Tag Archive for 'redistricting'

The delay in implementation of the Delimitation Commission’s report is threatening to affect India’s democracy. Delimitation or redistricting (as it is called in the US) is a highly technical exercise that democracies carry out every few years. It has a very deep impact on the dynamics of electoral politics. Because of its highly technical nature it is subject to abuse and misuse (there can’t be much hue and cry about an issue that not many people understand!) In this article I give a background on the ongoing delimitation exercise in India and explain how a delay in this process could make the Indian democracy unfair.

Every electoral democracy divides its geographic area into different constituencies. In countries like US, UK, India each constituency sends one member to the parliament. Since people are constantly moving around in a country, with the passage of time, some constituencies gain voters while others loose them. It makes sense for the boundaries of all constituencies to be periodically revised so that each parliamentary constituency contains almost the same number of voters. This is to ensure that each citizen’s vote is of the same value. As a practical example, if there are two constituencies that send 1 MP each to the parliament and one has 400,000 voters and the other 1,400,000 voters you might justly accuse the country for treating the citizens of the second constituency unfairly. Sadly, there are many such examples in India today and that is why a fresh apportionment or delimitation is required.

Our constitution provides for a “Delimitation Commission” that is supposed to redraw geographical boundaries of electoral constituencies every census (ten years). But the last delimitation happened on the basis of the 1971 census! This was because Indira Gandhi amended the constitution (42nd amendment) so that delimitation would be frozen on the basis of the 1971 census. The reasoning was quite logical for that time but some distortions have crept in since then. The reasoning was as follows: India has a rapidly growing population. Some areas of India are growing faster in population than others. Relatively richer and educated states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat have much lower birth rates than the poor UP, Bihar and Orissa (the better off you are, the less children you will have. This is a worldwide phenomenon). So if delimitation continues to happen in the manner envisioned by the Indian constitution, the states that make maximum progress towards development and reduction of population growth rate will send fewer and few MPs to parliament every decade! So it was decided that the number of MPs each state sent to parliament would be frozen. This removed the disincentives to population control the states faced. One can see how this also added some stability to India’s federal structure for no state would tolerate reducing its voting power in parliament!

It was a positive reform and Indira Gandhi was proved right. Lets see some examples. Out of the 543 seats in the Indian parliament, Tamil Nadu, one of the rich (low population grow rate) states, sends 39 MPs to parliament presently. This number of 39 was decided on the basis of Tamil Nadu population in the 1971 census. If India was divided again into 543 parliamentary constituencies on the basis of the 2001 census, Tamil Nadu would only get 32 seats! UP, a poor state (with high population growth rate) has 80 seats today in parliament. On the basis of the 2001 census, it would get 88! (See here for this calculation).

Unfortunately, this well intentioned constitutional amendment introduced some problems of its own. We know that Tamil Nadu has 39 MPs in parliament. Lets say 30 seats came from rural areas and 9 seats from urban areas when the delimitation was originally done on the basis of 1971 census. This means that the rural citizens got 30/39 = ~75% of their states’ representation and urban 25%. Its now 2007. Rapid urbanization has taken place in the 36 years since 1971. Lets say 40% of Tamilians now reside in cities. Sadly, because of the freeze in delimitation they will still enjoy only 25% of the vote! One can understand the distortions this will have in the allocation of resources and the socio-economic priorities of the state. Tamil Nadu is merely an example; each state in the whole country faces the same problem! (Note that this example is numerically hypothetical because I don’t know the exact urban/rural parliamentarian numbers for Tamil Nadu in 1971 or 2001. But the example is very real)

This brings us to the critical point: Urban populations have been exploding but the cities continue to send the same number of MPs since 1970s. When you wonder why politicians continue to talk about farmers day and night and not talk about the city folk, the answer is simple: politicians represent their constituents and urban India is not represented adequately!

The situation is unsustainable and we cannot fight another election on the basis of 1971 boundaries. India’s parliament realizes this and has decided to do a lovely fudge. Each state as a whole will continue to send the same number of MPs as it did since the 1971 census delimitation, but the constituencies within each state will be redrawn so that each has nearly same number of voters. A Delimitation Commission is presently engaged in this task. Sticking to the Tamil Nadu example: If people migrated from villages to cities within Tamil Nadu since 1971, the cities will get more parliamentarians within the quota alloted to Tamil Nadu. While each citizen’s vote across the country will still not be equal, their vote should be of equal value within the state after the fresh delimitation exercise is completed. I believe this is a fair compromise for the long term.

The current Delimitation Commission has completed its work for 25 states across the country. Its baseline data was the 2001 census. Predictably, rural areas within states have lost seats to the cities. There are other side effects: politicians who have won and fought elections in a particular constituency for years are now worrying about changes in the social composition of their (modified) constituencies. Some politicians have lost their constituency all together because it does not exist anymore! With the 2009 elections looming near, there is a real fear that this massive reform in our democratic system might not go through. My fear was confirmed when the Times of India carried an article on September 15 that the delimitation exercise might be scuttled. This will be a extremely negative outcome. If our electoral districts are tied to the past our issues and politics will be tied to the past too.

This is an important issue. We should all learn and talk about it. Lets spread the news. Its vital that delimitation on the basis of 2001 census is implemented in the next election. The report is ready for 25 states. Now we should just have the will to implement it. The fairness of our democracy is at stake.