The delimitation outrage explained
Why should your vote count the same as someone who didn't bother to stop at two children?
There is a great injustice being done to this country. It has been done since 1950. We have been too busy building highways and software companies to notice. But now, thanks to the proposed delimitation that will give the Hindi heartland more seats in Parliament, the scales have fallen from our eyes, and the horror is complete.
One person. One vote.
A software engineer in Chennai, who files his taxes on time, speaks four languages, and has responsibly produced exactly 1.7 children, gets one vote. A man in Gorakhpur, who has produced eight children, each of whom will also one day produce eight children, also gets one vote. The same vote. Weighed equally. As if they are, in some deranged sense, equal.
This is what our founding fathers bequeathed us. Clearly they had not thought things through.
"If population drives politics, what is the incentive for population control?" asked the leader of a major southern party this week, and honestly, you go, sir. Bravo. Standing ovation. Flowers.
He is right. And he should keep going. Because the logic, once you start pulling the thread, is absolutely magnificent in where it leads.
Why stop at population? Why should a man who earns Rs 12 lakh a year have the same vote as a man who earns Rs 1.2 lakh? The first man pays more taxes, consumes better goods, drives a larger car that contributes more to the GDP through fuel consumption, and has clearly demonstrated superior decision-making. Yet the State treats both with the same contemptible equality at the ballot box. Where, we ask, is the incentive to succeed?
And literacy! Why should the literate vote count the same as the illiterate? If we are rewarding good behaviour, surely reading is good behaviour. The man who went to school, passed his exams, perhaps even acquired a postgraduate degree from an institution that required him to clear an entrance examination that the less-meritorious could not. Why should his democratic preference weigh the same as someone who has not cleared Class 10?
This is, frankly, an insult to education.
THE MISEDUCATION OF MINISTERS
What is the incentive to be educated if at the end of it all, democracy will treat you exactly as badly as it treats the uneducated?
The same logic, naturally, applies within states. Why should Coimbatore, that engine of textile exports and entrepreneurship, fund the development of districts that have not shown comparable initiative? Why should Tiruvallur pay for Tiruvannamalai? This is nothing less than communism. Tiruvallur did not ask to be lumped into a fiscal transfer scheme with districts that failed to attract investment. Tiruvallur has feelings. Tiruvallur has a GDP.
In fact, let us take this principle to its natural conclusion: the most productive ward in the most productive taluk of the most productive district should elect a representative by itself, without dilution from surrounding, less-productive wards. After all, they are carrying the others. They deserve to be heard more loudly. This is not elitism. This is incentive design.
For how long will Bengaluru subsidise Belagavi? Why should the coffee estates of charming Chikkamagaluru be treated the same as barren, callous Kalaburagi?
The more you think about it, the more the founding error of our republic becomes clear. Universal suffrage is universal suffering and a reckless experiment. The British, in their wisdom, had property qualifications for voting. If they were so wrong, how come they are a developed country and we are only Vishwaguru?
They left us cricket, the railway, and a bicameral legislature. Perhaps we should have kept the property qualification too. We've thrown it all away in a fit of egalitarian enthusiasm.
The delimitation exercise, which proposes to count actual human beings living in actual states and give them representation proportional to their actual numbers, is an outrage. The south, which controlled its population, will be "penalised" with fewer seats relative to the north, which did not.
Ignore the fact that proportion will remain the same and the north will not get no numerical edge that it already doesn't have. Do not ignore the logic. The logic is flawless: we practised restraint, and now restraint will cost us influence. This is exactly like being penalised for paying your taxes. Or being penalised for not taking a bribe. Good behaviour is its own punishment in a democracy. So is family planning, now.
THAT RIGHT IS WRONG
One is almost moved to suggest that the solution is not to fight delimitation, but to fight democracy itself. The universal voting right was wrong, all along.
Of course, no politician would say this. Instead, they will dress it up in the language of federalism, of fiscal devolution, of the rights of states, of constitutional propriety. These are all fine and defensible arguments, and some of them are even correct. The south does have a legitimate grievance about how the delimitation exercise interacts with population growth patterns. Tax devolution formulas do disadvantage states that developed faster. These are real policy problems worth serious debate.
But that is not nearly as entertaining as following the logic where it actually goes. Because when a leader stands up and says, in effect, "we were good citizens and we should not be punished for it", what he is really saying is that democracy is a transaction. That votes are rewards for virtue. That representation is a prize for performance.
It is not. It never was. The infuriating and glorious genius of universal suffrage is precisely that it does not care how much you earn, how many children you have or did not have, or whether your state's GSDP is growing at 8% or 4%. Every citizen of the republic, Udayanidhi Stalin or Akash Ambani, gets one vote. Every state sends representatives in rough proportion to its people, its actual, breathing, inconvenient, numerous people.
That is not a bug in democracy. That is democracy.
The question of whether the delimitation formula is fair, whether the census data being used is appropriate, whether fiscal transfers need recalibration, these are serious questions and deserve serious answers. Go ahead and fight that fight. Fight it hard.
But do it without suggesting that the problem is populous north versus the prosperous south.
Because that particular complaint has a destination, and nobody who arrives there tends to enjoy the view.
The views expressed are the author's own, and also, technically, the logical conclusion of the argument they are mocking.
There is a great injustice being done to this country. It has been done since 1950. We have been too busy building highways and software companies to notice. But now, thanks to the proposed delimitation that will give the Hindi heartland more seats in Parliament, the scales have fallen from our eyes, and the horror is complete.
One person. One vote.
A software engineer in Chennai, who files his taxes on time, speaks four languages, and has responsibly produced exactly 1.7 children, gets one vote. A man in Gorakhpur, who has produced eight children, each of whom will also one day produce eight children, also gets one vote. The same vote. Weighed equally. As if they are, in some deranged sense, equal.
This is what our founding fathers bequeathed us. Clearly they had not thought things through.
"If population drives politics, what is the incentive for population control?" asked the leader of a major southern party this week, and honestly, you go, sir. Bravo. Standing ovation. Flowers.
He is right. And he should keep going. Because the logic, once you start pulling the thread, is absolutely magnificent in where it leads.
Why stop at population? Why should a man who earns Rs 12 lakh a year have the same vote as a man who earns Rs 1.2 lakh? The first man pays more taxes, consumes better goods, drives a larger car that contributes more to the GDP through fuel consumption, and has clearly demonstrated superior decision-making. Yet the State treats both with the same contemptible equality at the ballot box. Where, we ask, is the incentive to succeed?
And literacy! Why should the literate vote count the same as the illiterate? If we are rewarding good behaviour, surely reading is good behaviour. The man who went to school, passed his exams, perhaps even acquired a postgraduate degree from an institution that required him to clear an entrance examination that the less-meritorious could not. Why should his democratic preference weigh the same as someone who has not cleared Class 10?
This is, frankly, an insult to education.
THE MISEDUCATION OF MINISTERS
What is the incentive to be educated if at the end of it all, democracy will treat you exactly as badly as it treats the uneducated?
The same logic, naturally, applies within states. Why should Coimbatore, that engine of textile exports and entrepreneurship, fund the development of districts that have not shown comparable initiative? Why should Tiruvallur pay for Tiruvannamalai? This is nothing less than communism. Tiruvallur did not ask to be lumped into a fiscal transfer scheme with districts that failed to attract investment. Tiruvallur has feelings. Tiruvallur has a GDP.
In fact, let us take this principle to its natural conclusion: the most productive ward in the most productive taluk of the most productive district should elect a representative by itself, without dilution from surrounding, less-productive wards. After all, they are carrying the others. They deserve to be heard more loudly. This is not elitism. This is incentive design.
For how long will Bengaluru subsidise Belagavi? Why should the coffee estates of charming Chikkamagaluru be treated the same as barren, callous Kalaburagi?
The more you think about it, the more the founding error of our republic becomes clear. Universal suffrage is universal suffering and a reckless experiment. The British, in their wisdom, had property qualifications for voting. If they were so wrong, how come they are a developed country and we are only Vishwaguru?
They left us cricket, the railway, and a bicameral legislature. Perhaps we should have kept the property qualification too. We've thrown it all away in a fit of egalitarian enthusiasm.
The delimitation exercise, which proposes to count actual human beings living in actual states and give them representation proportional to their actual numbers, is an outrage. The south, which controlled its population, will be "penalised" with fewer seats relative to the north, which did not.
Ignore the fact that proportion will remain the same and the north will not get no numerical edge that it already doesn't have. Do not ignore the logic. The logic is flawless: we practised restraint, and now restraint will cost us influence. This is exactly like being penalised for paying your taxes. Or being penalised for not taking a bribe. Good behaviour is its own punishment in a democracy. So is family planning, now.
THAT RIGHT IS WRONG
One is almost moved to suggest that the solution is not to fight delimitation, but to fight democracy itself. The universal voting right was wrong, all along.
Of course, no politician would say this. Instead, they will dress it up in the language of federalism, of fiscal devolution, of the rights of states, of constitutional propriety. These are all fine and defensible arguments, and some of them are even correct. The south does have a legitimate grievance about how the delimitation exercise interacts with population growth patterns. Tax devolution formulas do disadvantage states that developed faster. These are real policy problems worth serious debate.
But that is not nearly as entertaining as following the logic where it actually goes. Because when a leader stands up and says, in effect, "we were good citizens and we should not be punished for it", what he is really saying is that democracy is a transaction. That votes are rewards for virtue. That representation is a prize for performance.
It is not. It never was. The infuriating and glorious genius of universal suffrage is precisely that it does not care how much you earn, how many children you have or did not have, or whether your state's GSDP is growing at 8% or 4%. Every citizen of the republic, Udayanidhi Stalin or Akash Ambani, gets one vote. Every state sends representatives in rough proportion to its people, its actual, breathing, inconvenient, numerous people.
That is not a bug in democracy. That is democracy.
The question of whether the delimitation formula is fair, whether the census data being used is appropriate, whether fiscal transfers need recalibration, these are serious questions and deserve serious answers. Go ahead and fight that fight. Fight it hard.
But do it without suggesting that the problem is populous north versus the prosperous south.
Because that particular complaint has a destination, and nobody who arrives there tends to enjoy the view.
The views expressed are the author's own, and also, technically, the logical conclusion of the argument they are mocking.
