Law may not practically be based on public opinion

India is a democratic country. People from different religions, castes, creed, color and linguistic groups form India. 135 crore people- all diverse, yet united. We, Indians, have different opinions and varied perceptions regarding the diverse range of issues that we face, and this difference of opinion is what makes us stronger as a democracy and helps us stand out among other democracies in the world.

It is a well established statement by Abraham Lincoln that Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. Public opinion, thus, becomes a very cogent force to nurture democracy. Public opinion must be taken into account while enacting any legislation. Law makers should know what people want. The Preamble of the Indian constitution starts with ‘We the people' and is surmised to be the voice of the public in general. But the question that wraps us today is whether the public opinion practically matters while establishing laws? Perhaps, not.

In a two- party or a multi- party democracy (like ours), it is essentially the ideology and thinking of the ruling party that majorly determines which laws will be given substance over others. Presently, we all have been a witness to laws being created according to the whims and fancies of the ruling party or coalition rather than public opinion. It is crucial here to notice that many- a- times laws are formulated such that they favor the so- called vote banks, without even caring general public's opinions. Ideally, they should study public perception before taking a bill to the floor of the Parliament but what they instead prefer is to create public opinion after the creation of an Act. For an instance, recently our Union Government had to run door- to- door to cover over 3 crore families just for the sole purpose of explaining the amendment of Citizenship Act,1955 and hence, creating a public opinion after the bill became an Act.

Essentially, in a culture of electoral promotions sans agenda, it is the public which is at a loss every time and it is the public opinion that loses as political parties run their campaigns more on propaganda and topics that mobilize votes and not on the real issues that affect people in general.

Public opinion has not only been subjected to such an abuse only in the recent past, but it has been subjected to such an assault several times in the history of independent India.

As in the thought provoking history of Telangana state from its merger with Andhra state to formation of new state. When India got Independence from British government, the Nizam of Hyderabad wanted to be an independent princely state under special provisions. But, due to continuous revolt against Nizam which took 27,000 to 40,000 lives, Hyderabad state was formed in 1948. Later, the “State Reorganisation Commission” under the leadership of Justice Fazal Ali in 1955 was formed and because of a clandestine “Deal” between few leaders of Andhra and Telangana it was proposed to merge the two states based on linguistic similarity into a single unit ignoring the fact that the two were essentially dissimilitude to each other culturally. The then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru commented on this and said that this was like a marriage between a mischievous boy and an innocent girl. A result of this exercise was a massive revolt and protests for almost another 5 decades until Telangana was carved out again into a separate state on 2nd June, 2014.

During the reign of ex- Prime minister Indira Gandhi, with 42 amendments, the then Union Government added 3 concepts and 4 words in preamble of Indian constitution that is ‘socialist' , ‘secular’ , ‘integrity’, ‘and’ without even consulting the Parliament, cast aside the public opinion . Although preamble starts with “We the people” of India but ironically, for any amendment public opinion does not find a place.

By Presidential Order, the Government suddenly abolished Article 370 of the Constitution, giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir as well as moved a bill bifurcating the state into 2 separate union territories namely, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh without much discussion on the floor of the Parliament, without a discussion in an all- party meet, without referring the controversial bill to a Standing Committee and obviously without asking the people of the region which was to be affected severely by the law. As a result of which, normalcy could not be achieved in the region till date, even as I draft this article. Political leaders are still under detention or house- arrest. People are still deprived of basic facilities like mobile connectivity, internet, school and colleges. Also, elections could not be undertaken till date. All because, public opinion was not there at the first place before the scraping of the articles. It was only attempted to create a public opinion off- late almost after 6 months of the scraping by sending 36 union government ministers to the region.

Yet another intriguing reality is the absence of concept of Public referendum in our constitution where all the people can have a say upon a particular political decision. As in foreign countries like UK's, most recent Brexit referendum took place.

To conclude, it is important to understand that practically it may not be possible for every law to be scrutinised by public opinion as opinion is diversified. Opinion cannot manipulate decision of law makers but certainly it is an authority given to citizen to keep an eye on the functioning of the government.

[Author: Ayushi Singh student of Law college Dehradun ]