Who sets the agenda in this system of democracy?

With the elections over and the new council of ministers in place, the second Manmohan Singh government has begun unveiling its agenda.  Whereas the first UPA government had adopted the slogan of “reforms with a human face”, the new one has coined the similar-sounding “rapid and inclusive growth” as the guiding slogan of its policy.  What this means is that the government will continue to proceed full steam ahead with measures to further enrich the big capitalists and expand their global reach, while distributing some giving some sops to placate specific groups and sections of people. 

According to the government, this agenda is legitimate and has the support of the people, because the people gave it their stamp of approval by voting it back into power.  The fact is that neither the Congress Party and its alliance partners nor any of the opposition parties made the program of extending capitalist reforms the issue in the election campaign.  Instead they all said what the people wanted to hear, while not committing themselves to anything which they could be held accountable for. So for the government to claim that it has “the mandate of the people” for its agenda is the height of deception.

The fact is that in a bourgeois democracy like that which prevails in India, the agenda of government is not based on what the people or the electorate wants, but on what the bourgeoisie wants, what serves the interests of this class. The agenda of the bourgeoisie does not wait for elections to be held, or for a new government to be formed.  It is worked out and put into practice on a day to day basis, by the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the police and armed forces, and various committees and organs of government. The electoral process ensures that only tried and tested representatives of this class get to come to power and preside over the various ministries of government. 

The role of the elections in the system is to give a democratic, or popular, veneer to the pre-determined agenda of the ruling class. Various parties compete to raise the catchiest slogans, whether it is ‘socialistic pattern of society’, ‘garibi hatao’, ‘human face’, ‘inclusive growth’, or so on, in order to get votes. But when elected to power, whether at the Centre or the states, the logic of power under this system is that they must follow the dictate of the bourgeoisie and rule through the instruments of bourgeois power.  The Constitution, as well as countless laws, regulations and procedures that are firmly entrenched, ensures that this is what will happen, irrespective of who is presiding over the government.

A fundamental feature of the prevailing system of parliamentary democracy is that those elected are not actually deputies of the people who voted for them, who have an obligation to carry out the people’s wishes. The obligation of these so-called representatives of the people is instead to the parties which gave them their “tickets” and to the ruling class as a whole.  Once they elect these representatives, the people have no mechanism by which they can control or direct or recall them. The representatives are free to pursue the agenda of the exploiters, while the toilers who voted for them are powerless to do anything about it.

Under these conditions, to think that the government will pursue a ‘pro-people’ agenda is an illusion.  The working class must not wait to see what this government will do, but must instead unite around its own agenda of socialist reorientation of the economy and renewal of democracy to make working people the rulers of India.  The first step is to build and bring to power a united front of all those resisting the bourgeois offensive, with the worker-peasant alliance as its backbone. A revolutionary worker-peasant government will take immediate steps to convene an elected Constituent Assembly, to draft a new Constitution to replace the existing 1950 Constitution. As stated in the Manifesto of the Communist Ghadar Party of India for the 15th Lok Sabha elections:

Such a Constitution will vest supreme decision making power with the people, by bringing all elected legislative bodies under their control. It will redefine electoral laws and rules so that workers, peasants, women and youth can select candidates from among their peers, hold elected representatives to account, and recall them at any time. It will empower people’s committees in the constituencies with the authority to make sure that every citizen can exercise these rights, and also make proposals for consideration by the legislative bodies. It will redefine the role of political parties as instruments to provide consciousness and a vision for society, and to enable the people to rule themselves, without any intermediary.  It will end the exclusion of people from decision making by parties that act as middlemen and power brokers, to rule in the people’s name. It will lay the basis for a system where people do not put parties in power, but parties have the duty of working to keep people in power.