India - The Supreme Court of India has ruled on Monday that its constitution allowed for the free practice of faith but could “forbid interference of religions and religious beliefs with secular activity such as elections”. India is the world's most populous democracy. A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system, it has six recognized national parties, including the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and more than 40 regional parties. The Congress is considered center-left in Indian political culture, and the BJP right-wing.
The ban on political candidates from seeking election on the basis of religion, caste or language can have far-reaching consequences for Indian politics practice. Achieving election won by so obtained votes could be considered corrupt practice and the result set aside, the court said. Traditionally, India is a state where religion and caste have helped drive voters to the polls.
But some experts expressed skepticism about whether it could be enforced.
Ashok Malik, a fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, pointed out: “If this judgment is taken literally, then pretty much every single party in India could be disqualified.” “You can’t ban identity. … A sweeping ban on the use of identity for political mobilization is going to be unimplementable,” he added.
Indian voters, especially outside big cities, have historically been organized into “vote-banks” along religious, caste and language blocs, divisions the country’s founders considered an essential component of managing power in such an intricately diverse nation.
The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste. It has pre-modern origins, was transformed by the British Raj, and is today the basis of educational and job reservations in India. It consists of two different concepts, varna and jāti, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system.
Varna literally means color, and was a framework for grouping people into classes, first used in Vedic Indian society. Jāti may be translated as caste, and refers to birth. The jātis developed in post-Vedic times, possibly from crystallization of guilds during its feudal era.
PV Dinesh, a Supreme Court advocate, said the slow pace of India’s judicial system might also complicate the way the law was implemented. “If an election takes places today, and you’re questioning whether it involved corrupt practice, that whole court process will more than six or seven years,” he said. “But elected terms, at the federal and municipal levels, are themselves only five years long.”
Political leaders have welcomed Monday’s decision but members of some parties expressed reservations, especially Imtiaz Jaleel, a member of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, a party representing Muslim Indians. He said: “It is a welcome move but the thing is that, as a party, if I am representing a community, I will ask for votes,” referring to reservations, or affirmative-action quotas, which are enshrined in India’s constitution for people from less socially powerful caste groups.
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