Elections in the World's Largest Democracy
"Criminalization of politics is a bad trend. Earlier politicians used criminals. Now the criminals themselves have entered politics."
Rituraj Sharma, 21-year-old first time voter, Lucknow, India
"We deploy additional security forces with the candidates having criminal records. The gangs these politicians are associated with are well known and police will keep an eye on the members of these gangs."
Umesh Sinha, chief electoral officer, Uttar Pradesh
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| Photo: India Times |
India, which prides itself as they are so fond of describing it, as the world's largest, most populous democracy, is so democratic that among the politicians running for office can be counted murderers, rapists, and any number of unsavoury characters with criminal records, or whose court appearances on a variety of charges have not yet taken place as a result of an immense backlog of cases facing Indian courts.
Over 1,200 candidates are in the running for 545 seats open in the national election among whom are those facing criminal charges including rape, kidnapping, extortion and murder. This, according to statistics provided by the Association for Democratic Reform. All over India, violence and politics are indivisible. Local thugs are used by political parties to intimidate their political rivals.
The politicians shrug off the charges of criminality among them, labelling such accusations as being strictly politically motivated slanders to discredit their suitability for public office. In the country of 1.2-billion people, the administration seems incapable of rooting out corruption and the presence of a criminal class consonant with the political class.
Indian law can be invoked to bar an individual running for political office only once they have been convicted by a court for an offence, a process that can take years going on to decades as cases wind their weary way through an overcrowded, overtaxed judicial system.
In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous of all states in the country, the fear of violence has compelled the state election commission to identify ten of the fifteen constituencies as "red constituencies", requiring robust proactive measures against violence.
Petty criminals known by police to represent potential trouble, are taken into detention throughout the course of the one-week voting process. Licensed weapons across the polling area are confiscated, while hundreds of thousands of government troops and police spread across India to ensure security where the 814-million registered voters will attend the polls beginning the week ahead.
It is not the case that only one political party is known to host criminal elements. The Samajwadi (Socialist Party) ruling Utter Pradesh has a candidate charged with a rival politician's murder. Lawmaker Atiq Ahmed has been released on bail awaiting a court appearance, previously having spent 18 months in prison before his release. There has as yet been no conviction and the candidate denies the charges he faces.
Aside from the Socialist Party fielding candidates with criminal records, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate Keshav Prasad Maurya, faces murder charges, and Jitendra Kumar Singh Babloo of the Bahujan Samaj Party, representing India's lowest castes has had 17 criminal charges lodged against him, inclusive of attempted murder.
The world's largest democracy does not exactly present as a template of exemplary democratic process for the world to admire, celebrate and enthusiastically emulate. Though India is by no means alone in corruption and criminality running rampant throughout its political landscape.
Labels: Democracy, Human Rights, India, Social Failures
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 07, 2014
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