There is no provision in our laws to ensure that a manifesto is not only a promise bank, but a responsible document having the required degree of sincerity, accountability and commitment as its foundation.
A manifesto has two facets; in one way it deprecates the ruling party for the flaws that they have not been able to redress and thus remain a cause of anguish of the electors. In its second facet, it is a gateway to a dream-world like a motherâs lullaby to a tiny tot promising it the moon, the twinkling star and so on.
Neither the value judgment of the past in a manifesto is essentially accurate, reliable, logical or based on statistics; nor is most of the future that it seeks to usher is feasible, practical or even desirable. As the analysis of the past is divorced from reason and influenced by slander instinct, the promises of the future are stone blind to the reality posed by the financial constraints, intra-sector economic pulls and repercussions, long term commitments of the State, which is legally a juridical body with perpetual succession.
The political parties draft their manifestoes to suit their electoral interests, which may not be in the interest of the State or its people. Itâs not the professional economists or the socialists or the environmentalists or the academicians, who draft these manifestoes. They are essentially drafted by the paid ghost-writers employed by masters of political chess boards for manipulating the facts for their personal political gains and the electoral gains of their political party. Even if a semblance of professionalism and credibility is accorded to the exercise of drafting a manifesto, it is only through a farcical involvement of committed mercenaries in the name of professionals.
The electoral interest of a political party is not essentially the long term interest of a State or its people. The political myopia of most of the political parties these days is confined mainly to focus upon the next elections and five years subsequent to that, and no thought is spared for long term sustainable development, systemic reforms and statesmanship. Therefore, when the ruling party forms the Government on the basis of promises and the Council of Ministers adopts the manifesto as agenda map of the Government, it is highly unethical, if not unconstitutional and illegal to shove it down the throats for its mindless implementation by the civil servants.
Those who have interest in American constitutional history would know the amount of serious deliberation and thinking that led to layers of structural insulation of the government from the direct tyranny of the electorate. An element of indirectness in the process of electing those who govern saves the executive from undesirable arm-twisting by the pressure groups amongst the electorates to shape the policies of the State in the moulds of their liking. The federalist papers amply establish that American Government is a Government of the people, by the people and for the people; but at the same time the executive of day is sufficiently insulated from the curse of direct intervention of pressure groups on a day to day basis.
Coming back to the manifestoes, what remedy is left to the electors in case a political party makes somersault and forgets about the promises it extended in its manifesto? Practically nothing except waiting for five years till they get a chance to boot it out.
Little does it matter now to our insensitive polity now that most of the political parties, particularly the regional fiefdoms, become dream merchants while penning down their manifestos because they make hay in alternate spells of five years while the electorates are continuously befooled.
There is no provision for a recall after a mid-term evaluation. Strikes, protests, bandhs and the like of these eruptions are caused by the lack of an institutionalised safety valve to reject and recall a government midway through its betrayal course.
Should the manifestos be made justiciable? It is a very casual question to evoke a very complicated answer. When manifestos are used as a mirage to lure the gullible electorates, it is definitely a corrupt practice in an ethical, if not legal, sense.
Manifestos can be made justiciable only if law of the land is made to term its non-implementation as a corrupt electoral malpractice. But who will judge whether sweet dreams that have turned sour are because of an inherent malafide intention of a political party to dupe the electorate without having any serious intention to keep the promises bundled into a manifesto, or for a genuine bankruptcy of knowledge of the fundamental financial and physical fallout of their manifesto promises. It is a tough call, as tough as deciding an election petition resting on flimsy, concocted and make-belief evidence adduced by intensely interested parties.
Manifestos can at best be adduced as an additional evidence to allege electoral malpractice swaying the votes during an election, but it is a fact which can be raked up only after a manifesto is put to the touchstone test of time. The proof of a malpractice will emerge after two or three years. A dishonest manifesto causes an instant electoral damage but has a post facto proof. Co-relating the quantum, nature and extent of the damage with the intensity of malafide in drafting a manifesto is quite a logical riddle. The trick will go unabated until the electorate emerges fully enlightened, analytical and a bit cynical after a series of political betrayals.
