Former chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) J K Bajaj, who was also a member of the Justice G Rohini Commission for the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), says delimitation should be frozen for another 25 years and that the federal principle be considered more important than one-person, one-vote, one-value till the population stabilises across all states in another three or four decades.
Yes, we should extend the freeze that Parliament enacted first in 1976 and again in 2001 for at least another 25 years.
* Since the delimitation of seats between states was frozen in 1976, the difference in the population has become large over five decades. Will it not become larger in another three to four decades? How will the then government handle the adverse political fallout?
After three or four decades, the population of all states is expected to stabilise. That would be an appropriate time to rework the relative shares of different states in Parliament. Those shares will be somewhat different from what we have today, but the logic of delimitation on a stable population is much more persuasive than doing it when various states are at different stages of demographic transition.
* There is a ‘one person, one vote, one value’ principle enshrined in the Constitution. There have been demands to alter that and factor in the economic and social performance of states. Do you agree that the government can diversify criteria and not run the risk of violating this principle?
The differing patterns of demographic transition in different states are directly related to their economic and social performance. Keeping the share of states unchanged is an obvious and simple way of recognising the varying socio-economic performance, which leads to varying growth of population.
* How will the government reconcile the principle that substantive equality permits positive discrimination only for those who are disadvantaged — reservation and subsidies are examples — with the demand that more prosperous states be given a share larger than their current populations?
Keeping the share stable does not necessarily reward more prosperous states. Punjab is far less prosperous today as compared to Haryana, but delimitation based on the 2011 Census data shall raise the seats for Haryana and lower those for Punjab. The decision to freeze the share of different states is not a matter of rewarding or punishing. It is a matter of keeping the federal compact unchanged until all the states have completed their respective demographic transition.
* If demographic transition happens in different states at different times, has family planning had any real impact? Have there ever been stringent family planning measures in any state in the last few decades?
Many parameters have an impact on the rate of demographic change. The most significant are the state of nutrition, hygiene, and health. Education and social, economic and political stability also matter. The population in southern states began rising from 1921 onwards for these reasons. In a state such as UP, where these parameters remained backward, significant growth began after 1971.
Easy availability of family planning resources is important, but their adoption depends on the factors we discussed earlier. Coercive implementation of family planning does not and cannot go very far in a democratic polity like ours.
* How can the concerns of the southern states be allayed?
The likely loss that the southern states, and many others, will suffer in case of fresh delimitation is so large that nothing can allay their fear of losing their voice in national affairs. The assurance of the Union Home Minister that no state shall have fewer than its current seats in a larger Lok Sabha does not mean much, for it is the relative share of different states that matters, not the absolute number of seats.
* Given ‘one person, one vote, one value’, is it possible for the government to take the 2011 Census as the reference point and yet keep the seat allocation between states consistent, given that some states have seen larger population growths than others between 1971 and 2011?
Parliament, in its wisdom and sagacity, bypassed the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ in 1976 and again in 2001. This was done because parliamentary leaders at the time agreed that keeping the federal balance was more important than the principle. They amended the Constitution to override this constitutional requirement.
‘One person, one vote’ may continue to operate within a state. The currently allocated seats within a state can be delimited according to their current population rather than the historical population. This preserves both the federal principle and the principle of ‘one person, one vote’.
