In December 2014, the government of Rajasthan passed an ordinance making certain educational qualifications a necessary pre-requisite for contesting Panchayat elections in the State. In 2015, Haryana also passed an ordinance requiring – among other things – educational qualifications for Panchayat candidates. Both these states now require candidates to have passed Class 8 to Class 10, depending on the office they contest for.

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has issued a notice to Rajasthan and Haryana governments over setting minimum educational qualification criteria for contesting panchayat polls. The notice was issued on April 27 and the commission sought a response from the state chief secretary within 15 days.

A group of eminent citizens have issued a statement urging Parliament to safeguard citizen’s right to full and free political participation. This is the full text of their statement on Panchayat Act amendments in Rajasthan and Haryana.

We the undersigned condemn the anti-democratic move by the governments of Rajasthan and Haryana to exclude Dalits, Adivasis, women, minorities and the poor from contesting Panchayat elections. Both governments have pushed through amendments to their state Panchayat Acts to mandate 8th and 10th pass education, among other criteria, which have directly debarred more than 70% of the rural electorate above the age of 20 years, majority Dalits, Adivasis, and women. We are disappointed that some parties defended education criteria in Parliament and are worried that similar permanent exclusions may be imposed in other states.

The amendments attack the very construct of citizenship in a democracy by curtailing two key citizenship rights: the right to contest for public office and the right to vote for a candidate of one’s own choice. It is untenable in a democracy to argue that the poor and marginalised who did not have access to secure education are lesser citizens than the privileged – yet these panchayat amendments are in fact doing so using education as proxy. Equally, the amendments restrict citizen’s choice for self-representation by excluding ~80% of Dalits, Adivasis and other rural poor from the democratic process. The amendments also go completely against the spirit of the 73rd Constitution Amendment which decentralised governance, provided rural citizens the right to choose their own representatives and ensured proportional participation of marginalised social groups such as Dalits, Adivasis and women through mandatory affirmative action.

It is clear from the scale of disqualification that the amendments undermine democracy and facilitate elite capture of local state institutions even though they are purported to improve governance. The dilution of the right of the poor and marginalised to exercise political choice is a continuing trend that began with the two-child norm and toilets clause imposed as eligibility criteria by previous governments; however, this logic has now been extended to absurd levels given both the scale and permanence of disenfranchisement. 

It is untenable in a democracy to restrict the citizen’s exercise of political choice because of the failure of the State or to incentivise its policy imperatives. Therefore, we urge the Parliament to safeguard the citizen’s right to full and free political participation.

Signed/-

Fali Nariman, Constitution Expert & Senior Advocate, Supreme Court
Justice K. Chandru, Former Judge, Madras High Court
Romila Thapar, Historian
Prashant Bhushan, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court
P Sainath, Senior Journalist and Founder, People's Archive of Rural India
Aruna Roy, MKSS & NCPRI
Ramachandra Guha, Historian
Yogendra Yadav, Psephologist and Swaraj Abhiyan
Nayantara Sahgal, Writer
Suhas Palshikar, Dept of Politics, Savitribai Phule Pune University
Anand Teltumble, IIT Kharagpur
Wajahat Habibullah, Former Chairperson, Minorities Commission and First CIC
Kamala Bhasin, Jagori & One Billion Rising
Prabhat Patnaik, Political Economist
Mukul Kesavan, Historian
Nikhil Dey, MKSS & NCPRI
C Rammanohar Reddy, Former Editor, EPW
Aakar Patel, Writer
Jayati Ghosh, School of Social Sciences, JNU
Kavita Srivastava, PUCL
Komal Srivastava, BGVS
Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court and Former ASG
Yamini Aiyar, Accountability Initiative
Devaki Jain, Economist
Niraja Jayal, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU
Ravi Srivastava, School of Social Sciences, JNU
Vinay Kumar Ambedkar, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU
Vidya Subrahmaniam, Journalist
Shabnam Hashmi, Anhad
Arundhati Dhuru, Asha Parivar
Sunanda Sen, ICSSR
Vinay Kumar Ambedkar, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU
Aniket Alam, Historian
Sandeep Pandey, Asha Parivar
Avinash Kumar, Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, JNU