Nutan Vidhan

We posit that we can make our democracy function as intended and address many of the challenges facing politics and governance today by adopting better electoral models, which change how and whom we elect as our leaders, and better institutional frameworks, which change how they collaborate and work together. More specifically, we can:

1. Ensure broad-based representation for all sections of society, in proportion to their numbers, without the system dominated by ‘upper castes’ and other dominant sections.
2. Accelerate development by bringing more visionary leaders into the system.
3. Ensure that the system works as designed by attracting more principled leaders.
4. Curtail political polarisation and divisive rhetoric.
5. Move from appeasement and inducements to genuine, lasting solutions.
6. Narrow the gap between public will and public policy, free from undue distortion by ideologies, agendas, vested interests, and extraneous influences or considerations.
7. Move from partisan debates and party-line voting to issue-based debates and merit-based legislation.
8. Address the friction and overlap between centre, state and local bodies, including the delimitation issues.
9. Empower legislatures to hold the executive truly accountable.
10. Make parliamentary committees more effective in providing close scrutiny of the functioning of government departments and institutions.
11. Make apolitical offices, such as those of the President of India and the Election Commission, genuinely autonomous.
12. Establish a permanent solution to the tension between the executive and the judiciary.

Please see The accompanying article, available in pdf format for details.