This article was printed in India in Hindi and English and appeared in the Sadbhav Mission Patrika newsletter (November- December) in Delhi. The Sadbhav Mission is a Gandhian organization which was founded twenty years ago. It is committed to working towards sectarian harmony and social cohesion. One of its founders Professor Vipin Tripathi, is a leading Indian Physicist and heads the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi. Professor Tripathi was in Sri Lanka to deliver three lectures during the Mahathma Gandhi commemoration in October..
by Arjuna Hulugalle
The same malaise continues in a more insidious form today. Corruption in the bureaucracy and public life, the faulty electoral system which reinforces a corrupt political structure, breakdown and indiscipline in education, the growing gap in the incomes and wealth of the different sections of the population and the perception of marginalization especially among the minorities pervade the country. These problems cannot be dealt with at the macro-level, where the culture is dominated by politicians.
Finding answers to these challenges is what led the Gandhi Centre to seek an alternative. Fundamental in the search was a model which made People central. Gandhiji's own inspiration was what showed the way to the Gramarajya.
Fault lines of the present system
When working on the design of the Gramarajya, the fault lines in the current system of administration were examined. Firstly, the current system is worked on a confrontational mechanism. It is assumed that the dynamism which is generated as a result of political confrontation will turn the wheels of the administration and will create a momentum leading to development. Confrontation leads to the axiom that Politics is about power and one can only be effective if one is in power. At all costs one has to wrench it from one's opponent. This leads invariably to an auction for votes, so that the highest bidder with financial resources steam rolls to power. The bigger the expenditure budget on election campaigns, the better the chance there is for snatching power.
In this political culture, the large expenditure for elections is the nascence or the source of corruption because the backers of politicians have to be appeased after the elections. The Design we were looking at is a method to minimize election expenditure both to the State as well as the individual.
The second consideration was to make the casting of the vote a commitment. Today, voting is done essentially, for emotional reasons. With good advertising one projects an image. One votes for the image and after that one divests one's rights and responsibilities totally, till the next election. No initiative is taken to see that the undertakings of the candidates are honoured. With the current system Real Politik and Statecraft are vital factors in every political decision. Those, who are adept at that come out on top. Of course they then carry all the baggage which the present system brings with it.
The village in the Sri Lankan context has the critical mass to become an agent of change in the positive sense. In Sri Lanka, villages are surveyed and the boundaries are demarcated. Every village has a Government official called a Grama Sevaka. The voting population of a village is approximately 1000 to 1200.
The design of a Gramarajya
The design of the Gramarajya envisages a Council of the 9 persons representing five sectoral interest groups. The groups are the following:
Heritage - dealing with Religion, Culture, Environment and Senior Citizens
Women - (Women form 51 percent of the population and form the largest labour force in the generation of foreign exchange to the country. They are in the garment factories, tea estates and work in large numbers as workers especially in the Middle East. There representation in Parliament is under 5 per cent)
Youth - form 40 per cent of the population. Skills training and training for livelihood will be important subjects to handled.
Food production - farmers, fishermen and estate workers form 85 per cent of the population.
Services - all other activities
Apart from the five sectors, there is a body of elders counseling the village with one representative in the Gramarajya.
The Gramarajya also has a Cooperative commercial company with the people in the village owning 82 per cent of the company. The company will have on representative in the Council. The purpose of this company is to promote the commercial activities of the village.
The representatives from the elders and the Cooperative company have no voting rights.
Electoral procedure
I) At the time of enumeration for the electoral list, the individual identifies with one of the five sectors. An individual can take part only in one sector
2) Nominations are got from the sectors. A person has to be proposed and seconded by two individuals in the sector.
3) As the numbers of each sector is relatively small, and the candidates know each other, there is no expenditure incurred by the candidates.
4) On the day of the election, the polling booth is opened from 7 am till 4 pm. The polling will be done, as in the present system, in a public place like a school, a place of worship.
5) Within two hours after the polls close, the counting would have been completed and the winners announced.
Virtues of the Gramarajya design
The virtue of this system is that when elections are held issues of both the village and the nation can be discussed in small cohesive groups devoid of power politics, wheeler dealing and violence. The system is inexpensive and the wastage of our current system and the erosion it brings with it will be avoided. The culture that will emerge is that the vote will be a commitment by the voter to serve his sector because he has an interest in it and about which he has knowledge. Because the village is a compact unit, problems like drugs, alcoholism, use of tobacco and other social illnesses can be identified and attended to.
The Gramarajya's role in the national body politic
The village council will be the Electoral College for the Pradeshiya Sabha (the equivalent of the Block in India) and the District Council (similar to District Councils in Indian States). This system ensures that knowledgeable people represent the public in both these Councils. The constant discussion in the village on issues can be communicated to the Members of Parliament and the Cabinet so that both Parliament and the Government will have an authentic source of information as to how the people are thinking on issues.
(More information on the concept of Gramarajya can be got from the Mahathma Gandhi Centre Tel no: 2501825. email: gandhicentre.lk@gmail.com)
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