Editorial 1: The misplaced move of ‘one nation one election’
Context
On the contrary, the holding of frequent elections in India has many positive benefits.
Introduction
The idea of simultaneous elections, to the Lok Sabha, the State Assemblies and the local bodies, was thrown up by the Prime Minister a couple of years ago. Frequent Assembly and local body elections kept him busy on the campaign trail in some parts of the country most of the time. This experience may have been the trigger for the idea to hold elections at one time.
Key details of High-Level Committee
- This also led to the formation of a high-level committee on simultaneous elections, which was headed by
- the former President of India, Ram Nath Kovind.
- Other members of the committee included
- the Home Minister, Amit Shah,
- former Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad,
- former Chairman,
- Fifteenth Finance Commission N.K. Singh,
- former Secretary-General,
- Lok Sabha Subhash C. Kashyap,
- Senior advocate Harish Salve and
- Former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Sanjay Kothari.
- Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, was a special invitee.
- Submission of report and availability in public: The committee’s report was submitted to the President of India in March this year.
- Thus the recommendations were available to the public before the 2024 general election.
- Key accusations on the BJP: Moreover, the idea of ‘simultaneous elections’ was a part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto (BJP) for this general election.
- If the ruling party had won a majority in this election it could have claimed that the idea had been endorsed by voters.
- But in the absence of a majority, it becomes difficult to assume that voters are in approval of it.
- Large report: Be that as it may, it is nothing less than a miracle that a high-level committee could come up with such a voluminous report (18,626 pages) within a relatively short time on an issue of great importance.
- Approval from the cabinet: the subject of ‘one nation one election’ has reached almost take-off stage.
- Key procedures: In the first phase, Lok Sabha and Assembly elections will be held simultaneously, while local body elections will be conducted within 100 days of the general election.
An amendment Bill and its fate
- Key amendments: The recommendation on simultaneous elections involves amendments to various Articles of the Constitution.
- The crucial amendment is on the tenure of Assemblies which will no longer have fixity.
- Concerns of State assemblies: Since the tenure of the Assemblies will have to be synchronised with that of the Lok Sabha, it is only natural that State Assemblies, which, under Article 172, have a fixed tenure of five years will lose it.
Stages of the Bill
The fate of the Constitution amendment Bill that will be introduced in the 18th Lok Sabha for this purpose will be.
- Introduction of the Bill: The Bill will be introduced in the Lok Sabha.
- Consideration Stage: The next important stage is its consideration, which means a general debate on it.
- After the debate is concluded, the motion for consideration is put to the vote of the House.
- Voting Requirements: At that stage, the special majority, namely, the majority of the total membership of the House and a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting, will be required.
- Only if the motion for consideration is passed with the special majority will the House consider the subsequent stages, i.e., clause by clause consideration, and finally pass the Bill.
- Special Majority Calculation: If all 543 members are present in the House to vote then the support of 362 members will be required.
- It is understood that the ruling National Democratic Alliance has around 292 members at present.
- Thus, there is a wide gap between this number and the special majority number of 362.
- Challenges in Mobilizing Majority: Since the Opposition parties are opposed to the ‘one nation one election’ proposition, perhaps the government will find it extremely difficult to mobilise the special majority.
- Cruciality of the consideration stage: Thus, in such a situation, the fate of the Constitution amendment Bill will be decided at the stage of consideration itself.
The simple message from all this is that without the support of the Opposition, no Constitution amendment Bill will be able to be passed in the Parliament of today.
The arguments are thin
The high-level committee has recommended simultaneous elections for two reasons.
- Savings of Costs: First, the issue of savings in expenses given the humongous amounts of money spent in each election.
- If all elections are held only once in five years the savings will be enormous.
- But this is an argument that needs closer examination.
- Under Article 324, all elections to Parliament and the State legislatures are conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
- The money required to hold elections is sanctioned by Parliament as a part of the Budget.
- For the financial year 2023-24, the total allocation made by Parliament to the ECI is ₹466 crore.
- Obviously this allocation was made for meeting the expenditure in connection with the 2024 general election. For 2022-23, the total allocation was only ₹320 crore.
- Thus the total amount allotted to the ECI for the general election — ₹466 crore — is not a very huge amount.
- Logistics of state governments: Of course expenditure is incurred also by the State governments to meet logistical requirements in connection with elections.
- Under Article 324(6), staff are required to be provided to the ECI on demand for the elections.
- Under Section 160 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, State governments are empowered to requisition premises and even vehicles for election purposes.
- All these arrangements require money which the States will have to provide.
- But even after all these expenses are also considered, the total expenditure incurred by the Union and State governments cannot be categorised as being huge or enormous.
- Expenditure by the political parties: Yes, the money spent by the political parties is mind boggling, but the point is that the money that would be saved by the political parties due to the holding of elections once in five years is not going to be spent on, for example, road building or the building of bridges or hospitals.
- No political party has ever done such things. After all, we had simultaneous elections from 1951-52 to 1967.
- There is no evidence that the political parties have ever built roads for instance during this long period.
- Therefore, the assumption that the money saved can be used for building infrastructure does not seem to be based on any empirical evidence.
- Disruption of Developmental Plans: The second reason is that frequent elections will disrupt developmental plans and projects of the government because of the model code of conduct being in force most of the time.
- Once again there is no empirical evidence to prove this argument. After all, periodic or frequent elections have been held since 1967 till today.
- But it is not known that elections have stopped the developmental momentum.
- It is interesting to note in this context that demonetisation of 85% of India’s currency was done close to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.
A move against federalism
- Anti – federalism : Curtailing the tenures of State Assemblies to synchronise them with the tenure of the Lok Sabha is an act against federalism.
- Federal aspects under the Constitution of India: State Assemblies are autonomous law-making bodies within the India federation and are independent of the federal parliament.
- A fixed tenure of the Assemblies independent of the tenure of the Lok Sabha is a key aspect of the federal setup.
- Under the Kesavananda Bharati decision, Parliament does not have the power to alter the basic structure.
- Federalism is a part of the basic structure.
- Accusations on altering the constitution: The proposed amendments which seek to do away with the fixity of tenure of the Assemblies would amount to altering the basic structure.
- Whether ratification by Assemblies will be necessary or not is not the key issue.
- If this amendment is carried out, some Assemblies will have a term of three years. It may be two years or so for others.
Way forward
As a matter of fact, frequent elections have many positive benefits. First, they will enhance the accountability of elected representatives. Frequent elections compel them to go back to the people and reconnect with them frequently. Thus, more deliberations can be done by including multi-stakeholder approach to reach to a consensus.
Conclusion
To sum up, Elections once in five years would mean that representatives would not feel compelled to go to the people. They would slowly move away from them and try to reconnect with them only in the election year. Similarly, if elections are held only once in five years, political parties will slowly become lethargic and, in course of time, will cease to be the effective vehicles of peoples’ aspirations. From the angle of governments, frequent elections will show them which way the wind blows and a government in office can do course correction. In conclusion, simultaneous elections will alter the federal balance of the Constitution and it is not a priority issue for ordinary Indians.
Editorial 2 : China’s warning shots with minerals that run the world
Context
Restricting access to strategic resources is a classic statecraft strategy that China seems to be perfecting.
Introduction
On August 15 this year, China announced its decision to restrict the export of antimony, a critical mineral used in strategic sectors such as defence, for military equipment such as missiles, infrared sensors, flares, ammunition, and even nuclear weapons. China’s Commerce Ministry justified this move on the basis of “national security”, adding that the measure would take effect from September 15. This was part of a series of countermoves that began in August 2023.
Moves and countermoves
- China’s leadership in critical minerals: When it comes to critical minerals, China is not only a stakeholder but also a leader.
- Supply chain dominance dominates every supply chain segment — upstream, midstream, and downstream, covering mining, extraction, refining and processing.
- Enjoying monopoly: It enjoys a near-monopoly status,
- controlling 60% of rare earth production,
- 60% of critical minerals production and
- 80% of the processing worldwide.
- Global implications: any decision China makes has profound national security implications globally.
- Vulnerable countries: The European Union and countries such as India, Japan and the United States are strategically vulnerable due to their dependence on critical minerals.
2010 Chinese trawler incident
- China’s intimidating behaviour first gained international attention in the aftermath of the incident in 2010 when a Chinese trawler collided with Japanese Coast Guard boats, after which it halted the exports of rare earth elements to Japan.
- The event also led to serious global discussions about the world’s dependence on China for strategic minerals.
The recent antimony episode
- Poor intent: It has only reaffirmed the western belief that China is willing to use critical minerals to coerce.
- All of this became evident in mid-2023 when China announced a set of restrictions on the exports of critical minerals with U.S. export control measures.
- Semiconductor equipment curbs: In 2023, following the decision by the Netherlands to restrict the supply of semiconductor equipment, under pressure from the U.S., China announced curbs on the export of gallium and germanium, two critical minerals used in solar cells and computer chips.
- U.S. led export control reciprocation: again in 2023, after the U.S. announced export control on “advanced computing, semiconductors, and semiconductors manufacturing equipment”, China reciprocated by curbing the export of “high-purity, high-hardness and high-intensity synthetic graphite material and natural flake graphite and its products”, widely used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, fuel cells, and nuclear reactors.
- Weaponizing the critical mineral: These steps were primarily aimed at responding to U.S. actions and sending a strong signal that if pushed to the wall, China would not hesitate to weaponize the critical mineral supply chain.
- Power of critical minerals: Apart from these two steps, China has reminded the U.S. of its monopoly and monopsony as a mineral power and buyer, exhibiting the importance of its critical minerals in developing the U.S.’s high technology and green energy sectors.
- Restricting exports to assert dominance: China has also restricted the export of rare earth processing technologies in making rare earth magnets used in EVs, in addition to technologies used to extract and separate critical minerals, hamstringing the U.S.-led attempt to build an alternative supply chain.
A hardening of foreign policy posture
- Strategic statecraft through resource control: Restricting access to strategic resources is a classic statecraft strategy, hitting the enemy’s weak points, an example being the U.S. oil embargo against Japan in 1940.
- Therefore, this is expected from an aspiring great power such as China, which seeks to leverage its status as a mineral power.
- Weaponizing and intimidating: The difference in China’s case is that this initially started as an act to intimidate countries.
- However, with recent countermoves, critical minerals export controls have now become a part of China’s foreign policy objectives.
- It has moved from the politicisation to the weaponisation stage.
- Prime reasons for weaponsising: For two reasons, China has grown more comfortable using its mineral resources as a political tool.
- First, Beijing is reminding the West of its strategic dependency on China by demonstrating its status as a mineral power and exerting control over the supply chain.
- Second, China is responding in like and believes that it is acceptable to take advantage of the situation to sabotage the West’s critical mineral supply chain, which will hinder the development of its high-tech sectors and undermine their efforts to decouple and de-risk.
- Dual-use applications are being targeted: Those critical minerals utilised in dual-use applications are major targets in particular as they are needed in the building of the Virginia class submarine and the F-35 fighter aircraft, which require several hundred pounds of rare earth elements.
- Chinese school of thought towards its approaches: This shows that the aggressive, reciprocal and coercive approach has taken over the cooperative and collaborative approach, one of China’s two schools of thought.
- Shifting Chinese approach: It signals that Chinese curbs via export control will only grow as ties with the West deteriorate.
Conclusion: India’s vulnerability
Like its Quad partners, Australia, Japan and the U.S., India remains vulnerable due to its strategic dependence on China. New Delhi is heavily dependent on the imports of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper, which resulted in an import cost of around ₹34,000 crore in FY23. India’s demand for minerals is expected to rise which will lead to higher import costs and thus raise the country’s vulnerability. this episode must act as a wake-up call for India and the policymakers who have been slow in taking precautionary measures such as having partnerships with like-minded countries and investing in developing alternative supply chains.
