Declining populations, falling representation

The costs of a further increase in population should not be underestimated. India is already the most populous nation in the world with only a third of the land of China. This has added an edge to pressures on land. The squeeze on land is most evident in agriculture, where the division of the family farm in each generation has led to a large number of holdings becoming unviable. At the same time, the continuing faith in land as a long-term asset ensures these holdings are not always sold, and instead contribute to substantial fallows.

These considerations are typically brushed aside by expectations of a demographic dividend. Tapping the demographic dividend, though, requires higher levels of education. In India, education, especially after liberalisation, is provided primarily from family resources. Larger families distribute the resources for education over more children. This limits the education levels they can achieve and hence their ability to tap the demographic dividend. It is no surprise that states with larger populations per unit of land tend to have lower growth rates than states that have done well in population stabilisation. If states that have had success in population stabilisation now abandon that path, they too will move from having a demographic dividend to bearing a demographic burden.

States that have stabilised their populations would be better served by insisting that any reduction in their share of seats in Parliament must be accompanied by more effective decentralisation. This must begin with removing the systemic constraints on the devolution of political power. High on the list of these constraints is the first-past-the-post electoral system. As was pointed out in the Constituent Assembly debates more than seven decades ago, the first-past-the-post electoral system ignores the interests of all minorities, whether they are religious minorities, minority castes, or regional minorities. The winner in each constituency can ignore — and typically ignores — the interests of all other contestants.

The tendency to ignore minority interests is enhanced by the disconnect between the share of votes and the share of seats. The first-past-the-post does not need to have a majority of the votes polled. This ensures that a party can get a majority of the seats without being anywhere near the majority of the votes polled. It can consolidate its power on the national stage by protecting the interests of a loyal minority of voters. States whose voters are not a part of this loyal minority are among those who will be ignored by the government at the Centre.

This difficulty was recognised by members of the Constituent Assembly representing a variety of minorities. Representatives of princely states like Mysore pointed to the constraints the first-past-the-post system placed on regional minorities. Articulate as these members were, they did not have the political clout to influence the outcome. In the years soon after Partition, the interests of religious minorities were not high on the agenda of the Constituent Assembly. Regional interests did not fare much better with the focus being on national integration. And, the fact that a party that received a minority of the votes could get a majority of the seats was seen as a necessary device to produce political stability.

With national integration no longer being the challenge it once was, it may be time to return to some of the suggestions of members of the Constituent Assembly. Among the more prominent of these suggestions was a call for an electoral system based on proportional representation. Political parties would be given seats in Parliament in proportion to their share of votes. A party with 10% of the votes need not get any seats in Parliament in a first-past-the-post system, but in the proportional representation system, they would get 10% of the seats.

A system of proportional representation would not alter the number of seats a state has in Parliament. The states that have done well on population stabilisation would still have to settle for a lower proportion of the seats. But the system would contribute to the devolution of political power in at least two significant ways. It would increase the possibility of parties whose votes are distributed across a state to be represented in Parliament even if they are not in a position to win individual constituencies. Second, the experience of polling in India tells us that the ruling party would not have the majority of votes, and hence the majority of seats. They cannot then ignore the interests of smaller parties. Coalition governments in India have typically provided states with greater influence on national governance.

The focus on parties rather than constituencies would raise the issue of addressing constituency-level issues. This would have to be done through effective decentralisation of power within the states so that local institutions address local issues. States that have succeeded in population stabilisation must recognise that their problems are related to being a regional minority under a first-past-the-post electoral system. It is in their interest to lead a campaign for proportional representation accompanied by greater devolution within states.

Narendar Pani is JRD Tata Chair Visiting Professor and Dean, School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. The views expressed are personal

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