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In search of role models
Tibunellai Narayanaiyer Seshan SESHAN, born in 1933 and educated at Madras Christian College and, later, Harvard University, rose brightly through India’s elite Indian Administrative Service. He held several senior posts, including cabinet secretary under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, before assuming responsibility for conducting India’s myriad state and national elections. Seshan’s initial analysis of his country’s electoral system revealed 150 specific abuses. When India’s politicians proved reluctant to legislate reforms, he launched a crusade of his own. Interpreting the constitutional mandate of the Election Commission as broadly as possible and stretching its legal powers to their maximum possible limits, Seshan set about cleansing the Augean stables of Indian democracy — one election after another. He dispatched Central Police Forces to suppress local goons and prevent theft of ballot boxes. He took stern measures to prevent vote buying. He banned ostentatious campaign displays and noisy rallies and required candidates to clean up walls and buildings defaced with their slogans. He enforced spending limits and required contestants to submit full accounts of their expenses for scrutiny by independent government inspectors. He exposed politicians who made illicit use of public resources for electioneering and prohibited election-eve bonanzas for government workers. He banned the sale of liquor and seized unlicensed firearms at election time. He prohibited election propaganda based on religion. He urged that every voter be required to possess a special election identification card. And all the while, he conducted a spirited campaign to educate Indian citizens about their rights and responsibilities as voters. In asserting the authority and independence of the Election Commission, Seshan locked horns with India’s Supreme Court and has feuded bitterly with the country’s politicians, leading to more than one attempt to impeach him. His critics call him arrogant and abrasive. But others see him as the iron man of Indian democracy. Because of him, they say, Indian elections are cleaner and safer today and more truly reflect the will of the people. As a consequence, more Indians are voting. Deeply religious, 63-year-old Seshan lives modestly with his wife, Jayalakshmi. Elections, in his view, constitute only one element of modern Indian life that needs “cleaning up.” His thoughts about India’s regeneration are complex but the essential element, he says, must be absolute tolerance. In electing T.N. Seshan to receive the 1996 Ramon Magsaysa Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his resolute actions to bring order, fairness and integrity to elections in India, the world’s largest democracy. James Michael Lyngdoh OF KHASI tribal origin, Lyngdoh hails from the extreme northeastern corner of India. Imbibing moral rectitude from his father, a district judge, Lyngdoh completed his education in Delhi and entered the elite Indian Administrative Service when he was twenty-two. He quickly became known for probity and toughness and for favouring the underdog against politicians and the local rich. In one early post, his principled execution of mandated land reforms so enraged landlords that he was transferred before the year was out. Similar clashes with the powers-that-be marked his rise in the Service. But rise he did, eventually serving as cabinet secretary for Coordination and Public Grievances. In 1997, the prime minister named Lyngdoh one of India’s three election commissioners. By 2001 he was chief. Lyngdoh soon faced crises in two of India’s most troubled states. In Jammu-Kashmir, where India was locked in a potentially explosive standoff with Pakistan and local secessionists, state elections fell due in 2002. Many people doubted that they could be conducted credibly. Lyngdoh thought otherwise. Pushing ahead despite a vicious cross-border assassination campaign and a boycott, he updated and verified the election rolls, introduced new ID cards, and added a thousand new voting sites. He recruited nonpartisan poll watchers for every polling station. And after warning the army to stand clear, he heightened election security by mobilizing the local police and paramilitary forces from outside the state. Then he urged the people “to vote fearlessly.” Forty-seven percent did so. Even Lyngdoh’s critics acknowledged that the polling had been fair, causing many in India to seize this triumph of “ballots over bullets” as a sign that the long-festering crisis of Jammu-Kashmir might yet be resolved peacefully. Meanwhile, stirred by a terrorist attack in late February killing fifty-eight Hindu pilgrims, Hindus in Gujarat were slaughtering hundreds of the state’s Muslims and torching their homes and neighborhoods. When the Hindu-backed ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dissolved the state government and called for elections amid the sectarian carnage, Lyngdoh used his authority to say no. Citing the large number of displaced persons and the pervasive atmosphere of fear in Gujarat, he postponed the elections. Although vilified for doing so, he stood his ground and carefully prepared for the delayed polls. He insisted, for example, that local officials and police who had been complicit in the anti-Muslim pogrom be transferred; he outlawed campaign activities that inflamed communal passions; and he set up special polling places for Muslim refugees. In December, under tight security the people voted, some 61 percent of them! Again, even skeptics agreed that the elections were fair and credible. Lyngdoh, sixty-one, is a modest man known for his quiet ways and his transparent integrity. As a career civil servant, he has learned that it is best to avoid the limelight and the company of politicians. His impact lies elsewhere. As one admirer puts it, “He has always been a quiet fighter from within.” In electing James Michael Lyngdoh to receive the 2003 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his convincing validation of free and fair elections as the foundation and best hope of secular democracy in strife-torn India. | ||
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