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By AGGREY MUTAMBO

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Nairobi Tuesday night to push for what he called shared global priorities with African nations.

But it may also signal the return of President Joe Bidens actual policy for Africathe routine calls for human rights and democracy.

Although the official itinerary for his trip to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal talks of investments in clean energy, climate change, Covid-19, regional security and stability, his trip also includes the old issue of democracy.

The secretary will look to advance US-African partnerships and underscore the common values we share with Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal and use those as platforms to really talk to the entirety of the continent but certainly the publics and leaders in those three countries, said Mr Ervin Massinga, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, at a virtual media briefing on Friday.

Concerning human rights overall, absolutely, this issue is front and centre for our engagement across the continent, and certainly in this trip, in each one of the stops. And there will be a human rights component inbuilt into everything were doing.

In Kenya, the US wants to collaborate on Nairobis full transition to renewable energy by 2030, and wants Nairobi to play a bigger role in helping ends the regional chaos in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. Mr Blinken is also visiting at a time Africa is lagging behind in Covid-19 vaccinations amid raging conflict in the continent.

Last week, Mr Blinken announced Johnson & Johnson had reached a deal to supply more doses through the Covax facility for supply to people in conflict zones.

His itinerary says he will also meet with civil society leaders essential to Kenyas vibrant democracy and participate in events related to climate and environmental protection.

Previously muted during the Donald Trump era as Washington pursued business policy to rival the Chinese in Africa, his successor seems to have re-attached it on his view of the continent.

In Nigeria, as in Senegal, which will be 2022s chair of the African Union, Mr Blinken is likely to speak on religious freedoms as well as police brutality, especially in Abuja where there have been public protests seeking resignation of police chiefs.

In Kenya, where elections are due next year, Mr Blinken will hear from civil society groups what their fears are. President Biden has delayed finalising a trade deal with Kenya, whose negotiations began under President Trump.

Next month, Mr Biden will host a summit of democracies, according to an earlier announcement.

Blinken arrives in Nairobi on Tuesday night and will spend a day in Nairobi before heading to Nigeria and later Senegal.

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Antony Blinken visit to revive calls for democracy and human rights - The East African

Common sense suggests that America ought to reform its ancient constitution. The country, after all, is vastly different from what it was when founded in the 1780s and 1790s. The electoral college may have made sense at the dawn of the democratic age, but now it is an embarrassment, violating the core principle that every vote in presidential contests ought to count the same as any other.

Having had no experience with the mass democracy they called into being, the framers of the constitution gave little thought as to how best to keep monied interests from corrupting electoral outcomes. And they had no clue about how questions of sex and sexuality would one day convulse their republic. Constitutional amendments passed today could abolish the electoral college, curtail the influence of private (and especially dark) money on politics, and establish a right to an abortion or a broader right to privacy in matters sexual and otherwise.

When we ask, however, whether any of these amendments have a reasonable chance of becoming law, the answer is no. The explanation is as mind-boggling as it is straightforward: For all intents and purposes, the constitution cannot be changed. The framers set an impossibly high bar for revision: two-thirds approval for a proposed amendment from each House of Congress, followed by majority approval from three-quarters of the state legislatures. Imagine a vote for Brexit crossing that double threshold. It never would.

The US constitution has been amended a mere 27 times across its 230-year history. The meaningful total is actually far less. The first 10 Bill of Rights amendments should not be regarded as amendments, since they were part of the original debate and ratification of the constitution in the years from 1789 to 1792. The three civil war amendments (1865-1870) were passed in unique circumstances of internal war, secession, and reconstruction. Two Prohibition amendments that canceled each other out (the first authorized a ban on alcohol and the second repealed it 14 years later) inflate the official count. A few other amendments addressed matters too minor to discuss. The total number of significant amendments passed in non-civil war circumstances, then, rapidly shrinks to single digits: about one every 25 to 30 years. Only during the Progressive era (1900-1920) did Americans find a way to make amendments a useful tool of politics: the direct election of senators, womens suffrage and Congresss right to levy income taxes were all written into the constitution at this time. No prior or subsequent generation has figured out how to duplicate the Progressives success. Even Antonin Scalia, the great believer in the genius of the constitution as it was originally written, admitted that a constitution written in stone was not serving anyone well.

The unchangeability of the constitution is not a new problem, of course. Liberal and conservative jurists across the generations have creatively refashioned the constitution into new shapes to address new realities. Consider Louis Brandeis, who insisted that the constitution be treated as a living document whose principles needed to address matters of which our fathers could not have dreamed. Twentieth-century judges, Brandeis believed, were obligated to adapt 18th-century principles to novel circumstances and, occasionally, to discern in those principles as yet unenumerated rights. To think otherwise, Brandeis declared, would be to turn the constitution into a series of impotent and lifeless formulas.

If the supreme court sometimes sought and achieved moments of Brandeis-style brilliance, it also suffered through periods of hubris or brittleness when justices, in pursuit of a political agenda or a misguided sense of principle, forgot where the ultimate source of their authority lay: not with the statutes themselves, or with framers of the constitution, but with the American people.

Between 1789 and 1791, large assemblies of citizens in nine of the 13 states voted both to ratify and modify the document that the framers had handed them. This ratification process gave meaning to the critical preamble to the constitution: We the people of the United States do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. The supreme court must sometimes rule against majority opinion, which can be ill-considered, even tyrannical. But if the court repeatedly ignores or, worse, displays contempt for deep-seated and enduring popular convictions, it risks not just its own authority but that of the entire governing system of which it is part.

Two historical examples illustrate this point. The first was the notorious Dred Scott decision of 1857, when Chief Justice Roger Taney and a large majority of justices declared on specious grounds that African Americans, enslaved or free, were not and would never be entitled to US citizenship and thus to constitutional rights and privileges. The outrage generated in the north by this decision hastened Americas descent into civil war.

The second moment occurred in the 1930s, when four conservative justices were preparing opinions to strike down two pillars of Roosevelts New Deal, the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. These Four Horsemen, as they were known, were opposed by a progressive bloc consisting of Brandeis and two other justices wishing to uphold the New Deal. In the middle sat two moderates, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen Roberts. Had one or both joined the horsemen, they might have plunged America into a second civil war, this one between capital and labor.

The scenario of war was not far-fetched. Americans had declared their support for the New Deal by giving Roosevelt a resounding election victory in the 1936; they would not have tolerated the supreme court frustrating the will of the people by striking down the New Deal.

To save his legislative program, Roosevelt was threatening to push through Congress a law that would allow him to pack the court with his own appointees. Meanwhile, members of the United Auto Workers had occupied several General Motors factories in Michigan, forcing one of the worlds most powerful corporations to shut down production. Staying for six weeks, the sit-down strikers dared mayors, a governor, judges, and a president to call in the police, national guard, or US military to evict them.

At this moment of industrial confrontation and looming political crisis, both Hughes and Roberts signed on to two critical decisions that secured FDRs New Deal. Roberts insisted in subsequent years that jurisprudential evolution, not political pressure, had shaped his decision. Hughes struck a different pose. He seemed to understand that the judiciary, though independent, was part of a political system established to make the people sovereign. And that at certain crucial moments, the will of the people had to be honored. If this could not be done by constitutional amendment, it would have to occur through some other means.

The supreme court today faces another critical test of its legitimacy, as it prepares to deliver pivotal rulings this year on abortion, gun rights, and government funding for religious schools. It is likely that important right to vote cases will soon come before the court as well. The court must render its rulings in circumstances that have already seriously damaged its reputation. I am referring, of course, to the true steal in American politics: not the presidential election of 2020 but Mitch McConnells hijacking of two supreme court appointments to achieve the GOPs 40-year quest for an impregnable conservative majority. The beneficiaries of that steal associate justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett have given conservatives their largest majority on the court in 90 years.

Will this court, and its swollen Republican majority, succumb to the Taney temptation in Dred Scott, and attempt to settle divisive matters once and for all in ways that suit the wishes of their most fervent supporters? Or will the court follow the Hughes path and recognize that this is a moment when considerations of the American peoples general welfare must enter judicial deliberations?

Chief Justice John Roberts has shown himself to be a Hughes man, able to put country before party (as he did in his critical vote upholding the Affordable Care Act). But McConnells machinations have removed control of the court from Robertss hands. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch seem implacable in their conservatism. The progressive caucus of Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan is too small to accomplish anything on its own, even with Roberts as a sometime ally. That leaves the future of this court in the hands of Barrett and Trumps third appointee, Brett Kavanaugh. Does either have the integrity or vision to move the court and the country to a better place? We shall see.

Gary Gerstle is Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge. His new book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, will be published in April. He is a Guardian US columnist

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America is at a crossroads. The supreme court may decide which way it goes - The Guardian

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Purdue Universitys Voter Engagement Action Plan aimed at promoting student registration and turnout during the 2020 election was selected as the best among its Big Ten peers in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

The award for the Big Tens Best Action Plan, resulting in a 20-percentage point jump in student voter turnout to 67% in the 2020 election, was announced and presented to Purdue this week as part of several virtual ceremonies. Twelve of the 14 Big Ten universities submitted action plans designed to spur student registration and voting in 2020.

Purdue also received a silver rating for Excellence in Student Voter Engagement in achieving an overall voting rate of 60%-69% during the 2020 presidential election.

I enrolled us in the All IN Challenge with high hopes, but I should have known that Boilermakers would find a way to surpass them, said Purdue President Mitch Daniels, a national ALL IN Challenge spokesperson who was convinced Purdue could play a major role in promoting student voter registration and turnout in the 2020 election through this initiative. We like winning Big Ten championships around here, and this is one to be very proud of.

In its 12-page action plan, a document drafted in March 2020, the PurdueVotes Coalition outlined strategies and goals to boost registration for the campus based on the 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections, according to Melissa Gruver, associate director in the Civic Engagement & Leadership Development office, who co-led Purdues ALL IN Challenge efforts.

The 10-member core team met during the summer of 2020. Additional campus team members were added in the fall to form the 40-member PurdueVotes Coalition, which met virtually because of the pandemic to begin executing the action plans goals. Gruver said those goals centered on increasing the student voter registration and overall voting rate from the 2016 election, particularly among Purdues underrepresented minority student population.

I am proud of our entire Purdue team, along with the value that our students placed on voting in the general election andjumping 20 percentage points from the last presidential election, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.

Gruver said results of her teams persistent and strategic efforts in promoting student voter turnout are just as meaningful as the recognition from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

We worked hard, but we also worked smart. We placed a special emphasis on educating our students about how voting works, especially for those who were registered in their home county or state but are here on campus on Election Day. The process can be confusing, Gruver said.

Its exciting to see Purdues student voter registration strategy acknowledged by the ALL IN committee as the best in the Big Ten.

Purdues overall student voting rate at 67% in 2020, vs. 47% just four years earlier also was slightly higher than the 66% rate for participating ALL IN institutions, a significant accomplishment, Gruver said. Additionally, Purdues 2020 action plan sparked an increase in the:

Detailed statistics are available in Purdues 2020 National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement report known as the NSLVE campus report as part of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

The action plan was created by members of the PurdueVotes Coalition, a joint effort of student leaders, student organizations and staff from Civic Engagement & Leadership Development; University Residences; Student Activities and Organizations; Student Success; Fraternity, Sorority and Cooperative Life; and several academic departments.

Daniels announced in July 2020 that Purdue and 160 other college presidents and chancellors, including seven in the Big Ten, were committing to full student voter registration and participation in the 2020 election cycle through the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

By signing the ALL IN pledge, Purdue also committed to ensuring that all eligible students are able to register to vote and cast informed ballots in the 2020 election and beyond. Further, Purdue pledged to foster a campus culture that supported nonpartisan student civic learning, political engagement and student voter participation.

TheALL IN Campus Democracy Challengeis a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement and full student voter participation. The effort encourages higher education institutions to help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship and make democratic participation a core value on their campus. More than 830 universities and colleges across the nation, enrolling over 9 million students, participated in the challenge during the 2020 election cycle.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last four years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap athttps://purdue.edu/.

Writer, Media contact: Phillip Fiorini, 765-430-6189, pfiorini@purdue.edu

Source: Melissa Gruver, 765-494-6823, mgruver@purdue.edu

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Purdue's 2020 voter registration action plan selected best in the Big Ten for ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge - Purdue News Service

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For years, a number of researchers and analysts myself included have been sounding the alarm that American democracy is facing a foundational crisis. If this warning seemed overanxious in 2016 (or 2011, or 2000), its now ubiquitous.

From top to bottom, our governing institutions have been significantly eroded by conservative assaults on the legitimacy of our elections, the growing influence of shadowy political front groups in electoral politics, conservative attacks on voting rights, opportunistic partisan abandonment of governing norms, sclerotic legislative processes, polarization fed by the culture wars and a bevy of other worrying trends.

The depth and breadth of the problem are most visible at the elemental level, where the American democratic spirit is ostensibly most fervent: our thousands of school boards. These little local legislatures have been revered as cornerstones of American democracy since at least the early 19th century. In theory, they provide local schools with democratically elected leadership that is maximally responsive to local needs and the public interest.

And yet, the pandemic has brought months of news cycles where local school board debates have escalated into screaming matches complete with threats of violence over issues both imaginary (e.g. the supposed rise of critical race theory in U.S. classrooms) and/or conspiratorial (e.g. fights over mask or vaccine mandates). Things have gotten so bad that the National School Boards Association recently sounded the alarm, asking for the federal government to do more to protect elected local leaders from threats of violence. Rather than calming the waters, this just prompted further outrage particularly from conservative politicians in Washington, D.C. who cast it as an assault on parents free speech and eventual backpedaling from the NSBA.

Problems like these are why, in recent decades, some major cities places like Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, and New York City moved away from elected school boards. The idea had a three-part theory of action: 1) it makes school governance more coherent by unifying control of city schools under mayoral leadership, 2) it insulates education decision-makers from political pressure and 3) it gives mayors a reason to prioritize school funding and improvement.

The returns from this experiment have been largely encouraging. According to Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon, Chicago schools are dramatically outperforming not just the other big poor districts, but almost every district in the country, at scale. Research on public schools in D.C. including a recent Mathematica study has also found significant improvements.

And yet, recently, the mayoral control model in these cities has faced criticism from a cacophony of voices claiming that returning public education to school board control would restore an elemental part of U.S. democracy representative government at its most profoundly local level.

As the country wrestles with a national crisis of democracy, it seems odd to focus outrage and energy towards shifting local school governance from the control of elected mayors to elected school boards precisely at a moment when school boards across the country are providing daily proof of their weaknesses as institutions.

Aside from the novelty of conservative groups converting local protests into a coordinated national effort to inflame board meetings, there is nothing particularly exceptional about this latest spate of outrage. Remember the furor a few years ago over how the Common Core State Standards were ostensibly going to push schools to conduct mass retinal scans, promote student promiscuity and advance the cause of global communism? Sure, school board meetings are often sleepy for months even years but whether its school boundary changes or sex ed or school closures or school diversity or hiring and firing, periodic eruptions of dysfunction are pretty much a given.

And those are just recent examples. School boards institutional failures have deep historical roots. School boards have long been complicit, for instance, at designing and maintaining racist, inequitable structures in public education including decades of segregated schooling. Who did Oliver Brown and his fellow plaintiffs have to sue to begin the long, slow, difficult, haphazard work of integrating American schools? Topekas Board of Education. It was the same in Washington, D.C., where Spottswood Thomas Bolling sued the president of the local school board over segregation in the Districts schools. Indeed, over and over again, the fight for integration required (and still regularly requires) confronting and appealing to a higher authority over local school boards.

Its a reliable rule of education politics: elected school boards are almost always most responsive to vested and/or privileged interests in their communities. Consider, for instance, the Los Angeles Unified School District. For most of the last decade, their school board has faced criticism from experts, lawsuits from community groups, and pressure from the state to focus more resources on historically marginalized communities. And yet, nonetheless, the board has defaulted to allocating resources away from those communities. School boards simply arent designed to prioritize the less powerful, organized and noisy.

So why, in light of significant educational progress in places that have experimented with other forms of school governance, is it suddenly so important to shift more power to local school boards? Notably, pushes in this direction in Chicago and Washington, D.C. have sparked as these cities black residents are increasingly being displaced. In D.C., at least, a move away from mayoral control would almost assuredly strengthen the voices of white, privileged voters who would have a better chance of swaying the outcomes of a handful of low-turnout, ward-by-ward school board elections than the citywide mayoral race.

Indeed, what constitutes a democracy? Can it really be reduced to whether the public elects a mayor or a board to run the schools? Of course not. Institutionally speaking, modern democratic governance requires choosing leaders through regular, free, and fair elections but it also requires the expertise of civil servants and other experts chosen by those leaders. Thats why, for instance, we dont hold a national referendum every time the Mine Safety and Health Administration wants to adjust its regulations, nor do we establish elected panels to determine how much radium is safe to drink in our water supply.

So: you should absolutely be concerned about the state of U.S. democracy. It cannot long sustain when voting rights are selectively narrowed to grant partisan advantage, or when bills with majority support in both houses of Congress are regularly filibustered dead, or when sitting lawmakers resist efforts to fully investigate a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But if youre looking for a way to ensure that our schools have elected leadership thats fair, equitable and democratically accountable, school boards pretty obviously arent the way to go.

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Williams: Replacing Mayoral Control With Elected School Boards is Not the Best Way to Shore Up Our Fragile Democracy Or Run Schools - The 74

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both, American Supreme Court judge Justice Louis Brandeis wrote once. The growth of economic inequality fuels the growth of political inequalities and vice versa, resulting in a dangerous vicious cycle.

Democracy across the world is being undermined by money, most worryingly so in India. With the introduction of electoral bonds, India is currently the most unregulated country with regards to electoral funding in comparison with other similar democracies. The greater the inequality of political funding, the greater the chances that public policy is tilted towards the interest of the super rich, ignoring the interests of the majority, particularly the poor and the vulnerable.

Also read: As Electoral Bond Sales Begin Again, Critics Reiterate Need to End Anonymous Political Donations

Why electoral regulation is a must

As elections become more expensive, politicians become more dependent on electoral donations. This dependence of the political class on the rich for political funding has skewed elections in favour of the top 0.1% of the population.

According to Robert Dahl, the fundamental characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals. However, growing inequality and dependence on the super rich for political funding make their votes much more powerful than those of the rest of the population; democracy is no longer one person one vote but rather one dollar one vote.

There is a clear relationship between a countrys policy on electoral donations and the public policy decisions made. For example, Germany remains the only country in the EU that has not banned outdoor smoking advertisements by cigarette companies. Why? Because its the only country where all political parties receive a good amount of funding from cigarette companies.

Another example can be found in the United States: The share of the super rich (0.01% of the American population) in electoral contributions increased from 15% in the 1980s to 40% in 2016. The same period saw a significant decrease in the annual incomes of the bottom 50% of the American population as well as a significant reduction in corporate taxes.

Similarly,Loukas Karabarbounis of the University of Chicago, in his paper One dollar, one vote, compared Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for differences in the Gini index (which measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of wealth) and found a correlation between countries unrestrained electoral funding and high inequality.

If you think this is bad, wait for the data on India

Recently, Yasmine Bekkouche and Julia Cag (2018), based on extensive research on electoral funding, concluded that there is a direct correlation between electoral spending and electoral success. The same paper also identified that the cost of one vote in France in the parliamentary and municipality elections stood at six Euros and 36 Euros respectively.

European countries such as France and Belgium have curtailed private spending on elections through a series of legislations since the 1990s, thereby successfully negating the influence of the super rich in elections. In fact, France banned all forms of corporate funding in 1995 and capped individual donations at 6,000 Euros.

Brazil and Chile also recently banned corporate donations after a series of corruption scandals related to corporate funding particularly Petrobras and introduced the public financing of elections.

Illict funds from the Petrobras corruption scandal were often paid back to politicians through anonymous political donations. Photo: Reuters/ Sergio Moraes.

Also read: In Blow to Big Money, Brazil Bans Corporate Donations to Parties, Election Campaigns

What are electoral bonds?

While more and more OECD countries are bringing about strong electoral funding regulations and bans on corporate funding, India under Modi is going decades backwards.

Electoral bonds were introduced through the Union budget in 2017 and allowed corporates, in India or abroad, to anonymously donate a theoretically infinite amount of money to political parties (the fact that the only party that has gained from this system is Modis BJP is another matter.)

Electoral bonds lead to information asymmetry; only the ruling government has information on who lends and to whom, leading to issues of moral hazard and adverse selection. Before electoral bonds were introduced, it was mandatory for political parties to make public all donations above Rs 20,000 and no corporate company was allowed to make donations amounting to more than 10% of their total revenue. The introduction of electoral bonds not only increased the number of anonymous donors, but also the number of shell companies donating to political parties.

In the year 2019-2020 alone, out of the Rs 3,429 crore received by political parties, the BJP received Rs 2,606 crore or 76% of the total electoral bonds encashed, followed by the Congress which received a mere 9%.

Comparison of income received by BJP and INC from FY 2005-06 to FY 2018-19.

Another worrying fact about electoral bonds is that 92% of the money encashed is from Rs 1 crore bonds, with the same organisation donating in multiple tranches of 1 crore bonds. Assuming the average donation made by an organisation via electoral bonds is Rs 3 crore, then that organisation would have a profit of at least Rs 30 crore and a revenue of Rs 600 crore (net profit of a company is assumed to be 5% of the total revenue).

There are only 7,500 companies with a turnover of more than Rs 500 crore. If 92% of bonds cashed are multiples of one crore bonds, one can easily infer that its just a few thousand corporates that are funding the majority of the BJPs donations.

A breakup of the denominations of electoral bonds redeemed from phases 1-14. Source: ADR reports.

When the BJP receives most of its electoral donations from several thousand corporates, will its focus be on doing broader public good or on taking care of the interests of the super rich corporates?

As we have seen above, political parties, like individuals, respond to incentives. So the BJPs main policy motive would be to take care of the interests of the super rich and interests of these businesses are usually at odds with the general interests of the masses.

The most profound example of the same would be the reduction of corporate taxes since 2017 and the simultaneous, gradual increase of fuel taxes. Indians, along with Pakistanis spent, on average, 17% of their total income on fuel before the recently reduced fuel tax; the highest in the world by far. At the same time, corporate tax eshave, since 2017, been reduced from 35% to 23%; among the lowest in the developing world.

Indias corporate tax revenue since 2015.

Also read: Explained: Heres Why Modi Govts High Taxes on Fuel Dont Just Affect 5% of India

Assuming a similar growth of corporate tax revenue as previous years (~15%), the Union government,by reducing corporate taxes, has missed out on a potential revenue of Rs 6.27 lakh crore in the last two fiscal years (2019-20, 2020-21).

This reduction in corporate taxes over the years raises concerns of a potential case of returning the favour to the corporates for their anonymous donations to the ruling party; the entire process enabled by electoral bonds (Bethanavel Kuppusamy).

This not only calls attention to a weakening democracy but also highlights the dire situation of the Indian economy, which affects the common people more than the affluent sections. Other examples of corporate influence would be the monetisation of public assets where extremely lucrative Indian assets are given away at a throw away price, at a loss to the exchequer or the passing of the widely criticised farm bills.

Proposed policy solutions to reinvent Indian democracy

The danger with the Indian system is that, as the rich use their political power more and more to cement their interests, we become more and more likely to move away from democracy and towards plutocracy. This is because the interests of the super rich are directly in conflict with the interests of the poor. As the poor are increasingly left out of the electoral process, they become disillusioned and slowly move away from it entirely.

The equality of all citizens in the funding of elections is the first step to save Indias democracy. The Union government should, therefore, immediately ban all forms of corporate donations, including electoral bonds. French political scientist Cag in her book The Price of Inequality proposed democratic equality vouchers whereby each citizen can anonymously donate a fixed amount, lets say Rs 1,000, yearly to the political party of their choice. This Rs 1,000 should be reimbursed to citizens.

The second step would be to introduce the public funding of elections whereby each candidate who receives more than 5% of the votes is partly reimbursed for their electoral expenditure. Currently, the rich corporates who contribute to electoral funding are reimbursed via income tax rebates, thereby making the common public pay for the electoral preferences of the super rich. This lost tax revenue could partly make up for the democratic equality vouchers and the public funding of elections.

The third and arguably foremost measure would be to control individual spending in elections. Though the Election Commission of India (ECI) has set a limit of Rs 75 lakh per candidate, such limits are often exceeded. Therefore, the ECI should reinvent itself and make sure that such limits are respected by contesting candidates.

Unless India reinvents its political funding and spending regulations, she is not a true democracy. For India to be true democracy, the dictum of one person one vote must be reinstated in favour of the current one Rupee one vote regime.

Dharanidharan Sivagnanaselvam is an alumnus of the University of Oxford and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po, Paris). He is an executive coordinator at Dravidian Professionals Forum and co-founder of the Oxford Policy Advisory Group.

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Electoral Bonds Are a Threat to Indian Democracy - The Wire