Lessons from Mizoram on free & fair elections
The news about the Church sponsored election watchdog—the Mizoram People’s Forum (MPF) signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with major political parties in Mizoram in order to ensure a free and fair elections is very much significant and an eye opener especially for Nagaland, which like Mizoram is a Christian majority State. In fact both Mizoram and Nagaland can be role models for the rest of the country, although we have to admit that the former is much ahead of Nagaland when it comes to the successful implementation of free and fair elections. Even the Election Commission of India has been complementing Mizoram and its people for smooth conduct of elections in the past. And what is even more noteworthy in the latest exercise undertaken in Mizoram is that the MPF has been able to get the cooperation of all major political parties in the State. This is quite an achievement and it goes to show the realization even within the political class that conducting free and fair election is beneficial for everyone. And it makes sense for a Church backed election watchdog body to act as a moderator so that there is enough of trust and confidence among political parties that there will be a level playing field for everyone. The important thing is to provide equality of opportunity to every political player to reach out to voters and appeal to their conscience not through the violent and expensive method of money and muscle power but through the propagation of agenda before the people. Everyone is a winner here because in the long run the people and the State will save a lot of money which can be properly used for development and not for recovering election expenses. Simply put, level of corruption will come down and hopefully the development index will rise. The other benefit of free and fair election is that it will encourage many more capable people to enter the political fray, which in the long run will be good for politics and society. At present because contesting election requires money and muscle power our politics is being deprived of quality people.
The fact that the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) has also started a clean election campaign and awareness is being generated through seminars and other publicity campaign, we need to do more like in Mizoram where practical steps are being taken to engage the powers that be. As already commented in this column what is disappointing is that there has been not enough positive response to the initiative undertaken by the NBCC. Our political parties appear to be disinterested in reforming the system while those who lead our public organizations, they are either not convinced or are too busy with other more pressing matters. It may be mentioned that the election watchdog MPF is an organization constituted by a conglomerate of Churches and major NGOs to reform politics and elections in the State of Mizoram. The problem we see in Nagaland is that only the Church alone is waging this battle and there is not enough support to this welcome initiative for a clean election campaign. Perhaps what the NBCC can also do is to make its campaign more about providing (practical) alternatives and not just taking a moral position on election or harping on the ‘spiritual fight’. As rightly noted by the NBCC, if the purpose of the clean election campaign is to bring about a positive change in our society then we need to focus on the deed not just faith. Like the Church backed election watchdog in Mizoram, a supervisory role is needed in Nagaland as well if we really want to implement and address the real issues confronting us when it comes to elections.
