The independence of the commission’s work means that political tampering (i.e., gerrymandering) of districts is less of a concern than in other democracies, such as the United States.49 The Delimitation Commission is an independent statutory body created by Parliament, though institutionally separate from it, whose orders have the force of law and cannot be called into question by the judiciary. These protections give it a fair amount of political independence. Indeed, researchers who studied the latest round of delimitation found no evidence of political manipulation in the redistricting process.50
While the commission could not alter the overall number of seats in either the state assemblies or national parliament, it was charged with rationalizing the structure and composition of electoral constituencies. This involved two steps. The first was to restructure constituencies to reduce inequalities in their population size, thereby addressing the issue of malapportionment. The second step was to reallocate seats reserved for SCs and STs on the basis of updated population figures from the 2001 census. According to the commission’s authorizing legislation, seats for STs were to be reserved in those constituencies in which the share of their population was the largest. The same rule applies to SC seats, with one notable exception: the commission was required to ensure an even geographic distribution of SC seats within a state.
Reallocating Reservations
The redistricting process provides two opportunities to test whether lower levels of suspected criminality in reserved areas are driven by simple demographic differences or, rather, the diminished salience of social cleavages. First, one can compare outcomes in electoral constituencies that changed reservation status in the process of delimitation in order to separate out the effects of reservation from other background characteristics. If demographic characteristics account for the lower levels of criminality, when a reserved constituency loses its reservation one should not observe a corresponding increase in criminality. Conversely, when an unreserved constituency gains reservation, criminality should not decrease. In contrast, if reservation really does affect the salience of social divisions (as I have argued), gaining reservation should have a negative impact on criminality (and vice versa when a constituency loses reservation).
Using data from 14 assembly elections in seven states (one election prior to delimitation and one following), testing this proposition is not hard. Across these seven states, the vast majority of constituency designations did not change, but there were 150 constituencies that either gained or lost reservation status in the 2007 delimitation (table 6.1).51
Table 6.1. Changing Reservation Status in Seven States, 2007
Reservation status
Legislative seats
GEN ↔ GEN
515
GEN → SC
62
GEN → ST
23
SC ↔ SC
66
SC → GEN
50
SC → ST
7
ST ↔ ST
92
ST → SC
2
ST → GEN
15
Note: Numbers in bold indicate constituencies that changed reservation status and thus are included in the statistical analysis. Legislative seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC); all other seats are unreserved or general (GEN) seats.
Source: Author’s calculations based on data from the Election Commission of India and the Delimitation Commission.
The change in reservation status is linked to a discernible change in the share of candidates under serious criminal scrutiny in a given constituency (figure 6.7). Constituencies that were reserved in 2003 but lost their reservation in 2008 saw the average share of criminally suspect candidates nearly double. Conversely, constituencies that were unreserved in 2003 but gained reservation during the delimitation process experienced a significant decline in criminality. These differences are statistically significant and are borne out by more systematic analyses.52 On average, 4.3 percent of candidates in “switching” constituencies (those 150 seats changed status one way or another) are under serious criminal scrutiny. Reservation is associated with a 2.3 percentage point decrease in the criminal share, which represents a more than 50 percent decline—a sizable effect.
Figure 6.7. Changing reservation status and the share of state assembly candidates with pending serious criminal cases, 2003–9. Data is from seven states that had two elections between 2003–4 and 2008–9. The vertical bars represent 95 percent confidence intervals. (Author’s calculations based on affidavits submitted to the Election Commission of India by candidates contesting state assembly elections between 2003 and 2009 and data from the Delimitation Commission)
A Useful Quirk
This result provides greater confidence that reservation is affecting levels of criminality in the way I have hypothesized, but it still leaves some room for doubt. If a constituency gained (or lost) reservation because of a movement in the underlying population share of SCs and STs (say, due to migration), it leaves open the possibility that demographics are driving criminality outcomes.
To check if this is the case, one can run a second test, exploiting Parliament’s mandate that the Delimitation Commission ensure adequate geographic distribution of SC seats within a state when allocating reservations. In order to avoid a situation in which all reserved constituencies were clustered in one corner of a state, Parliament instructed the Delimitation Commission to ensure geographic diversity in the allocation of seats reserved for SCs. Excessive clustering of reserved constituencies, it was argued, might lead to the “ghettoization” of minorities. This mandate was specific to reservation of SC seats and had no bearing on ST reservation, perhaps because Dalits are distributed more evenly throughout the population while tribal settlements are naturally clustered into select pockets.
In practice, this legislative requirement introduces a bit of randomness into the reservation allocation process. For instance, imagine a scenario in which there are two constituencies in a state that have very similar SC populations but differ in their reservation status for purely geographic reasons. In other words, one constituency was granted reservation not because it had a higher share of SCs living there but because the commission had to ensure that reserved seats were not spatially clustered. Statistically, one can compare constituencies that earned reservation to those that did not, but otherwise have nearly identical SC population shares. This strategy allows one to tease out the subtle effects of reservation.
An example helps clarify things. Consider the state of Andhra Pradesh, a large state of more than 70 million people. Under law, each state assembly is given a quota of SC seats in proportion to the share of SCs living in the state. Because roughly 16 percent of Andhra’s population consists of SCs, 16 percent of the state’s 294 assembly seats (48 seats) are reserved for them.
The next step is to allocate seats across the state’s administrative districts according to the district population shares of Scheduled Castes. Again, the decision of the Delimitation Commission to allocate seats to districts is designed to ensure adequate geographic spread of reserved seats. In Andhra Pradesh, the Adilabad district received an allocation of two SC seats while Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts received allocations of one and three SC seats, respectively. Within districts, constituencies are then rank-ordered according to their SC populations so that those with the largest percentage of SCs are reserved. Hence, if Karimnagar district has a quota of three SC seats, the three constituencies in the district with the highest SC share of the population are deemed reserved (table 6.2).
Now, if reservation were granted to constituencies solely on the basis of their SC population, as is done with ST seats, Manthani constituency would be granted reservation. Indeed, it has a higher SC share than several constituencies in neighboring districts. As it turns out, Manthani was not reserved because of the need to ensure geographic diversity—a fact that allows for comparing constituencies th
at are above and below this somewhat artificial cutoff. Using this workaround, statistical analyses indicate that reservation is linked to lower levels of suspected serious criminality in areas that were reserved compared to those which had very similar SC populations but lost out solely for reasons of geography.53 On average, reservation is linked to a 12 percent decline in the probability that a constituency has at least one candidate facing a serious criminal case.
Table 6.2. Allocation of Scheduled Caste Reservations for State Assembly Constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, 2007
Taken as a whole, the tests in this section build greater confidence in two facts: first, that reservation is associated with lower levels of criminality, insofar as state elections in India are concerned; and second, that the connection between reservation and criminality works through the identity politics channel, as opposed to some other mechanism such as partisan differences, demographics, or culture.
EXPLOITING INDIRECT ELECTIONS
A second method for testing the identity politics narrative around criminal politicians is to exploit another feature of India’s constitutional design: the method of indirect elections. These differences in electoral design, much like electoral quotas, also have unanticipated consequences for political selection.
Bicameralism
The 543 members of the Lok Sabha, or “House of the People,” are directly elected through popular franchise to serve five-year terms.54 Seats are divided up among India’s states in proportion to their population so that more populated areas have a greater number of MPs. Elections to the lower house are governed by identical “single-member, first-past-the-post” electoral rules; in plain English, each constituency sends one person who obtains the largest number of votes in the district to the Lok Sabha. This is the same process followed in U.S. congressional elections.
The Rajya Sabha, or “Council of States,” is the upper house of Parliament. Like the U.S. Senate, it was created to represent the interests of India’s federal states. As with the Lok Sabha, seats are divided up among the states in proportion to their population. The members of the Rajya Sabha, whose size is capped at 250 members, are elected to six-year terms, and they are chosen, not by voters, but by the respective state legislative assemblies.55 Elections are held biennially, with one-third of the seats up for election every two years.
In terms of standing, the two houses generally share equal legislative powers, except in a few key areas. First, money bills must be introduced in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha can only suggest (nonbinding) amendments on such bills.56 Second, only the Lok Sabha can introduce and pass motions of no confidence. Third, if there is a deadlock on a bill between the two houses, the government can call a joint session of Parliament and pass a bill with a simple majority of the combined house. Given the Lok Sabha’s significantly greater number of seats, the lower house has an advantage over the upper house when a joint session is called.57
The “Rajya Sabha Route”
There are at least two reasons why the share of politicians facing serious criminal cases should be lower in the indirectly elected upper house. First, members of the respective state assemblies, rather than the electorate at large, elect members of the Rajya Sabha. Because indirectly elected legislators do not have to contest elections that are decided by a popular electorate, those legislators who are electing them are less concerned about the ethnic allegiance of candidates. Winning over crucial “vote banks” is far less of a concern when voters are subtracted from the equation, as they are in Rajya Sabha elections.
This is not to say identity considerations are entirely absent when it comes to candidate selection; what is different is that parties are not motivated to search for the most “credible” candidate who can appeal to a particular community or vote bank. Indeed, it is this imperative that drives parties—and voters—toward suspected criminal candidates in direct elections. With identity considerations taking a backseat, this incentive becomes weaker for indirect elections; party leaders are likely to be concerned with candidates’ resources and elite connections, but they will be less inclined to prioritize who is most electable. A more likely outcome is that wealthy individuals find their way into the Rajya Sabha, but not necessarily large numbers of candidates with serious criminal records.
For upper house elections, party leaders typically nominate candidates with minimal consultation with ordinary party rank and file. To call the selection process an “election” slightly overstates the democratic significance of the process. Because power within parties is highly centralized and voters are not a consideration, party bosses—both from the nominating party as well as the other parties in the legislature—are highly empowered to engage in horse trading to come to a pre-election deal on the slate of candidates. This often results in the number of candidates being exactly equal to the number of open seats; in fact, uncontested elections for upper house seats are a common occurrence.58
Thus, it perhaps comes as little surprise that the Rajya Sabha is often derisively called a “house of patronage,” where party bosses, moneyed interests, and lobbyists wield considerable influence on nominations.59 The chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, raised a stir in 2010 when he suggested abolishing the Rajya Sabha altogether. “Nominations to the Rajya Sabha are sold in an open market, like a commodity in a mandi (wholesale market). It resembles an auction for MPs,” Chouhan remarked. “If you don’t have a Rajya Sabha, how would you hold elections for the upper house of Parliament? And without the Rajya Sabha elections, how would money flow in?”60 Others too have commented on the patronage-based process for determining Rajya Sabha members. One journalist likened elections for a Rajya Sabha seat from Rajasthan in the early 1990s to “camel-trading.” Writing about the candidates on offer, he commented: “The only common link among all these aspiring politicians was their money power. They were not only loaded with the stuff but also willing to loosen their purse strings for the honour of getting into the Rajya Sabha. Fantastic sums are being quoted in the context of the not-too-concealed horse-trading that took place on the eve of the elections in an effort to persuade the MLAs to vote for these men.”61
In 2012, the ECI countermanded a Rajya Sabha poll for a vacant seat in Jharkhand because of the abuse of “money power,” the first time it actually halted an upper house poll midway through the actual vote. In the wake of credible allegations that MLAs were being bribed to vote a certain way, the ECI ruled that the electoral process “has been seriously vitiated” thanks to a grave case of “money power, horse trading and influence” among members of the lower house to shape the election outcome.62 In fact, on the day of voting itself, the ECI seized more than 20 million rupees ($300,000) from a car belonging to the brother of one candidate contesting the election. It alleged that the seized cash was being ferried to the state capital in order to purchase the votes of MLAs.63
There is also a growing consensus among observers of Indian politics that parties have aggressively used the Rajya Sabha as a way of deepening links with corporate interests and attracting greater resources (although accurate data on the occupations of parliamentarians are hard to locate).64 As businessman-turned-Rajya Sabha MP Rajkumar Dhoot proclaimed in 2002, “Corporate leaders have money power and Rajya Sabha membership gives them political authority which is necessary to solve problems of the country.”65
Furthermore, there is likely to be a degree of self-selection when it comes to the type of person who puts himself forward as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha. Many individuals who seek berths in the Rajya Sabha do so in part because it is a backdoor to Parliament. Given the perception (and reality) of the role of criminality and corruption in electoral politics, aspirants to the upper house may not want to contest elections because they are concerned with the reputational risk involved. In addition, the Rajya Sabha maintains an institutional perception of a body of individuals who are “above the fray” of the “dirty business of politics.” Like the House of Lords in the British s
ystem, the Rajya Sabha has cultivated an ethos of a “House of Elders” whose “members are mature and knowledgeable persons with considerable experiences in public life.”66 Hence, the “Rajya Sabha route” is likely to appeal to individuals who value the status of being an influential parliamentarian without the baggage of being labeled a retail politician.67
On the flipside, many of India’s politicians who wear their criminal reputation as a badge of honor often take great pride in contesting elections. Indeed, such candidates thrive via the direct electoral connection. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that in India, most people speak in terms of “fighting” elections rather than merely “contesting” or “participating in” them. As one political commentator explained: “Most people still go into politics to feel the pulse of the masses and energise themselves by connecting directly with the crowds. This is possible if they fight a Lok Sabha election. The Rajya Sabha is more genteel.”68
Comparing Houses
When Crime Pays Page 27
