are foremost in the minds of their representatives in their respective decision-making bodies.

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