A new Theory of Absolute Right to Rule

P.V. Indiresan Indian Express: Friday, July 07, 2006

There was a time when people accepted the principle of the Divine Right of Kings. They accepted that, by the accident of birth alone, God had granted kings the right to rule, and rule absolutely. First in the American dominions and later in France, this concept was rejected and the idea of democracy took root. The Bill of Rights drafted by John Adams in 1780 codified the basic principles of democracy with the memorable words,

all men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties.... The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner to assemble to consult upon the common good; give instructions to their representatives, and to request of the legislative body, by way of address, petitions, or remonstrances, redress of the wrongs done to them, and of the grievances they suffer.

Two hundred and twenty years later, the progress of civilisation has been reversed in our country; a new Theory of Absolute Right to Rule has de facto come into existence, the Absolute Right of Ministers to Rule as they like. Deliberately, I am not quoting the Constitution of India — which too confers similar rights — because the same ministers have arrogated to themselves the Absolute Right to deform the Constitution in any way they like. For our parliamentarians the Constitution is not a sacred rule book; it is a plaything to be toyed with at will. Therefore, the issue is not merely legal, to be argued and fought in the courts; the issue is more basic; it is a question of human rights.

Rousseau is the one who proposed the idea of delegating the power to rule to elected representatives. At the same time, he emphasised that “simply having power is not sufficient for that power to be morally legitimate”. Our parliamentarians have taken a contrary view. They have vehemently espoused the principle that “Parliament is supreme”, that Parliament can dictate any way it wishes. There is little to choose between this idea and the Divine Right Theory of Kings.

World over, governments operate with two kinds of institutions: executive units and autonomous institutions. In the United States, the division of powers is taken to the logical limit: even executive and legislative powers are kept separate in different hands. In the parliamentary system, ministers bear dual responsibility — they function both as legislators and as executives. Even then, strictly speaking, the executive authority is with the permanent civil servant who takes his oath to obey the Constitution and not to the minister. However, that principle is almost never observed: most civil servants accept the idea that they are personal servants of the minister...

In India today, we are having the case of the fence eating the crops: the guardians of the Constitution are systematically destroying it. The political culture today is getting close to the decaying days of the Moghuls when local satraps became a law unto themselves. The writer is a former director of IIT, Chennai editor@expressindia.com