What if India's Democracy Was Built on Proportional Representation?

As the sinusoidal wave of democracy peaks yet again, it may be time to reevaluate the 'First Past the Post' system.

Did our Constituent Assembly consider the merits of the Proportional Representation method? If yes, why did they reject it?         

Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

India’s parliamentary democracy is nearly 80 years young. If you plot its numeric graph, you will see a near-perfect sinusoidal wave pattern. The first four decades saw Congress staying at the peak with majorities in the 300s, ie, a 60 percent+ capture of Parliament, and similar dominance in more than half the states of India. This was followed by a plunge over the next 25 years, when majorities shrunk to between 30-40 percent, and coalitions emerged; Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) exchanged places twice at the helm, mirroring the churn in state Assemblies.  

But from 2014 onwards, the sinusoidal wave has peaked again, with BJP now commanding a Congress-like stranglehold, ie, 60 percent+ handcuff over Parliament (except in 2024) and more than half the state legislatures. Curiously, they’ve also swapped their vote shares with odd exactitude. The Congress has fallen from about 40 percent to 20 percent, and the BJP has risen from under 20 percent to nearly 40 percent.  

It becomes worse when we look under the hood of these domineering mandates to compare the political behaviour of the rulers during their 60 percent+ sojourns in office. Whether it was the Congress in the first four decades, or now the BJP for a dozen years, the majoritarian instinct had/has strengthened with every successive victory. The contrast becomes starker when juxtaposed against the largely fair, progressive, and democratic reign of the coalitions from the early 1990s through 2014.

And that begs a critical question: Is there a structural impulse—perhaps even a Constitutional aberration—that has created such a symmetrically repetitive, even sinister, pattern? One that’s not been very healthy for India’s democracy?

To answer that question, I asked myself another question. Out of the top 10 countries on the Human Freedom Index, as many as nine use the Proportional Representation (PR) method of electing governments. Switzerland, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Estonia—what a remarkable line-up of enviable, successful democracies! And they all use PR to elect their rulers!! 

But India follows the First Past the Post (FPTP) model which creates brute majorities even with minority vote shares.

So that begs the second critical question: Did our Constituent Assembly consider the merits of the PR method? If yes, why did they reject it?         

Here’s the shocker. There were 299 exceptionally wise, educated, and experienced leaders: BR Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Rajendra Prasad, BN Rau, KM Munshi, JB Kripalani, Asaf Ali, Amrit Kaur, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai—to name just an illustrative few of these intellectual giants. Strangely, this galaxy of the greats dismissed the merits of Proportional Representation (PR) tritely, in an off-handed way. 

To be fair, there were a few worthies who tried to raise the issue. “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority that succeeds in carrying elections…the only remedy is Proportional Representation. It increases the influence of thousands of those who would have no voice in Government, and it brings men more near an equality by so contriving that no vote shall be wasted and that every voter shall contribute to bring into Parliament a member of his own choice and opinion”, pleaded Kazi Syed Karimuddin. He got some support from members like Zahirul Lari and perhaps a handful of others. 

But Ambedkar was dismissive. “Proportional Representation by means of the single transferable vote is not practicable at all. These are large constituencies…Further, we are not an advanced country; many of the people are not literate.”    

Now here’s the second shocker. I have emphasised single transferable vote in Ambedkar’s quote. Why? Because that’s not the most scientific or widespread form of PR. Instead, it’s the “list PR” system that’s the real thing. Parties create lists of candidates, ensuring gender/ethnic/religious balance, in sync with their political ideologies. Candidates are elected to Parliament in proportion to the votes polled by respective parties.  

For example, if Parliament has 100 seats and your party gets 40 percent of the votes (eg, BJP), then the first 40 candidates in your list make it, who are all likely to be Hindus, including Brahmins, Other Backward Classes, and Dalits. If you get 20 percent (eg, Congress), then the first 20 of your listed nominees are elected, which may include 10 Hindus, six Muslims, two Sikhs, and two tribals. If you get five percent (eg, Bahujan Samaj Party), your five candidates are likely to be Dalits. If you get two percent (eg, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen), you will send another two Muslims to Parliament.  

My example is simplistic. In practise, several enhancing complexities can be added to reinforce the egalitarian impact of lists. But at an elemental level, my example adequately describes the “list PR” system. It ensures greater inclusion of disenfranchised communities. No ballot is wasted as vote shares are fairly translated into numbers of seats. Ultimately, a pluralist democracy is created, as opposed to a monolithic state.

Isn’t that the classical definition of a just democracy? Where an equitable coalition of interests comes to power, putting fetters, checks, and balances on a potential abuse by majoritarian forces?          

But India’s Constituent Assembly did not consider the “list PR” system, even cursorily. It just briefly discussed the single transferable vote model, dismissing it with virtual contempt.  

So, it would be fair to assert that India created its Constitution without as much as a rudimentary consideration of the world’s most successful model of electing governments! Isn’t that extraordinary, simply unbelievable?     

But again, to be fair, the lawmakers’ intentions in unquestioningly adopting FPTP were noble.  They were paranoid about creating unstable coalitions that could lead to the fragmentation of a scarred, infant nation. Most of them were Congress leaders who believed their party would retain its compelling national foot print; and it would remain a secular umbrella coalition of regional, ethnic, and religious interests. They believed, perhaps naively, that if the majority supported a progressive centrist political party, then Indian democratic institutions would stay robust. I bet none of them foresaw the rise of regional, parochial, narrowly ethnic, and vigorously communal identities.  And that brings me to the penultimate question, the great “what if” of history: 

WHAT IF India had chosen a “list PR” system of Proportional Representation to elect its national government?

In that situation, no leader—not Nehru, not Indira, not Rajiv Gandhi, not Modi, all of whom won big parliamentary mandates—no Prime Minister would have commanded a clear majority in Parliament. All of them would have had to rule by consensus, by fostering coalitions.

Now, the final question: Would we have been a stronger democracy today? Would our Constitutional institutions have an independent spine and been more robust?  

The answer, my friend, is unknowable, unreadable in the toxic haze that has shrouded the capital city.