Right to reject: SC's order is a way out for lazy voters

NOTA is the new neta in Indian politics. The Supreme Court has told the Election Commission to give the Indian voter yet another choice in our crowded electoral marketplace - none of the above. It’s been promptly hailed by the likes of Kiran Bedi who tweeted “Right to reject direction to EC by Supreme Court comes on birthday of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Total game changer for Indian political scene.” It sounds simple and sweeping. The voter sending a message across the board to all political parties, the perfect manifestation of the anger and frustration of the aam aadmi tired of settling for the lesser of two evils.  But does it really do any of the things the Supreme Court and its backers want it to do? Apathy gets squared. This is being presented as a pick-me-up for the voter’s apathy with a wretched and compromised political class. The court says the right to reject all candidates is part of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to the citizens of India. But does that mean that citizen wants to stand in line at a polling booth for hours to exercise that right in negativity? The apathetic voter shows his distaste for what’s on offer by not bothering to show up for the polls. The court thinks dissatisfied voters will show up in larger numbers to express their dissatisfaction but she has to be a really impassioned apathetic voter to take the trouble to queue up for hours to mark her apathy with indelible ink. If you know what’s on the menu, and you don’t like anything that’s being served, who would bother to show up at a restaurant just so you could have the dubious pleasure of walking out? If anything, this becomes the lazy voter’s way out where if she cannot make up her mind, she just chooses NOTA as the candidate who at least will not do any harm. A NOTA vote at least avoids fake voting in that voter’s name but again that requires a really dedicated voter to show up just to prevent that from happening. Coalition blues get bluer. We live in the age of coalition politics where small parties are looking to act as kingmakers. Now with NOTA in the mix, it means the voting gets even more fragmented. The winning candidate has even less of a margin of victory making him both more vulnerable and less representative at the same time - hardly the shot in the arm Indian democracy needs. Coalitions become even more shaky and inspire even less confidence. The court said the negative vote would actually foster the purity and vibrancy of elections. Instead, it will just make for more convoluted coalition politics. Or being experts at fooling the system, someone could create a None Of the Above legal political party and cash in on voter resentment. That happened in Serbia in 2010 and ‘None of the Above’ even won an actual seat in the National Assembly. NOTA wins. What happens in the unlikely event that NOTA wins over all the netas in the fray? The Supreme Court in its wisdom chose not to clarify that scenario. Since NOTA cannot actually take a seat in parliament, it will just mean having bypolls over and over again until a flesh-and-blood candidate manages to win. The Aam Aadmi party says if NOTA wins, fresh elections will happen within a month and the candidates who got snubbed in Round One forfeit the right to take part in Round Two. Say NOTA wins with 1000 votes and Candidate A comes second with 900 votes. How can Candidate A be told she cannot run the second time around just because NOTA got 100 votes more? As we all know, perfectly decent people routinely lose elections. All NOTA’s “victory” achieves is lengthen the electoral agony with all the headaches, major and minor, that carries with it - from mobilizing of forces and government workers to dry days. And in the end when people vote the second time around it does not mean the vote they cast is not for the “lesser of two evils” either. People will still do that because they know they don’t want to go through the whole process again to make an empty rhetorical point. Misery loves company. There’s an old saying in Bengali that goes Doshey mili kori kaaj, haari jeeti, naahin laaj. If ten of us are together doing work, there is no shame whether we win or lose. The NOTA option is meant to shame political parties into fielding better candidates according to the Supreme Court. But all it does is put ALL the political parties in the same boat, so none of them have to feel singled out in shame. The Jan Lokpal Bill disappeared into exactly that political quagmire because in the end public protestations notwithstanding the major political parties didn’t particularly want a Lokpal bill with real teeth hanging over their heads. This sort of blanket shaming actually gives all parties a pass because they feel no worse than anyone else. If there is one thing this bill achieves, it’s the fact that the Supreme Court recognizes what many Indians on the commentboards do not - that a criticism of Narendra Modi does not mean an embrace of Rahul Gandhi or vice versa. There are people who actually have problems with both, a fact of life each candidate’s most energetic followers just do not seem to get. But now the Supreme Court is saying that it’s okay to say pox on all their houses. In fact, it’s not just okay, the Election Commission should provide a way for those people to be able to say exactly that inside a polling booth. Whether they will get off their armchairs and stand in line to do so is another question altogether.