There are many flaws in Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act 2015, and the recent Supreme Court verdict chooses to ignore them all. Before we can get into the details, it is important to understand the major changes brought in through the amendment and their supposed rationale. To read the amendment in full, refer to this barely legible copy of the gazette publication available on the official site of Haryana government.

In essence, the amendment seeks to bar the following categories of persons (in addition to existing clauses) from contesting local body elections:

1. Those who have not been convicted, but are charged with criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for 10 years or more
2. Those who fail to pay arrears to agricultural societies, co-operative or development banks, or of electricity bills
3. Those who have not passed matriculation (10th standard) examination – except for women or candidates belonging to scheduled castes who only need an 8th pass, and for a woman belonging to scheduled caste who needs only a 5th pass.
4. Those who fail to submit a self declaration to the effect that they have a functional toilet at their place of residence.

I have no problem with the second of these conditions, which I think is fair enough. A man who cannot pay back his debts or honour his word cannot be trusted with the administration of a Panchayat. The other clauses, I believe are flawed.

Let’s start with the first. Knowing how easy it is to charge a person with a heinous crime attracting a punishment of more than 10 years of imprisonment, I have a concern that this provision can be misused by influential persons to get their opponents disqualified by conspiring with corrupt law enforcers. This also goes against the principle of presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

The third of the clauses listed above, mandating educational qualification, is perhaps the most controversial. Even if we concede that the intention behind such a clause is righteous, the effect it will have may be counter-productive. First of all, education is a right as per India’s constitution. So those who lack educational qualification may be those who are already denied this right.  Denying them the right to participate in local body decision-making only aggravates the injustice that may have been done to them.

There is also no real evidence that having a 10th standard qualification will make one a better administrator. If a person with lesser qualification can hold the highest offices in the country, such as that of the Prime Minister, is there really a reason to bar them from heading a Panchayat? In fact, knowledge of agriculture and local crafts, and having an intimate knowledge of the needs of the village will be much more helpful for village level administration than a matriculation certificate.

Now, for the sake of argument, let us assume that formal education up to 10th standard can help a person in carrying out his village administration responsibilities in a better way. If this be indeed the case, I am all for having such a restriction in place and overlooking the injustice it may do to specific candidates, because we need to give more priority to the overall development of the village. By having the right candidates for the election, we will be able to prevent more people from being denied their right to education – as opposed to giving chance to an uneducated person out of sympathy and ending up depriving many more citizens of this right. The Supreme Court bench that upheld the legal validity of this law also seems to share this view, based on their observation that “it is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad”.

This leads us to the important question of whether women or those belonging to scheduled castes will attain this power to discriminate between good and bad and make right the decision without having to go through the same level of education as men belonging to forward castes (who may even have some prior experience in such matters – at least in family administration). If not, by allowing a 5th pass scheduled caste woman to come to power in a Panchayat, we are doing injustice to the entire Panchayat for the sake of this one person, which I don’t think is right.

Thus, it may not be right to discriminate between people based on educational qualification except when it has a proven impact on their administrative ability which will in turn affect the prospects of the Panchayat. And, if there is such an impact, then the law should be enforced without any discrimination based on the caste of the contestant. It is my opinion that caste based reservations are a social evil that institutionalizes caste divide in Indian society, and the caste/gender clause in this amendment is no different. 

Finally, even on the last clause, I don’t really see it as very significant as long as the candidate is not using public places as a functional toilet!