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Why political science matters?

The meaning of political science is often restricted to the state, government, and everyday politics. However, it goes beyond that. We as humans share various relationships. What do we do when conflicts arise in these relationships? How do we resolve them? The Socratic dialectical method or Habermas’ idea of deliberation provides a solution. It says conflicts are better resolved through dialogue rather than domination. Hence, it tells us how to talk in a dialectical manner. It is the process of reasoning together. For instance, when your father asks you to aim for a government job, but you want to become a content creator, you do not totally oppose each other. Instead, you engage rationally: Why is a government job important? Maybe because it provides security and financial stability. But being a content creator might give you creative freedom. So you decide to take a government job but also start your creator journey simultaneously — maybe by vlogging your day as a government employee...
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Electoral bonds: A threat to democracy

 
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Before moving to the electoral bond it is imperative to understand what a political parties. A political party is a group of people with shared ideology coming under one roof for the sole purpose of contesting elections and capturing power. For contesting elections political parties need funds so that they can reach out to more people and tell them what their plan of action is. Apart from this, there are other things for which they need money. Now the Electoral bond is an instrument used by eligible political parties to raise funds. The criteria for eligibility is that the party must be registered under the Representation of peoples act 1951 and must have acquired more than 1% of votes in the last elections of Lok Sabha or the Legislative Assembly. The validity of the electoral bond is 15 days. And the interesting thing here is that one can buy any number of electoral bonds in the denomination of ₹1,000, 10,000, 1,00,000, 10,00,000, 1,00,00,000 s/he it pleases to purchase. The idea of an electoral bond was floated by the former finance minister of India Arun Jaitley because it would bring transparency to the whole election process. Now this said a matter of debate: does it bring transparency or not? We will discuss it further. 


To understand the pros and cons of electoral bonds, we must first be clear about how this electoral bond works. Suppose individual A wants to donate money to any political party. S/he can not directly donate it to the party. Suppose s/he wants to do ₹1000 to the political party. So first s/he would purchase a bond of ₹1000 from the SBI(SBI is the only issuing authority) and then s/he can give that bond to any political party. That political party will encash that bond in a designated bank account, under the supervision of RBI.


Now with a clear understanding of the electoral bond, we can move towards its positive points. The grid of this scheme of elector bonds is anonymous. It ensures the anonymity of the donor. The anonymity of donors is important to protect that individual from political victimization. Because if X party which is in government gets to know that an individual has donated some amount of money to the party Y that particular individual can be harassed through various agencies of the government like ED and CBI etc. So anonymity, here is a virtue. In addition to this Department of Economic Affairs has also said that secrecy of donation is the objective of this scheme as it is protecting the individual from political victimization it is ensuring the right to life and dignity of the individual under Article 21 of the India Constitution. The other major benefit of this scheme is that it does away with cash. Cash is something associated with black money or undeclared money. So it eliminates the use of cash in the process. So this whole new system was launched to reform the election process and the older system by ensuring higher standards of transparency. 


But this is not the full picture. The major flaw of the scheme is what is being portrayed as a virtue, which is anonymity. I.e. One can not get to know that who is funding whom? This creates total opaqueness. This is not transparent. Does transparency mean hiding the names of the donor? As a result of this opaque system, the individual is not able to get the information so there is an obstacle in the free flow of information and this obstacle has been deliberately put. So people’s right to know has been compromised and it propels them to lack informed choice. The argument of the Department of Economic Affairs is the best example of bizarreness. According to the Department of Economic Affairs, the particular scheme is painting the secrecy of the individual (art 21) but article 21 is for the individuals only while on the contrary electoral bonds are not purchased only by the individual but by the companies, trusts, NGOs and Hindu undivided family, etc. So how come these bodies are individual/ persons? Fundamental rights are against the state but this scheme of electoral bond is holding the flow of information to reach the other people of the country. This is just one case. Before this electoral bonds scheme political parties had to maintain the records of donors who are donating more than ₹20,000. Records like their cheque number and pan card etc were maintained and that information would be given to the election Commission which would be put in in public domain but this provision is now done away with by amending the Representation of People's Act, 1951. When Jaitley announced this scheme it was put under the "transparency and electrical funding" chapter in the budget 2017. But how come transparency and anonymity come together. Transparency and anonymity are paradoxical they can not exist together. Anyway, there were three more changes done in the favour of corporate houses. First, the cap of donations to which a corporate house can donate to a political party was removed by amending the Companies Act, 2013 which means no limitations now. Second, the mandatory provision of declaring the political funding made by the political parties in their annual financial statement was also removed. Third, Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 was reformed to change the definition of foreign firms. Now the subsidiary of any foreign company in India will not be treated as a foreign firm. This makes it so easy for political fundings from abroad. Furthermore, the RBI Act was also changed because as per Section 3 of the RBI Act currency or similar documents or instruments can be issued only by the RBI but in this case, it is the SBI that is issuing the bonds. Moreover, there are not any transaction fees to purchase the Electoral bonds which generally is not the case. In compensation for this, the government provides a commission to the SBI to maintain its infrastructure, and this commission is given from the Consolidated fund of India.  Above all points show the flaws in the provisions but there is more to it. This whole scheme of the electoral bond was passed through the channels of the money bill. Which is blatantly illegal and thereby unconstitutional. 

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, 99% of more than ₹65,000 crores with electoral bonds sold were worth ₹1 crore or ₹1 lakh. Now can you imagine any individual donating this amount of money? This means this money must have been donated by the big corporate houses. In 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, political parties received a total of ₹2760.20 crores from electoral bonds of which 60% was received by the BJP. So this whole scheme should profit whichever party is in the government. Above all comes the strange case of the Supreme Court. The electoral bonds case is pending for the last 3 years is a situation of not now, not us. 


In conclusion, we can see that this scheme was rolled out solely to create anonymity, not transparency, and to support big corporate houses by escaping accountability. One can think of this scheme with some positive attitude only after the anonymity clause is done away with. Until then it poses a serious threat to Indian democracy.


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