7/30/2007 2:48:41 AM
The delimitation question is once again poised to rattle the state. While various political parties independently as well as a collectivity at the initiative of the government, have agreed upon the non-feasibility of delimiting Assembly constituencies as per the controversial upswing in the population in some non-urban pockets of certain hill districts, pressure groups, most notably the All Naga Students Students Association Manipur, ANSAM and the Kuki Students Organisation, KSO are preparing to campaign for the redrawing of constituency map to be given affect unconditionally. The contentious part of the whole matter is, three general valley constituencies would come to be amalgamated to reserved hill constituencies. Under normal circumstances, regardless of all the challenges to the census papers (mostly made on the basis of circumstantial evidences that they do not reflect reality), the delimitation should have been given the green signal without too much ado. After all, the democratic exercise in the end is about a headcount, making numbers the deciding factors on who gets what share of the state’s power structure.
But the question is not so simple. This is so precisely because there is no homogeneity of the status of constituencies or voters in the state, 19 being reserved for schedule tribes, one for schedule caste and the rest 40 being general constituencies. The delimitation exercise in the current context hence would necessarily result in the reserving of constituencies which were till date open to all contestants and voters. A lot many voters would thereby end up disenfranchised and this is taboo for democracy. There is no way the Indian constitution can give assent to this, therefore even under the unlikely circumstance of the government agreeing to have the delimitation out of political considerations, we can predict that the courts of law would strike the decision down in view of its likely undemocratic fallouts. And there can be no doubt there would be legal challenges to any such moves. If the delimitation were to be within the general seats only, there probably would not have been so much to discuss. To a lesser extent, the same probably would have been the case were the delimitation to be only amongst the reserved seats, but the qualification in the second scenario would be, it would still be difficult to cross the physically unmarked but very zealously defended tribe and village boundaries. The fact that Nagaland is also vehemently opposing the delimitation exercise and calling for a status quo, should be enough testimony. So then, until such a time as all the constituencies in the state become homogenous, it would be difficult, if not impossible to either de-reserve reserved seats or reserve general seats.
There is however a way to get over at least the legal part of the problem. The rest is up to the people to agree to imbibe the liberal ethos and see the democracy process as transcending ethnic boundaries. Let the delimitation exercise have its way and let the three new constituencies be demarcated. However, if the shifts in the constituency boundaries result in the incorporation of general voters (which all three constituencies we are informed would), these constituencies must remain open for all candidates to contest and all voters to vote. These will be in a sense similar to the mixed constituencies in the valley districts, especially the Imphal area. Even if these constituencies were to remain the predominant domains of certain communities by virtue of their numbers, candidates to represent them under the new circumstance simply would not be able to ignore the interests of other communities, for winning or losing would come to depend heavily on how they manage not to hurt voters of these community. Such an arrangement would in fact be good for the health of inter-community relationships if taken in good spirit. The rider however is, it can also have very adverse fallouts such as witnessed in the Bodoland Autonomous Council and other illiberal political environments, most notably the former Yugoslavia, where the contests for democratic powers have actually resulted in bloody ethnic cleansings so that one or the other community would be able to claim majority status. The hills of Manipur are not totally unfamiliar to this story.
http://ifp.co.in/EditorialFull.asp?EditorialID=88
The delimitation question is once again poised to rattle the state. While various political parties independently as well as a collectivity at the initiative of the government, have agreed upon the non-feasibility of delimiting Assembly constituencies as per the controversial upswing in the population in some non-urban pockets of certain hill districts, pressure groups, most notably the All Naga Students Students Association Manipur, ANSAM and the Kuki Students Organisation, KSO are preparing to campaign for the redrawing of constituency map to be given affect unconditionally. The contentious part of the whole matter is, three general valley constituencies would come to be amalgamated to reserved hill constituencies. Under normal circumstances, regardless of all the challenges to the census papers (mostly made on the basis of circumstantial evidences that they do not reflect reality), the delimitation should have been given the green signal without too much ado. After all, the democratic exercise in the end is about a headcount, making numbers the deciding factors on who gets what share of the state’s power structure.
But the question is not so simple. This is so precisely because there is no homogeneity of the status of constituencies or voters in the state, 19 being reserved for schedule tribes, one for schedule caste and the rest 40 being general constituencies. The delimitation exercise in the current context hence would necessarily result in the reserving of constituencies which were till date open to all contestants and voters. A lot many voters would thereby end up disenfranchised and this is taboo for democracy. There is no way the Indian constitution can give assent to this, therefore even under the unlikely circumstance of the government agreeing to have the delimitation out of political considerations, we can predict that the courts of law would strike the decision down in view of its likely undemocratic fallouts. And there can be no doubt there would be legal challenges to any such moves. If the delimitation were to be within the general seats only, there probably would not have been so much to discuss. To a lesser extent, the same probably would have been the case were the delimitation to be only amongst the reserved seats, but the qualification in the second scenario would be, it would still be difficult to cross the physically unmarked but very zealously defended tribe and village boundaries. The fact that Nagaland is also vehemently opposing the delimitation exercise and calling for a status quo, should be enough testimony. So then, until such a time as all the constituencies in the state become homogenous, it would be difficult, if not impossible to either de-reserve reserved seats or reserve general seats.
There is however a way to get over at least the legal part of the problem. The rest is up to the people to agree to imbibe the liberal ethos and see the democracy process as transcending ethnic boundaries. Let the delimitation exercise have its way and let the three new constituencies be demarcated. However, if the shifts in the constituency boundaries result in the incorporation of general voters (which all three constituencies we are informed would), these constituencies must remain open for all candidates to contest and all voters to vote. These will be in a sense similar to the mixed constituencies in the valley districts, especially the Imphal area. Even if these constituencies were to remain the predominant domains of certain communities by virtue of their numbers, candidates to represent them under the new circumstance simply would not be able to ignore the interests of other communities, for winning or losing would come to depend heavily on how they manage not to hurt voters of these community. Such an arrangement would in fact be good for the health of inter-community relationships if taken in good spirit. The rider however is, it can also have very adverse fallouts such as witnessed in the Bodoland Autonomous Council and other illiberal political environments, most notably the former Yugoslavia, where the contests for democratic powers have actually resulted in bloody ethnic cleansings so that one or the other community would be able to claim majority status. The hills of Manipur are not totally unfamiliar to this story.
http://ifp.co.in/EditorialFull.asp?EditorialID=88
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