That criminalisation of politics is eating into the very vitals of our democratic polity is nothing new. What sounds alarming to the peace- and justice-loving citizens is the ever-increasing number of our elected representatives having criminal background in the corridors of power. Much has been written, editorially or otherwise, on the subject but the situation does not seem to have changed for the better as at present there are 153 Members of Parliament who have criminal cases pending against them, of which 74 are accused of robbery and murder. And this figure does not include those from among the elected legislators in Assemblies.
No political leader of considerable eminence raised his or her voice against this lacuna in the electoral process. It was however on January 25, a day before we celebrated 60th anniversary of our Republic, that Sonia Gandhi, president of Congress Party and chairperson of United Progressive Alliance (UPA), while addressing a function to celebrate the Election Commission of India’s diamond jubilee, exhorted political parties to make more efforts to de-criminalise elections in the country. This is her clarion call, a very bold initiative and a ‘whiff of fresh air in the murky game of politics’, to quote Rajinder Sachar, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, who on January 27 said, “Surely this is a modest beginning which must be put into effect immediately to keep faith of the common man in our election process, which is the bedrock of democracy”.
Sonia Gandhi’s call to check money-and-muscle power in elections and prevent persons with criminal background from entering the poll arena, has come on the close heels of Vice President of India Mr. M. Hamid Ansari’s equally important call to the nation to make Intelligence agencies accountable to a Standing Committee of Parliament. As we know that only Members of Parliament can be on such standing committees, these two calls made by Hamid Ansari and Sonia Gandhi make a sense. There can be no betterment of the polity as well as the society at large unless the Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies are honestly from clean background. So we must decriminalise elections, or in a wider sense politics itself, and depoliticise crime, or for better understanding we should say our response to crime.
To say that the stalwarts of our polity, Hamid Ansari and Sonia Gandhi have done their duties will amount to speaking only the half-truth. Yes, they have taken bold steps for which they should be welcomed. But this is the beginning of the end as they have to pursue the concerned ministries and departments to ensure their clarion calls are not thrown to the winds. Other political parties than the Congress ought to endorse these sensible calls and strive hard to get these ideas translated into reality. The non-government organisations and social scientists and activists should come together to exert pressure of the Government to ensure decriminalisation of electoral process as well as accountability of Intelligence apparatus. Only thus we can march towards a better tomorrow.