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In the land of the free

After a lifetime of following -- and occasionally covering -- elections in India, I must admit to a buildup of frustration.

Our electoral system is clumsy. Expensive. Time consuming. And by no means fail-safe.

Reform -- urgent reform -- is indicated. The question that has exercised me all this while is, how? What should this reform consist of? How to devise a simple, effective system of governance?

Certain basics have to be kept in mind -- and the most important is that democracy is absolutely vital to have. Because if we don't have it, Uncle Sam -- or more appropriately, Uncle Bush -- won't give us money and arms and all kinds of other goodies.

Worse, he will impose 'sanctions' for being anti-democratic. I'm not quite sure what 'sanctions' mean, but well-informed sources tell me that it is a bit like being sent to bed without supper. Only, you won't have a bed either.

The second thing to keep in mind is that we are a poor country -- so the ideal electoral system is something that doesn't cost too much.

Thought, on these lines, yielded nothing barring a headache. But where thought fails, healthy plagiarism often succeeds. It certainly did in my case. I won't reveal the source I plagiarised from -- you guys are welcome to your own conclusions.

So, here, in a series of simple, easy steps, is how I propose to reform the electoral system of the country.

First, I will appoint a president. This will be a two-step process: the first step being the appointment itself, the second step a national referendum to ratify that appointment.

The referendum will present the nation with one simple question: Do you think X should be president? The respondents will have two very clear, unambiguous choices: 1. Yes and 2. But of course.

Please tick whichever is applicable.

Once the president has been ratified unanimously by the nation, he will pick a national security council -- of which he will be the head.

The security council will comprise the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, four provincial chief ministers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff [if the chairman of joint chiefs happens by some fluke to be the president, no problem -- add the cost of one ornate, gilded chair to the total savings], and the heads of the army, navy and air force.

The council will then advice the president on the choice of prime minister and members of the cabinet. But wait a minute -- the prime minister is already a member of the council, no? Never mind -- the prime minister as a member of the council will advice the president to appoint him prime minister.

Look, people -- if you keep nitpicking, we'll never get this done.

In the true traditions of democracy, the president will not have the right to arbitrarily dismiss the prime minister and his cabinet. If the president wishes to dismiss the prime minister at all, he has to propose it to the national security council -- of which he is the head -- and be bound by its advice.

If, however, he does not like the council's advice, he can dismiss it and appoint another one. Sooner or later he will hit on a council whose advice he likes -- and keep in mind that none of this costs the country anything.

The president will also appoint a supreme court, and various not-so-supreme courts at the lower levels, as required.

The president will at all times have the right to fire everyone -- security council, judges, everyone -- without assigning any reasons. The president's own term will be for five years -- at the end of which the country will be given the free choice of extending that term by another five years.

In further keeping with democratic traditions, there will be various safeguards to ensure that martial law can never replace civilian government. Thus, if by some chance a general were to become president, he will wear civil dress for all public appearances. He will however be allowed to wear military dress when fulfilling his duties as chairman of the chiefs of staff. If he is meeting a visiting general in public, he will wear civilian clothes topped by his general's cap.

And that is just the beginning. In order to streamline the process even further, I propose two additional measures:

Firstly, no citizen who has stood for election before at any level, or any member of his family, or anyone known to have any connection with him, can stand for election. For purposes of this law, 'connection' will be defined as belonging to the same caste, or religion, or having studied in the same school, or residing in the same city or even state.

The aim -- a very laudable one, so please laud whole-heartedly -- is to ensure that the same people, or those connected to him, don't stand for election over and over again. The country needs fresh blood in governance.

Secondly, no citizen without a PhD will be allowed to vote. The objective is to ensure that only the most intelligent people have a hand in deciding how the country should be run, and by whom. Such things are too important to be left to illiterate people. If the majority of the people in the country are illiterate, well, tough -- that will teach you to go to school. And college. And university.

If anyone seeks to contest this provision as unconstitutional, and argue that it discriminates against the majority and deprives them of the right to vote, they have every right to go to court. After all, this is a free, fair, democratic country.

The court will declare that it is perfectly constitutional. And to make sure the court thus declares, the president will personally write that clause into the constitution.

So there -- that knocks 99.9 per cent of the population out of the box.

Now examine the advantages of the system: The entire process takes about a day and a half. No more month long election campaigns with all associated wasteful expenditure, no 150 parties and five-foot long ballot sheets, no election commission and hundreds of thousands of counting agents and ballot boxes to be made and transported and no nothing.

To organise a nationwide vote of PhD holders will probably cost the country a few thousand rupees every five years. In other words, for less than the cost of a new car, we have in place a new head of state, a council of ministers, and a judiciary.

And we save a few thousand crore every five years.

I have a few tentative ideas on what to do with the money saved -- but before I elaborate on that in my next column, I propose to go on a fact-finding study tour. Of the Cayman Islands, among other places.

Only one thing remains to be done -- and that is to decide on the identity of president.

That's easy. Me. Because I thought of it first.

If anyone has any objections to that, I'll see you in court. My court.

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