News18: New Delhi: Thursday, February 01, 2018.
With the
introduction of electoral bonds, Electoral Trusts are no longer required to
reveal the name(s) of the party to which donations are given. If a government
makes policy, budget allocations or tax rules that favour donors over the
public, we will not even know who the donors were.
Behind all
the debates on election funding, electoral bonds and black money, we often
ignore one simple fact the increasing role of money power in elections. Those
who fund politicians and parties, ultimately control the government and its
policies. So it is not the voters who call the shots, except for that one time
in five years, but the donors.
We are
currently publicly debating only one of the aspects of the finances of
elections ruling out black money through electoral bonds.
However, the
more important aspect of controlling undue influence on the government is by
putting a cap on funding apart from making it not only transparent, but widely
known to the voters and these are not being discussed. Such laws are there in
several other democracies but not in India.
There are
many technical details, and politicians have made several statements on these
issues. All of these tend to make things even more confusing for the so called
ordinary voter.
So, it is
important to look at the essential details shorn of rhetoric and interpretation.
The previous government allowed the setting up of Electoral Trusts that can
donate funds to political parties. They are required to donate at last 95% of
their funds to political parties, while the donors get a 100% tax exemption, as
do the political parties. NGOs, trusts and so on almost always get only 50% tax
exemption.
With the
introduction of electoral bonds, Electoral Trusts are no longer required to
reveal the name(s) of the party to which donations are given. If a government
makes policy, budget allocations or tax rules that favour donors over the
public, we will not even know who the donors were.
The publicly
stated logic of introducing electoral bonds is to remove black money and
protect donors from harassment. Apparently, those who donate to political
parties have complained that they are harassed by other political parties and
even Income Tax authorities.
However,
voters are not responsible for the actions of rival political parties or that
of the authorities. Their right to know has been done away with and so far, not
one person has been jailed for black money.
It is
impossible that the government does not know who has black money. It is a well
known fact that after demonetisation, black money continues to flow in state
Assembly elections. In any case, these electoral bonds do not prevent black
money donations.
Currently,
the Opposition is against these bonds because 90% of the donations from
Electoral Trusts have gone to the ruling party.
The
Opposition fears that with these bonds, even this information would not be
available and they are not fighting for the citizen’s right to know, but for
their political results.
It is to be
noted that all political parties favour less transparency. When the Central
Information Commission (CIC) ruled that political parties come under the RTI
Act, they unanimously defied the CIC, irrespective of their being in power or
opposition.
Earlier, all
political parties came together to try and overturn a Supreme Court judgment
mandating disclosure of financial and criminal records by candidates in
elections. Later, all of them fought tooth and nail to prevent the CIC from
directing Income Tax authorities to release the audited financial statements of
political parties.
The source of
information of various reports on Electoral Trusts, including the ADR report is
partly based on that CIC ruling. Of course the political parties refuse to give
more details of their finances except what they have to file with the Income
Tax authorities.
On the other
hand, citizens need bank accounts, land khatas, property documents, ration
cards, driving licenses, credit cards and so on. There is a move to digitalize
all of these and link everything to their Aadhaar numbers. It gives the
government (and Google) full knowledge of all activities of an individual. Yet,
political parties refuse to follow the RTI and are making funding more and more
opaque and unknowable, and regularly flout the spending limits in elections.
Hardly anyone is ever prosecuted.
There are
long queues for citizens while politicians get VIP privileges at every public
facility. The citizen has little protection from harassment by authorities
whether Income Tax, police or other inspectors. On the other hand, both the UP
and Karnataka governments recently withdrew thousands of cases against
politicians saying they were “motivated”.
The
government continues to flout the Supreme Court directive that there is no need
for government permission to investigate and prosecute senior civil servants
and politicians. This means they do not trust the courts to deliver justice to
them but expect citizens to depend on the court system. This is a British colonial
law and does not exist in other countries.
In short, the
government has the power to know everything about the voter and punish him, but
the voter cannot know everything about political parties who keep themselves a
little above the law.
Shades of
Animal Farm? Surely this is no democracy.
However, the
remedy is very simple. Political parties can simply declare to voters that they
will not accept black money, will keep to the spending limits and make their
accounts transparent.
After all,
most citizens do the right thing, not because of the law but because they want
to do what is right. In the absence of intent, we need to follow the best
international practices and laws not only in market reforms, FDI, FII, Davos
and international diplomacy, but also in elections and campaign funding
reforms.
This clearly
means full transparency and accountability in funding of political parties and
candidates.
It also means
that conflict of interest should be addressed meaningfully. For example, in the
US, both the public prosecutor and special counsel Kenn Starr and Preet Bharara
took on the rich and powerful fearlessly, because they are independent and
protected by the law. In India, the conviction of politicians is very rare and
happens only when he/she is not in power.
So, will
electoral bonds address these issues? Surely not. In fact, it is a regressive
step. We have miles to go before we sleep.
(Author is
Chairman and Founder of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). He teaches at
IIM Bangalore.)
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