NEWS
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Business Commentary/Dilip Thakore

India needs to adopt the French presidential system

For most citizens of the Republic of India, January 26 -- Republic Day -- is just another one of the too many holidays the nation is heir to. True, there is a grand parade down Rajpath (formerly King's Way) in New Delhi, which is notable for the order, precision and visual appeal that is conspicuously lacking in the daily life of the nation. But for the overwhelming majority of the citizenry, Republic Day is not a day of major significance.

Yet just another holiday was not what the learned members of the Constituent Assembly had in mind when they presented the newly-Independent nation with the Constitution of India and declared the nation a republic 48 years ago (on January 26, 1950). On that historic day, India, which despite having attained its independence from British rule in 1947, still accepted the monarch of Britain and the Commonwealth as the titular head (represented by a Governor-General) of the nation, declared itself a completely independent country with its own titular ruler -- the President of the Republic of India.

Unfortunately, in keeping with the Anglophile temper of those times, the office of the President was envisaged as largely ceremonial -- indeed a replication of the ceremonial office of the British monarch. Despite the fact that unlike the hereditary English monarch, the President of India is elected by a representative electoral college comprising members of Parliament and the state's legislative assemblies. All arguments regarding the residuary executive powers of the President were scotched during the Emergency when Indira Gandhi pushed through the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution which made it mandatory for the President to act in accordance with the advice of the prime minister.

Nevertheless in the coalition era of the mid-1990s, the office of the President has once again assumed some political significance. Because, under Article 75 of the Constitution, the President has been invested with the power to appoint the prime minister. While in the normal course he would be obliged to call upon the leader of the majority party in the lower house to form a government, in this new era of coalition governments, it is often unclear as to which party or combination of parties has a majority, leaving the President to make the choice of the prime minister. And since power usually attracts support, the President's choice of prime minister often proves crucial in the formation of governments in New Delhi.

Responsible and mature exercise of power -- albeit limited -- by successive presidents and the short shelf-life of parliamentary governments in this new era of coalitions is building a groundswell in favour of a presidential system of government. This idea is far from new and has been doing the rounds of academia and the intelligentsia for several decades. But for several reasons, proposals to switch to the presidential system have at best received lukewarm support.

For one, because until the onset of the nervous '90s, general elections have often miraculously resulted in one or other clearly identified political party receiving a comfortable majority of seats in Parliament. After a brief period of instability after the death of Nehru, his daughter, Indira Gandhi received a massive endorsement from the electorate in 1971. In 1977, after the disastrous experience of Emergency, the Janata Party was voted to power with a workable majority. Ditto Gandhi again in 1980 and her son Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. The era of unstable coalition governments at the Centre began as recently as 1989, when the Congress was ousted by the V P Singh-led Janata Dal coalition. Hence public impatience with revolving-door coalition governments has not yet reached breaking point.

Secondly, the experience of the Emergency which gave the nation a taste of government dominated by a powerful chief executive alerted the Intelligentisia to the relative ease with which a presidential system can be subverted and transformed into a dictatorship. Thus, after the Emergency, several advocates of the Presidential system, including the brilliant constitutional lawyer Nani Palkhivala, revised their opinions regarding the suitability of the American- or French-style presidential system for the Indian polity.

However the experience of the '90s -- two prime ministers and governments in New Delhi during the past 24 months -- has once again opened up the debate which highlights the benefits of the presidential system of government.

The benefits are certainly not insignificant. There is something perverse about a system which exhorts the nation to elect legislators who are then transformed into a cosy club which elects the chief executive of the nation from among their number. Surely it is more democratic for the electorate to directly elect the chief executive of the nation so that it knows exactly who will head the government for the next five years. Far from being safer, the parliamentary system is more dangerous as it allows for the possibility of an unscrupulous and unqualified legislator cobbling up a majority by bribing and/or threatening fellow legislators.

In any case, party political campaigns in India have in effect been presenting the electorate the choice of the chief executive of the nation. In the, past citizens have been voting for Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv, and V P Singh as chief executives of the nation. There is something rotten about a system which suddenly foists a Deve Gowda or Gujral as prime minister upon an unsuspecting citizenry. In short, a switch to the presidential system will legitimise and correct existing practice.

Then there is the fear of a powerful presidency slipping into a dictatorship. This danger can be minimised by adopting the French presidential system as a model. In additional to a powerful directly elected president, this model also provides for an elected parliament which in turn elects a prime minister. The office of an indirectly elected prime minister which is a power centre in it own right, acts as a check on the presidency.

Through the simple expediency of a national referendum called four decades ago, General Charles de Gaulle ended an era of revolving door coalition governments in post war French and ushered in that nation's Fifth Republic. Since then, France has consistently recorded one of the fastest economic growth in Europe and has fully recovered its national pride and glory after its quick and shattering defeat in the Second World War.

With the prospect of another unstable multi-party coalition government in New Delhi looming large, the nation's intelligentsia (and media) needs to support the groundswell building in favour of a presidential system of government.

Dilip Thakore