Some of the arguments being deployed against implementing One Nation One Poll are bizarre, among them being the worry that there may be a fixed term for Parliament and the state Assemblies, just as there is in the US.
Now that there is speculation that the emphasis in “India that is Bharat” will be on Bharat and not on India, those political parties that believe themselves capable of defeating the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are in effect clamouring that it is actually “India that is not Bharat”, so opposed are they to any initiative that is seen as being taken by the Union Government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In actuality, “Bharat” has a greater resonance than “India”, for the reason that the classical name of our country brings to mind the multiple millennia in which our civilisation has continued, while “India” brings to many minds the history of the country only from the days when the British were its overlords, when the recorded history of India that is Bharat, or to put it in another way, Bharat that is India, stretches back five millennia by the most conservative of estimates. To ignore the centuries of servitude before 1947 is wrong, but so is the dismissal of the over five millennia before that period. The history of the country taken as an entirety goes back long before the term India came into general use, which is why there is a strong case for reversing the order of nomenclature and saying “Bharat that is India” rather than the other way about, as has been the custom even after independence from the British raj.
In the same way, the suggestion that there be “One Nation One Poll” ought not to be dismissed out of hand as a political gimmick, for there are valid reasons why a simultaneous holding of all state Assembly elections with the Lok Sabha polls that get held every five years makes sense. It would be more voter friendly, in that there would not be the continuous distraction of Assembly elections taking place in one state after the other. The business of a political party is to fight and win elections, but that of the government formed by a party that secures a majority nationally or in particular states is to govern in a way that fulfills the needs of the citizen. Looked at through the prism of performance, while our democracy is an attribute to be celebrated, the per capita income levels in India are not such as to be joyous about in comparison with several other countries that threw off the colonial yoke around the same period as our country did. A ruling party at the Centre that is constantly distracted by the need to fight state elections almost without pause will as a consequence have less oxygen to spare for the business for which it has been elected, which is to govern the country effectively at the national level.
Some of the arguments being deployed against implementing “One Nation One Poll” are bizarre, among them being the worry that there may be a fixed term for Parliament and the state Assemblies, just as there is in the US. Despite its fixed terms, the US is as much of a democracy as those following the Westminster model of flexible terms are. As took place in the case of the administration of Richard Nixon, a President who was re-elected for a second term with a huge majority of votes in the electoral college, should public opinion sour on a particular government, the result may be to cause that particular government to resign and get replaced by another that has different people at the top. Such a change would be at least as reliable a method of change as a fresh election, which in many cases may solve very little. The ancient Chinese called it the “Mandate of Heaven”. What was meant was that the people needed to accept the legitimacy and credibility of the government, or else it would become unstable. A wise leadership would study the portents in case some of its policies are having a bad effect on the people and their level of support, and adjust its policy accordingly.
Those who reject any solution other than fresh elections are in effect holding on to the “one size fits all” fallacy. Fixed terms would make voters more cautious, more thoughtful, when they reach the voting booth, a mood that may be absent were frequent polls at indeterminate intervals commonplace. In extreme cases of misconduct, the Right of Recall would ensure that errant legislators lose their seats before their term ends. For such seats, byelections could take place, as distinct from the state assembly or the national legislature, both of which would have a fixed term. Those who oppose a fixed term may in effect be showing a contempt for the ordinary voter, in that the latter is regarded as incapable of having the wisdom to react appropriately where the evaluation of governance is concerned. In the past, Winston Churchill was joined by several Indians in believing that the (at that point in time) overwhelmingly illiterate and pathetically poor citizens of the new republic were unfit to exercise their franchise in a responsible manner. The makers of the Constitution of India disagreed with them, and gave the right to vote to every citizen, no matter how unlettered or how poor, no matter the faith, the region or the gender. Bharat that is India can be proud of such a flying start as a modern democracy.
There was a time when computers were opposed, or when digital modes of identification were looked askance at. Both are now commonplace. Rather than summarily dismiss any talk of “One Nation One Vote” as being unrealistic or undemocratic or both, critics need to focus on how technology can assist in ensuring a high voter turnout, such as by giving a voter the option of voting in any booth in India, provided he or she is a registered voter in some part of the country. Biometric identification could be thought of, so as to reduce voter fraud. Despite those opposed to change insisting on the present system, it is possible that the alternative may turn out to be preferred by the people, once it gets adopted. Change is always resisted, but is usually a necessary component of progress.