#
It's been a constant refrain of many of us who lament the state of our country that
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while we call ourselves a democratic republic, we've messed up the republic part.
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The state rules us instead of serving us, and the constitution is more an instrument
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of our rulers than a safeguard for our citizens.
#
The electoral democracy part, we say, works fine.
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Elections are more or less free and fair, and transfers of power are peaceful.
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But I want to question that as well.
#
One of the core principles of our electoral democracy is that every voter has an equal
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No one's vote is worth less than anyone else's.
#
That's how it's supposed to be in theory.
#
But in practice, every vote is not equal.
#
In modern India, for example, some votes count for less than those of others.
#
I'm not being rhetorical here.
#
These are cold, hard facts.
#
When we designed our electoral system, we designed it on the principle of one MP for
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every seven and a half lakh voters or so.
#
The constituencies were divided accordingly.
#
But some places gained population at a faster rate than others.
#
A constituency today may have three million people or two million or one million, depending
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on the rate of population growth.
#
And if you vote in a constituency with three million voters, your vote has one-third the
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strength of someone in a constituency with one million voters.
#
Now, poor people tend to have more kids, so it is the poorer parts of our country where
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the population has grown.
#
So they have more young people, like UP, Bihar, the Hindi Belt, for example.
#
Now, when our republic was founded, the plan was that every once in a while, we do a census
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and adjust the seats accordingly so that every vote in the country was more or less equal.
#
In 1976, Indira Gandhi postponed this delimitation exercise for 25 years.
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And in 2001, Atal Bihari Vajpayee postponed it for another 25 years.
#
The problem with delaying delimitation for so long means that if we do it now, the poorer
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states in the Hindi Belt will get radically more seats and the south will suffer.
#
North India complains that it should not be punished for its relative prosperity, which
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led to the population growing slowly, while those in UP can rightfully argue that their
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vote should not count for less than that of their fellow citizens from the south.
#
Added to this is the immediate political angle that doing delimitation now, giving UP many
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more seats, will help the BJP, who happen to be dominant in the Hindi heartland at this
#
But leaving that aside, there's a larger question.
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What should we do in principle?
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What is the history of this problem?
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What are the different possible solutions?
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Is there a way out of this mess?
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Welcome to The Scene And The Unseen.
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My guest today is Shruti Rajgopalan, a constitutional economist who is also an expert in public
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finance and public choice theory.
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She has thought long and hard about delimitation and even has a radical solution for it.
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I first heard about this solution when she gave a talk at a conference I attended last
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year and I felt I had to have her on the show to take a deep dive into the weeds of delimitation.
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Now all reasonable people agree that every citizen's vote should be equal, but we often
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disagree on how to get there.
#
Shruti disagrees vehemently in this episode with things that people like Ajay Shah and
#
Milan Vaishnav have said and I disagree vehemently with a part of Shruti's suggestion as well.
#
Ajay, Milan, Shruti and I all have great respect for each other and we'd like to place our
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disagreements and points of view before you in this ongoing debate.
#
This is an incredibly important subject.
#
It has to be a part of our discourse because it could tear our country apart.
#
And so as citizens, we need to put our heads together and find a way forward.
#
This episode is a great primer to this subject and will introduce you to different frameworks
#
So let's do this, but wait before that, two important announcements.
#
Ajay Shah and I have started a video podcast called Everything is Everything.
#
Episodes release every Friday.
#
Please go and check it out at youtube.com slash Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-B-A-R-M-A.
#
We'll have a bit of a learning curve.
#
Do subscribe to us and do support us.
#
Also cohort 29 of my writing course, the art of clear writing is now open for registration.
#
Head on over to indiaankar.com slash clear writing for more details and now for a commercial
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break before we begin our conversation.
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Do you want to read more?
#
I've put in a lot of work in recent years in building a reading habit.
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This means that I read more books, but I also read more long form articles and essays.
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There's a world of knowledge available through the internet.
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But the problem we all face is how do we navigate this knowledge?
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How do we know what to read?
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How do we put the right incentives in place?
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Well, I discovered one way.
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A couple of friends of mine run this awesome company called CTQ compounds at CTQ compounds.com,
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which aims to help people up level themselves by reading more.
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A few months ago, I signed up for one of their programs called the daily reader.
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Every day for six months, they sent me a long form article to read.
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The subjects covered went from machine learning to mythology to mental models and marmalade.
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This helped me build a habit of reading.
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At the end of every day, I understood the world a little better than I did before.
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So if you want to build your reading habit, head on over to CTQ compounds and check out
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New batches start every month.
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They also have a great program called future stack, which helps you stay up to date with
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Future stack batches start every Saturday.
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What's more, you get a discount of a whopping 2500 rupees, 2500 if you use the discount
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So head on over to CTQ compounds at CTQ compounds.com and use the code unseen.
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Shruti, welcome to the scene and the unseen again.
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Hi Amit, I'm so happy to be here and on popular demand, apparently, because people on Twitter
#
have been asking and I'm like, I think I've been there a fair bit.
#
Yeah, your people on Twitter keep asking in the sense somebody will discover the show
#
six months ago and then they'll see, hey, you haven't been on the show recently.
#
And a week after week passes and they're like, hey, you got to get her.
#
And I'm like, I've already had her eight or two times or at 17 or 18 times actually.
#
And I've sort of been saving you up for a massive episode I want to do, which is a life
#
and time with Shruti Raj Gopalan, where we talk for seven or eight hours starting with
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your grandmothers or your great grandmothers.
#
It's def gonna happen when you're physically in the same place next time.
#
But right now we are doing a remote recording and this is going to be a pretty short episode
#
and of course, I've redefined short in Indian podcasting.
#
So that means probably two to three hours, not more than that.
#
And only one energy bar for me.
#
That's what a short episode means.
#
Yeah, though I've recently kind of started mixing them up because I did a couple of amazing
#
eight hour episodes in January with Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto and I loved both of
#
I think they're my best episodes.
#
But at the same time, I thought, okay, let's also have some episodes which are not so much
#
deep dives into people, but sometimes back to the old format of deep dives into subjects.
#
Actually, recently you did one with Gurvinder Bhogal.
#
You mentioned it when you came on my podcast and I said, okay, I've never heard of this
#
person and if I'm suggesting it, I should immediately hear it.
#
So I skipped the order.
#
I just, you know, normally I listen to the scene and the unseen in proper order and I
#
just went and heard that and he was fantastic.
#
I mean, what a great find.
#
And I loved his mind and I loved that, you know, the kind of person who wants to figure
#
out everything for himself based on first principles, you know, he's like, yeah, there
#
There's a mob on the right.
#
There's a Venn diagram of an overlapping mob.
#
But I just want to figure this out, starting with how do I view the world?
#
What are the principles I believe in?
#
And then, you know, evaluate the evidence based on that, depending on the kind of evidence
#
So I really enjoyed that episode.
#
Thank you for listeners.
#
I would say not only check out that episode, but also check out a subtract because a lot
#
of the stuff that I really admire him for, we didn't even start talking about.
#
So that was like, you know, typically the first two hours of my show is just like a
#
brief introduction to the person and then we really get into the meat and we never really
#
And Gurvinder, of course, is very kindly promised to come on again at some point in time.
#
So we'll try and make that happen.
#
But in the meantime, check out a subtract, great independent thinking.
#
And you know, here's the thing.
#
I was thinking the other day that maybe 20 years ago, I started blogging in 2003, that
#
maybe 20 years ago, I felt like in some ways I was in a sort of a wilderness where none
#
of the conventional ways of thinking really made sense to me.
#
And yet I couldn't figure out on my own at that point in time that how do I make sense
#
And gradually over a period of time, I met a bunch of people, many of whom are common
#
friends and and even you have learned a lot from you and began to get frames that finally
#
explained to me not some not some abstract world out there in a utopian vision, but the
#
real world around me where people respond to incentives, where we are always struggling
#
with different kinds of scarcities and so on and so forth.
#
And if one light bulb moment for me was understanding the way economics works, understanding incentives
#
and understanding economics in the sense that you can apply it to every freaking thing.
#
Economics is really a study of human behavior.
#
And that was one big light bulb moment.
#
And within that, frankly, there was another small light bulb moment which happened a few
#
years ago. And I'm sure you share my feelings about it to the same intensity, which was
#
when I discovered this field called public choice economics, which applied these rules
#
of economics to the state, to how the state functions, how politicians function, how bureaucrats
#
function, why voters vote the way they do.
#
And I, in fact, even have an early episode of The Scene on the Unseen on this, where
#
I was a guest and, you know, Pawan Srinath had interviewed me for another podcast and
#
we kind of for the Prakriti podcast and we did a mirror episode and I spoke a bit about
#
But obviously, I'm not an expert, but incredibly excited by the field that explains so much
#
So before we get to talking about, you know, delimitation and our parliament and the specific
#
situation of that, I think I want to ask you about what public choice economics has meant
#
in your life, because there's a straight line from there to everything that you're going
#
to say about today's subject.
#
Yeah, so, you know, this is both for me a way of thinking and also all my training and
#
So the way I speak Tamil as a language or Hindi as a language or English as a language,
#
for me, public choice is the language or the toolkit that I have, right, to make sense
#
Public choice economics, it's a terrible phrase.
#
I don't know why they came up with that name, but it's really the economic analysis of political
#
Economists studying political science, that's like the simple way of putting it.
#
Or another great phrase is politics without romance.
#
Politics without romance.
#
This is, of course, Buchanan's, you know, phrasing of it.
#
And what he meant by politics without romance that has a little bit of history.
#
Now, normally when I say, hey, public choice economics is basically applying the assumptions
#
of economics to non-market choice, right?
#
So this means whether we buy apples and oranges or we go into a voting booth, we're basically
#
It's not like you split or morph in any particular way.
#
You are still self-interested.
#
It doesn't mean you're greedy or an asshole or nothing of that sort.
#
It's just you think about your interest over the interest of others.
#
And you're going to choose things that are not to your detriment.
#
This is true wherever we go, whatever context we apply it in.
#
So when I say this to people, they're like, duh, of course, politicians are self-interested.
#
Of course, voters are self-interested.
#
Why would you think otherwise?
#
But this comes from a historical context where, you know, if you go back a few hundred years,
#
you have, you know, David Hume and Adam Smith, who write about political economy, right?
#
Economics and politics were not these separate things.
#
It was very much the science of understanding how we live together as a collective.
#
And then at some point in the sort of turn of the 20th century, economics became more
#
and more only about studying market behavior.
#
And at this point, policymakers would often make this assumption that bureaucrats are
#
Politicians are public spirited.
#
A judge is public spirited.
#
But if you're selling apples and oranges or if you're buying apples and oranges, then
#
you're suddenly homo economicus and self-interested.
#
And this is where there was a revolution that took place in the 50s and the 60s, both in
#
the United States and, you know, there were some authors in Europe and they started bringing
#
in the assumptions of economics back into studying politics.
#
Buchanan is a very particular field.
#
He thinks about politics as exchange.
#
So he's very much even bringing in market exchange into the realm of politics.
#
He thinks of human beings as those who negotiate trade compromise.
#
And this is true also of collective choice.
#
And this is really the tradition I studied in.
#
Buchanan won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
#
He was at George Mason.
#
It's called the Virginia School of Political Economy, what he developed, because it was
#
developed at VPI, Virginia Tech, and then, you know, at George Mason.
#
And a lot of his students and a lot of his co-authors were here at Mason.
#
Buchanan was around when I came here to study and, in fact, chose George Mason just for
#
The other side of Buchanan is not just thinking about politics as exchange.
#
It's sort of thinking about constitutional design questions.
#
So the way I would phrase it is we know that if there is a given voting rule X, right,
#
self-interested people would behave in the following way and you would get outcome Y.
#
But now that we have this information in front of us, how should we think about designing
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Should we choose voting rule X?
#
And then come upon that conclusion or that choice in the first place.
#
So the other lovely thing Buchanan and his tradition did was they sort of split decision
#
making into multiple levels.
#
So one is the choice within rules, right, which is what we call standard public choice.
#
So if, you know, bureaucrats are chosen, like the Indian Civil Service, and they're given,
#
you know, functionally, not a lifetime appointment, but until retirement, there are very few reasons
#
And their power and stature is determined by how high up they can go.
#
There's a very clear hierarchy.
#
It depends on how much budget they control.
#
So if these, if this is the institutional setting, you know what kind of outcome you're
#
So that's very much public choice theory.
#
Now, constitutional economics is how did we decide in the first place what is going to
#
be decided by elected representatives versus a permanent bureaucracy?
#
So these are our rules of delegated legislation, for instance.
#
So we know that an elected parliament is going to make the rules.
#
But if you notice in every act of parliament and state legislatures, there's a little provision
#
It looks very innocuous.
#
It says the power to make rules.
#
And the power to make rules, you can, I mean, the way we do things in India, you can have
#
everything in the kitchen sink in there.
#
is made by the permanent bureaucracy under that little grouping called the power to make
#
And they can sneak things in to change anything there.
#
You just need to table it in front of parliament.
#
You don't need to pass an amendment.
#
So a lot of stuff happens under what we call delegated legislation.
#
So constitutional design will then tell us what should be chosen by judge, what should
#
be opined upon by judges, what should be opined upon by elected representatives, what should
#
be opined upon by bureaucrats, what should be left outside the realm of government.
#
Government has no business.
#
This is where you have all your, you know, fundamental rights of the constitution.
#
This is you shall not make law.
#
It literally reads like this is not the business of government to infringe in this area.
#
So these are the aspects of constitutional design.
#
I talked about this probably with you in person, maybe even on the show about how I've
#
I went to law school, always very passionate about studying law, but I went there after
#
studying economics and the economics framework of looking at the world was just so powerful.
#
So throughout law school, when I was very interested in constitutional problems, I kept
#
looking at law in economics, literature and things like that.
#
And one of our common friends, Parcha, one day at, you know, when, when I was an intern
#
at CCS, we used to lunch in the library, there was a big, beautiful table and all of us would
#
This is, you know, other interns with me were like people like Shrutijit, right.
#
He was like, he's the person who gave me my first copy of Mises, I think.
#
So Parth would, you know, we talk about something and Parth would just fish a book out of the
#
library and just hand it.
#
And one such day, I don't remember the exact date, it said, oh, the constitutional design
#
question you're talking about, you should read Buchanan and Tullock's calculus of consent.
#
And he had a first edition signed copy and he just pulled it out of the shelf and he
#
And I Xeroxed the whole thing.
#
I stood there and Xeroxed the whole thing.
#
I think in the IIT market, you know, across the street from IIT Delhi, there's a market.
#
I went and did it there.
#
I think I still have that copy somewhere, you know, floating around in the shelf that
#
So this was sort of the start of my personal journey with public choice.
#
Eventually I met all the folks at George Mason.
#
They were happy to have me.
#
Buchanan was at the econ department, Tullock was at the law school.
#
And they told me that they thought that the way my mind's working, I'm a better fit at
#
So I eventually came here for a PhD.
#
I studied with Buchanan and all his...Buchanan stopped teaching by then.
#
He did a seminar and he used to hang around and any chance I would get, I would just speak
#
Just a thorough gentleman, very, very, you know, southern gentleman with southern gentleman
#
The kind who would even at age 90 hold the door for me because I'm a young lady and so
#
But, you know, it was great.
#
And one of the other major influences was one of his students and very long time collaborator
#
You know, he and Dick Wagner, Dick Wagner was a student, I think, in the early 60s.
#
They had this long association of about 40, 50 years.
#
Democracy in Deficit is the book that they wrote.
#
It was sort of a response to Keynesianism and a book that has aged very, very well,
#
more relevant today than ever before.
#
So, you know, these were the people I really studied with and that's where I learned about
#
And for me, the effort has been how do I incorporate those principles, which are very first principles,
#
foundational concepts, and think about problems we have in India because we don't have this
#
tradition in India, which means there isn't a ready made literature, right?
#
So we need to take this existing literature, which is usually applied to other systems
#
in Europe and United States, and then apply that lens to India to see what we get, right?
#
And that's sort of been the journey that I've had.
#
That's the motivation, that's the exploration.
#
For my dissertation, I did that work on amendments to the Indian constitution.
#
And today we'll talk about delimitation, which is even more foundational than constitutional
#
It's a question of how we vote as a people, who votes, how we elect and what kind of vision
#
So it's like a very broad, exciting theme, but this is the lens I bring to it.
#
And I know there are lots of different lenses one can bring, but this is my particular lens.
#
It's a fantastic lens, and at some point perhaps we should do an episode or a series
#
of episodes that goes into this in detail.
#
I mean, you know, listeners of my show may not have heard me use the term public choice
#
theory so much, but almost everything that I talk about has some element or something
#
that I've understood better because of using the public choice lens.
#
Like I recently had an episode with Subhashish Bhadra, who's written a very good book called
#
Cage Tiger, which you should read, and you should have him on the show.
#
Yeah, I've heard about it.
#
Yeah, no, it's good stuff.
#
And there, for example, we discussed and this is really a very public choice theme, even
#
when the US Constitution was made or the Indian Constitution was made or any constitution
#
If you look at the Constitution, it comes exactly out of the incentives of the people
#
who wrote it at that particular point in time.
#
So the US Constitution founders, the US founders, they bring that frontier mentality to it,
#
the distrust of big government.
#
So you have the federalism, that whole push towards individual rights.
#
Whereas the framers of our Constitution, the men and the women who did that tough job,
#
did it at a time where, you know, India, as we know it, the lines on the map did not really
#
You know, there was fighting all across the country.
#
There was a sense that the center may not hold, everything may fall apart.
#
And therefore, the natural conclusion is when you draw up the Constitution, you centralize
#
You retain the British impulse of controlling the mobs rather than of controlling the state.
#
And so on and so forth.
#
Even a lot of the terms that I use on the show, like rent seeking, for example, you
#
know, comes out of that, that if you, you know, power corrupts always.
#
So you give too much power to people, whether they're politicians or bureaucrats or whatever,
#
So the key thing there is the rules of the game, whether it is at a foundational level,
#
like, you know, the Constitution or the other rules of the game, what you would probably
#
call standard public choice, where, you know, within the everyday friction or whatever happens
#
in government, you figure out how to set the best incentives to sort of get the best outcome.
#
And this is so important for Indians to realize, especially because like I keep saying that
#
our biggest religion in India is not Hinduism, it's a religion of the state, that no matter
#
what happens, we'll think of the Maibab Sarkar as a solution to it.
#
Social problem, Maibab Sarkar will do something.
#
Market failure or alleged market failure, because there aren't that many government
#
Now everybody talks of social problems, market failure, they don't think of government failure,
#
you know, they assume that the state is a benevolent beast, it will do everything as
#
And of course, intentions are never outcomes and things keep going wrong all the time.
#
But anyways, I've gone on, I think I'll add two more things to that.
#
I think a sub part of that, you know, state as religion is also we think too much in terms
#
of individuals and too little in terms of institutions and rules.
#
So we're always about this is a good guy.
#
So we really made politics some kind of, you know, extended kin or family matter.
#
Like this is someone I like, this is someone I trust.
#
And therefore this is good.
#
And whatever they do is I will stand by it or I'm okay with it.
#
Whereas I think to function at scale, especially India's scale, and to function with a level
#
of plurality and diversity we have, we need to very carefully think about institutions
#
And we need to actually stick with them, even when the outcome is something we don't like.
#
The thing about rules is they can often also act as speed breakers, right?
#
So if you have a very constrictive constitution, then you know, it won't let Stalin do bad
#
things, but it also won't let Mother Teresa do good things.
#
And that's that's the nature of it.
#
And we need to get comfortable with that fact.
#
We need to be a very rules and institutions based society, because I think if we don't
#
base it on that, then we're going to start basing it on individuals or then community,
#
which is always based on language, caste, religion, region.
#
And you know, you devolve into a very different kind of ethnic and conflict ridden project
#
as opposed to a democratic rules based project, which is working towards stability, prosperity,
#
And I think this is the sub part of what has happened because of that kind of religion.
#
And I used to write a column for Bloomberg Quinn for a long time, which had these long
#
two thousand twenty five hundred word essays and actually called it politics without romance,
#
taking Buchanan's term, because I tried to apply public choice to regular life.
#
And I think one of the sort of my first column there was about, you know, everybody keeps
#
complaining that, hey, you know, our freedom fighters were such great leaders, Nehru, Patel,
#
Where is that caliber of leader today?
#
And my point was, you got to look at the incentives.
#
Those guys came up at a time where there was no power to be had because we were a colony.
#
And therefore everything that they fought for was on the basis of higher principles
#
and so on and so forth.
#
And that therefore that's a caliber of leader that you got.
#
But today, the way the state is designed, you know, it attracts people with that lust
#
for power and the journey towards the top is necessarily such that whatever principles
#
you might enter with, they get corroded, they become meaningless at the end of it.
#
That's all that money power game sort of going on.
#
And therefore it is very, and even then, I would say that it is wrong to kind of blame
#
the individuals, right, that if it's not Modi, it will be fine, or if it's Rahul, it will
#
The individuals are not so much the key point.
#
I'd love to see the design.
#
I mean, an ideal state is designed in such a way that the worst sociopathic, most evil
#
person, if they get to the top of it, they can't do much damage because the state acts
#
as a constraint. And that's what the rules of the game do.
#
Yeah. And we can probably get to this eventually.
#
The other aspect of politics in India is, I mean, now I think a lot more people are
#
talking about how we are extremely centralized and rooted in the central executive, and
#
that's how we do things.
#
We need to rethink how we imagine collective action, right?
#
So if you look at someone like Vincent Ostrom, right, he was a political scientist, the
#
One of the best books I have ever read is The Theory of the Compound Republic.
#
I think just everyone must read it, right?
#
And he was the partner and longtime collaborator of Eleanor Ostrom, who went on to win the
#
Nobel Prize in Economics.
#
So Vincent Ostrom's simple idea is that you want the level of government to be only as
#
large as the extent of the externality, right?
#
So for very local problems, the garbage is not being taken out, right?
#
Or someone's dumping in the local pond or the local lake.
#
These are extremely local problems.
#
And they are really not something that, you know, either Yogi Adityanath or Narendra Modi
#
can solve. It just can't be done, right?
#
And the more you centralize or the larger the size and scope of government relative to
#
the externality you're trying to solve, the worse your outcomes are going to be.
#
And I mean this in two ways.
#
One, of course, you're going to have government failure and that the externality will remain
#
unsolved, right, despite having government.
#
But the second aspect is everything else is also decided at that same level, which means
#
you're going to get a very high degree of uniformity.
#
It's just going to flatten everything out, right?
#
The kind of education policy you need in Kerala and Tamil Nadu is very different from the
#
kind of education policy you need in Bihar and UP, right?
#
The kind of forest policy that you need in Jharkhand is very different from the kind of
#
forest policy you need in Goa.
#
So we are, however, using a very centralized system to navigate and negotiate all of this.
#
And that, I think, is the other problem.
#
So, you know, it's a it's a three way entanglement.
#
It is the focus on individuals and not institutions or rules.
#
It is the focus on a very high degree of uniformity and a very centralized, high level
#
government to solve every single problem without really using public choice theory to figure
#
out what's the appropriate level government for which problem.
#
And then, you know, the overarching theme, of course, is the deification of the state,
#
right, which is I think that's the umbrella we operate in.
#
But that's true even if we fix these two problems.
#
Yeah, I love what you just said about Vincent Ostrom's frame for looking at how, you know,
#
what level of government should do what.
#
Like we had an early episode back in the days when episodes were like so short that, I
#
mean, there were almost like negative time you gain and you gain time and gain lifespan
#
if you listen to an episode by us, they were that short.
#
But I think you just violated the rule of scarcity in like seventy five ways.
#
Yeah, well, and I'll link that episode from the show notes.
#
But you spoke about how at the local level, there's no relation between accountability
#
and power at the local level.
#
Those who have power over you, you can't do anything about them.
#
They're not accountable to you.
#
And those who are accountable to you don't actually have the power to do anything.
#
Or the fiscal resources, which is another big part of the puzzle.
#
But we can we can talk about all of those things.
#
But I mean, the the delimitation question, which is what you know, you're asking me
#
about, I think is an overarching and slightly different question, which impacts every
#
single thing we've spoken about so far.
#
But it's still a completely different mess
#
that has been created by and for the Indian Republic.
#
So, you know, that's a slightly different question.
#
But before that, I also wanted to respond to what you said about Jharkhand may have
#
one particular problem, another state may have one particular problem.
#
I did a recent episode where delimitation was also discussed with RS Neelakant
#
who wrote the book North versus South.
#
And he pointed out that, you know, if there's a among the centrally sponsored
#
schemes, if there's a health care scheme, you know, what the government sitting
#
in the north will, you know, they will look at some place like Bihar and say more
#
calories. We need to increase calorie intake, which then becomes a policy for the
#
entire country. While in a developed place like Kerala, the problem may be diabetes
#
and increasing calorie intake is what you do not want to do.
#
Yes, I haven't heard that episode yet, but I think the, you know, the instinct
#
is absolutely the instinct is absolutely bang on.
#
And actually, everyone should have a calorie deficit.
#
But just generally good for the health.
#
No, no, also plug your sugar is evil.
#
Like go say all the usual nonsense.
#
Sugar is very much evil.
#
All my listeners are utterly aware of that.
#
And this is why you're so unhappy.
#
Look at my face. I'm so happy.
#
I had chocolate after breakfast.
#
Are you serious? You have chocolate after breakfast?
#
We must get the state to ban chocolate.
#
I just came back from Amsterdam.
#
I had I had bought very good chocolate in Amsterdam and I had a small piece
#
And my breakfast was full of carbs and I am still somehow managed to be happy
#
So I'm not listening to you on any of this sugar nonsense.
#
I'm so happy this episode is airing within three days of the recording,
#
because at least you won't be dead when it comes out.
#
Hopefully chocolate after breakfast, it seems.
#
But life is too short to deprive myself of the things I truly care about.
#
Let's move on to another thing you truly care about, which is which is India,
#
which is, you know, which is the specter of delimitation
#
that is kind of hanging all over us.
#
And, you know, I've mentioned and briefly discussed delimitation
#
in my episodes with both Neela Kantan and then later on with J.P.
#
Narayan just last week, which was a great episode.
#
And I know that he has his agreements with you on an aspect of it.
#
And we'll get get back to that later.
#
But what I would really like you to do is rather than talk about
#
delimitation itself, give me a primer, like for someone who's never heard
#
the term, you know, give me a primer right from the start.
#
I'd really love you to go back to history, talk about the founding of India.
#
What happened in the Constituent Assembly?
#
Why do we have a system with the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha?
#
What is the thinking behind that?
#
Let's just start at the very beginning.
#
Awesome. Yeah, no, happy to do that.
#
So the word delimitation, let me just, you know, put that out there
#
and explain what it means.
#
So if you look at delimitation, it literally means the act of fixing
#
a boundary or a limit of something or around something.
#
Right. And in Indian politics, it means determining
#
the number of constituencies, the size of the constituencies,
#
you know, in each state, and then also the boundaries.
#
Right. Is the line going to pass and cover this village
#
or is it not going to cover this village, that part of it?
#
So it covers all of these things.
#
OK. And we'll get into what is usually meant by delimitation,
#
which is the freeze that came in in 1976 based on 71 census.
#
But I'll get to that in a minute.
#
So India, as you know, I mean, is both a bicameral system.
#
So we have the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in parliament.
#
And it is also a federal system. Right.
#
So we have the Union Parliament, but we also have states
#
which have their own legislature.
#
And most of the state legislatures are unicameral.
#
I think three of them are bicameral.
#
Some of the union territories have legislatures.
#
So this is roughly the the system that we are operating within.
#
When it comes to what happened in the constituent assembly,
#
what we really inherited is what was done in the Government of India
#
1919 Act and then the Government of India 1935 Act.
#
Right. Both these both these systems essentially had
#
I wouldn't call it a bicameral system because a bicameral system means
#
there is a upper and a lower house as a check and a balance.
#
Which was not exactly the case in British India.
#
But it was representation from two different kinds of groups.
#
One was representation within British Indian provinces.
#
And the second was representation from princely states. Right.
#
So this is really the distinction that was important
#
when the union was being crafted.
#
So when we come to the constituent assembly point, right.
#
And at this point, we already know that we're going to have
#
a parliamentary system, which is largely based on what we've already had
#
in the Westminster system in England, with some tweaks,
#
because we have a written constitution, we have an independent judiciary, so on.
#
But while this whole thing is going on,
#
we are simultaneously figuring out what the union looks like. Right.
#
So this is Sardar Patel's entire adventure.
#
And, you know, V.P. Menon, who are literally going around
#
all over Union of India, trying to determine who is going to fall
#
within the union and who's going to go to Pakistan.
#
And once we figure out who is in the union and who is going to Pakistan,
#
you need to actually have the instrument of ascension. Right.
#
Which is the the exchange in some way,
#
or the trade that is being made with princely states.
#
And the trade loosely, I mean, there's a lot to be said about this.
#
So I'm giving the very basic reductive version.
#
The trade is that they basically sign over their rights as sovereign
#
with the ability to collect tax and revenue and govern an area
#
over to the Union of India in exchange for what they called a title and a privy purse.
#
Right. And the privy purse differed.
#
Eventually, Indira Gandhi also abolished the privy purse system,
#
both the titles and what the government of India owed all these princely states
#
or the erstwhile monarchs for signing over their territory.
#
But this is roughly where we're at.
#
So now when the Indian Constituent Assembly was formed,
#
they took the basic framework of the 1919 Act and the 1935 Act.
#
B N Rao, who was the constitutional adviser, he circulated a memo.
#
Right. And this is typically how the Constituent Assembly worked.
#
Right. A lot of work was done by committee, actually.
#
So there's an adviser who will actually put out a memo of some form or circulate
#
and request answers on a particular question.
#
And different members will write in with answers.
#
In this particular instance, I believe K M Panikkar and K T Shah
#
sent in detailed remarks. Right.
#
And then the other thing B N Rao would do was he would look at all the other systems.
#
You know, what is the US doing?
#
How are the Irish solving this problem?
#
How are the Swiss solving this problem?
#
So he would collect all of that in one place.
#
And this would go to a committee.
#
In this case, it was the UCC, the Union Constitutional Committee.
#
And they would deliberate on the matter and come up with some kind of a rule.
#
Right. The Indian system was very much based on the Irish system.
#
They decided that they're going to have two houses and the lower house
#
should be based on proportional representation.
#
That is, for a unit of population, you're going to elect a representative.
#
Right. Now, what is that unit of population?
#
But the broad question is, we're going to divide all of Union of India
#
They decided that the little bit would be 750,000 people to one representative.
#
The first general election was, I think, about 720,000 people to one MP.
#
So we're going to break that down.
#
And I think at some point, actually, in the constant assembly debates,
#
they were talking about roughly one representative to one million,
#
but it came down to 750,000.
#
So this is roughly where we were at.
#
And how do we figure this out?
#
Because population obviously keeps changing.
#
So the rule is you look at the decennial census and based on census,
#
you will have some kind of a committee which will redraw the lines
#
and say these are the regions where the population grew faster
#
or these are the places where there was in-migration or out-migration.
#
And we need to redistrict.
#
So this was the constitutional provision.
#
If you want to understand where it is rooted in the current constitution,
#
you can find it in Article 81.
#
So Article 81 is about seats in the Lok Sabha.
#
And it requires that each state receives seats in proportion to its population.
#
And it allocates the seats in a constituency size, which is roughly equal.
#
Now, you can never have it exactly equal.
#
It's just that, I mean, the counting has to be too precise.
#
So we say roughly equal.
#
So when we say 750,000 to one, it could be, you know, 751,000.
#
But this is roughly the constitutional scheme.
#
A second part of that is now Rajya Sabha, right?
#
Now, there were many systems, including the American system,
#
where the upper house was not proportional to population.
#
It was a very clear break, right?
#
So the upper house in the US or the Senate is designed such that
#
no matter what the size of the state and no matter when it joins the union,
#
they get two seats in the Senate.
#
Right. So Wyoming has less, about half a million people in population.
#
And that gets two seats.
#
And California has, you know, about, I think, 40 million in population.
#
And that also gets two seats.
#
So that's the nature of the Senate.
#
And the idea in the US system was that the upper house,
#
which is the Senate, will act as a check to the lower house.
#
And this is also a check against majoritarianism.
#
Right. So states that have fewer people
#
don't want to be overwhelmed by states that have lots of people.
#
So every federal system, you want to be sure that
#
there are there are things that will not be done
#
against your preferences or your wishes. Right.
#
And one way of protecting against that is by having this kind of check
#
and balance at the upper house.
#
Now, in the Indian system, this was not what was adopted for the Rajya Sabha.
#
Actually, the Rajya Sabha in India is also roughly based,
#
not as precisely as the Lok Sabha, but roughly based on population.
#
So every state is allotted a number of seats in the Rajya Sabha.
#
And, you know, if you want to look up the provision for Rajya Sabha,
#
it's Article 80 of the Constitution.
#
It tells you that you're supposed to have no more than 238 members
#
from the various states.
#
And the functional representation of the nominated members is another 12 people.
#
And these 238 are divided up between different states
#
and roughly based on population size. Right.
#
So what India did is quite interesting.
#
And now why we did it, it's, you know, part conjecture and part history.
#
The Union of India didn't come together as the United States of America,
#
where the states were the sovereign entity
#
and they joined together to form a federation. Right.
#
In fact, the federal government in the United States had very few powers.
#
The fewest of things was, you know, what was in the hands of the federal government.
#
And most of the sovereignty and most of the collective action problems
#
would be solved by the states. Right.
#
In India, it was sort of the other way around.
#
There was British India, which was turning into the Union of India,
#
you know, of some sort.
#
And now we were actually going to have all these small
#
and big states join the Union of India.
#
Now, there were very large princely territories
#
and there were very small princely territories.
#
I think more than 560 princely territories actually joined the Union of India
#
to make it look like the current map of India. Right.
#
It would have been impossible to say each person or sorry, not each person,
#
but each territory, each of the 560 territories
#
that's joining the Union of India, we're going to give them two seats
#
That makes no sense because some of them were just way too small. Right.
#
The other point is, do they come from a point of suspicion
#
where the princely states were really seen as aligning with the British?
#
So do we really want to create a House of Lords in India? Right.
#
Do we really want a situation where we get these elite people,
#
these, you know, from these provinces who were siding with the other side
#
and who never really fought for the Indian Republic?
#
So some of this is explicit in the writing, but some of it is implicit.
#
This is not very much debated in the Constituent Assembly.
#
Like, I'm not actually reading a running debate
#
where different sides actually place these views.
#
So this is roughly where we came from.
#
So India actually created a very interesting system
#
where both the lower house and the upper house were based on some kind
#
of proportional representation.
#
In the first case, by direct representation,
#
that is, the voters actually choose the representative.
#
And in the second case, which is Rajya Sabha, the states choose the representative.
#
But each state still gets the number of representatives
#
based on its population.
#
So, yeah, I'll quickly point my listeners to this fascinating episode
#
I did with Narayani Basu on VP Menon.
#
She wrote a great book on Menon, who, along with Siddharth Patel,
#
I think really carried out what I think of as a fast track colonization,
#
what the British took 200 years to do, they did in a few months,
#
in just a couple of years, in bringing the princely states together.
#
And, you know, you speak about how the princely states were looked upon
#
with suspicion, but the princely states should have been suspicious themselves
#
because all the promises made to them were essentially broken over time.
#
So just that how moral was the act in which they were either coerced
#
or given false promises to become part of the Indian Union
#
is something worth pondering.
#
And also, humorous aside, you know, upper house and lower house
#
are not terms that originated with us or with the Indian Constitution.
#
You know, when Mohandas Gandhi was in South Africa
#
at the turn of the 20th century, he had a close friend,
#
a German bodybuilder called Hermann Kallenbach.
#
And according to Joseph Lelyveld's controversial book, Great Soul,
#
they used to call each other upper house and lower house.
#
And Kallenbach's implication was that they were having a homosexual relationship,
#
so upper house, lower house.
#
But another explanation of this which has been offered
#
and which is equally plausible, if not more plausible,
#
is that, you know, they were living together
#
and one of them would decide the budget for something
#
but the other one would have the right to veto it.
#
So upper house, lower house for that reason.
#
So I asked Ramchandra Guha about this, by the way,
#
in one of the episodes I did with him on Gandhi
#
and he took severe offense to Lelyveld's interpretation.
#
But be that as it were, even if they were gay, what's wrong with it?
#
Sure, but I meant it just in the ordinary parliaments
#
in which we say Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
#
because often it's a mouthful.
#
And, you know, for people who they just call it LSRS or something like that.
#
In fact, most people don't even think about the Rajya Sabha
#
when they think about parliament.
#
They're really just thinking about the Lok Sabha
#
because that's who they vote for.
#
So, yeah, let's leave that aside.
#
Yeah, you know, I thought it's just an interesting aside to think of.
#
And also, you know, you look at Gandhi as either,
#
for most people, a revered figure,
#
for some people, bizarrely enough, a reviled figure,
#
and of course he contained multitudes.
#
But if you think of him having this playful banter
#
with a friend where they're calling each other upper house, lower house,
#
you just see a much more human side of the guy, which I always like.
#
Getting back to sort of, you know,
#
the way the parliaments are formed and all of that.
#
At this point, like, what is the logic behind
#
that sense of one MP for 700,000 people or whatever the number is?
#
And, you know, how do they propose to take it forward?
#
Like, what is the imagination of how the parliament will evolve in future?
#
Is it the sense that with every census that happens,
#
they adjust the seats and that number of one MP to 700,000 remains stable?
#
Or, you know, so just explain that to me
#
and how that worked through the decades until Indira Gandhi came into the picture.
#
So you're absolutely right.
#
They had kept one representative to 750,000 population as the constitutional mandate
#
because at that point in time, they were well under it.
#
And they didn't imagine that India would continue to grow in such a way.
#
So what they did was initially the Lok Sabha, the maximum number of seats,
#
it was capped, I believe, at 500.
#
Then they increased the cap, right?
#
So this is all done, you know, one after the other through constitutional amendments.
#
So you'll get the, you know, you'll go from 500 to the maximum cap at 520.
#
I think this was the Seventh Amendment and, you know, you would get another 20.
#
So 500 from everywhere and 20 seats from the Union territories.
#
That was roughly the math at that time.
#
And then another adjustment was made in the Fourteenth Amendment
#
and then another adjustment was made in the 31st Amendment.
#
And then, you know, we started also bringing in new states,
#
like, you know, Goa, Daman and Dius came in as Union territories.
#
So, you know, all this was still going on.
#
We forget that, you know, Goa came in much later,
#
Pondicherry came in much later, Sikkim came in much later.
#
So as these were joining the Union, the maximum sanction strength
#
that was written into the Constitution actually kept increasing.
#
So as of today, the maximum sanction strength of the Lok Sabha
#
in the Constitution is 552, right, where the idea is that it's going to be
#
530 from the states, 20 from Union territories,
#
and two presidentially appointed members of the Anglo-Indian community,
#
which is another old relic of the Constitution, right.
#
As of today, the Lok Sabha has, I think, 545 representatives filling these seats.
#
So proportional representation, the way they thought of it was,
#
we will adjust the max limit based on how the population changes.
#
And with each decennial census, we know, we know how the,
#
which way the population is going.
#
And it's a simple constitutional amendment to figure that out.
#
And then, of course, the way the boundaries are drawn
#
is not a constitutional matter.
#
There's a delimitation commission that is set up for that, right.
#
They will specifically look into the numbers.
#
They will draw the boundaries.
#
So then that's a lower level, more bureaucratic decision.
#
But the constitutional original mandate is one is to 750,000.
#
Now, we have abandoned the one is to 750,000 limit.
#
We have the average proportional representation size.
#
And this is the average constituency size, which is important to note
#
because India is a very strange country today where in the lower house,
#
every state in India has a different size constituency.
#
So the average number, I believe, is 2.3 million per MP, which is really,
#
I mean, it's quite extraordinary when we think about it,
#
like how we've ended up at that point.
#
And of course, if you start looking into the details of it,
#
then you're going to get a lot of variation, right.
#
And we can talk about, you know, which states have
#
very, very large constituency sizes versus very small constituency sizes.
#
So that's a discussion that we can have.
#
But to answer your big picture question, that's the answer.
#
And so and of course, you know, we'll come to talking about the current day later,
#
but that 2.3 million is much more than that for some states
#
and much less than that for some states.
#
And that's just sort of the average number per MP.
#
And so tell me about how that evolved through the decades
#
because you don't have any problem till really the mid 70s
#
and Indira Gandhi decides that, OK, we got to stop adjusting now.
#
Sorry, can I interrupt just for one minute?
#
Sorry, just to pick up on your point.
#
In Bihar, one MP represents 3.1 million citizens.
#
In Uttar Pradesh, one MP represents 2.96 million citizens.
#
But if you look at Kerala, one MP represents 1.75 million citizens today.
#
In Tamil Nadu, one MP represents 1.97 million citizens.
#
There's a very big gap between 1.7 million people per MP to 3.1 million people per MP.
#
Implication of that, the important implication of that is the voter in Bihar,
#
therefore gets less bang for his vote than the voter in Kerala does.
#
And therefore is this reason to feel aggrieved for that reason.
#
And that's why the exercise has historically been done.
#
So I would go even one step further.
#
India was exceptional in the fact that it introduced
#
universal adult franchise at the birth of the republic.
#
Virtually no one else in that time had done it.
#
And certainly before Indian independence, no other country had adopted that.
#
So it was always based on a limited franchise.
#
And as the democracy matured, they brought in more and more people
#
and included them within the franchise.
#
India from day one was universal adult franchise.
#
And it was founded upon the belief of one person, one vote.
#
And that each person's vote matters the same.
#
This is exceptionally important given how diverse India was,
#
given India's history with the caste system,
#
given what was going on with the partition
#
and how we think about citizenship in India.
#
This was just really an extraordinary move.
#
But we have to remember one person, one vote
#
makes sense only if the constituency sizes are the same.
#
Because otherwise what we're saying is based on a birth accident,
#
your vote matters more or your vote matters less.
#
So there are two ways in which one's vote matters.
#
So, you know, standard public choice will tell you
#
that if your vote was the swing vote that actually determined the outcome.
#
There's a very small percentage of that.
#
So if the gap between, you know, the winner and the loser is 20,000 votes,
#
you had a one in 20,000 chance of affecting the outcome.
#
That's not what we mean in this context as your vote matters.
#
In this context, we mean ex ante before we talk about,
#
before we know who is standing for election,
#
before we discuss anything else,
#
before you're even eligible to vote.
#
By virtue of the fact that you're born in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh,
#
your vote will matter less than if you're born in Tamil Nadu or Kerala.
#
And I say born because migration is just too small to count in this context.
#
So it's really a birth accident and a new kind of democratic
#
caste system hierarchy that we've developed.
#
And this has happened because now we can go back to the question
#
which you asked because of the 1976 freeze.
#
But before I let me just to kind of break it down and use an extreme thought example.
#
Imagine that, you know, you have a constituency with 10 people
#
and you have another constituency with a thousand people
#
and they're each electing one MP.
#
The vote of the person in a constituency of 10 people
#
is literally 100 times as powerful as a vote of the guy
#
in the constituency with a thousand people.
#
Now, obviously, the differences aren't so big here,
#
but the very fundamental premise of the Republic one,
#
one person, one vote is that there should be no difference.
#
So the difference should be so minuscule that you can round it up to no difference.
#
And that's simply not the case because the voter in Kerala
#
is perhaps 1.5 times more powerful as a voter in Bihar right now, more or less, if not more.
#
And so there are two levels to it.
#
One, the voter in Kerala is much more powerful.
#
And now if we start finding the separation, right,
#
because remember the other part of public choice is methodological individualism, right?
#
There is no such thing as the entity of Kerala, right?
#
There are voters in Kerala or there are elected representatives of Kerala.
#
The elected representatives of Kerala who are the politician class,
#
they matter much more and have an outsized voice in parliament
#
relative to someone from Bihar.
#
That's the other element of it.
#
And we can talk about the politics of delimitation.
#
What I found studying the question is the average Indian knows very little about it.
#
In fact, educated Indians know very little about it.
#
I think most people don't even know what delimitation is,
#
unless they've studied for the UPSC exams or, you know, it's actually literally an exam question.
#
For most people, they just assume that one person, one vote
#
and equal constituency size is the reality.
#
And then there is a political class which has now started agitating,
#
saying that, you know, the population numbers have started changing.
#
The demographics of India are different.
#
So, you know, we're going to lose our power or we're going to lose our vote share and so on.
#
And we can get into that.
#
But the regular person doesn't even know how badly their franchise is being compromised.
#
Now, it hardly matters whether you actually vote or not.
#
It doesn't matter if you're the deciding vote or not, right?
#
It doesn't matter if you're even politically interested or not.
#
But the foundation of the Indian Republic is that when it comes to political franchise,
#
it should not be by birth accident.
#
And that we have really messed up with delimitation.
#
The whole purpose of universal adult franchise was it doesn't matter what family you were born to.
#
And now it does matter what region you were born to, which is a complete accident.
#
And if you care about our democracy, you should care about this.
#
Obviously, there are many things wrong with the Republic as well.
#
And we should care about that as well.
#
But today we are just talking about this one narrow issue.
#
So let's get back to the politics of it just to, you know, get the history up to the current date.
#
So we know where we stand.
#
So, you know, so I walked you through how when the constitution was written,
#
you know, the number of seats was capped at 500 and then, you know, slowly it started increasing.
#
Now, simultaneously, we have to remember that post-independence,
#
India was not truly a federation in the sense that the states had a lot of autonomous power.
#
It was an experiment with central planning on the economic side,
#
which means the way the resources, that is, the tax revenue was generated and shared,
#
was extremely centralized.
#
And there is a whole finance commission formula and, you know, it used to be based on need
#
and naturally in this kind of a system, the richer states,
#
and here I'm seeing states in terms of revenue generating capacity,
#
that's the entity I'm looking at, were, you know, expected to sort of help the poorer states
#
through the public finance system that we call intergovernmental transfers.
#
And the union government is really negotiating these intergovernmental transfers.
#
On the other side, as you had mentioned at the head of the conversation,
#
the union of India was quite precarious at the beginning.
#
They were worried about communist revolutions,
#
which is why we had all these restrictions on free speech
#
because of what was going on in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
#
They were having a lot of problems in border states.
#
In fact, secession movements were going on in my living memory until very recently.
#
It's only very recent that the border states are not perennially under president's rule
#
for years on end where the union government is trying to bring in some kind of order
#
And the most recent version of that is, of course, what happened in Jammu and Kashmir,
#
but we can leave that aside.
#
Because of this, the Indian state became extremely centralized in the union executive.
#
So one is the constitutional design was bad.
#
You know, there are constitutional assembly debates where it says,
#
oh, this constitution and Bill of Rights sounds like it's written by a police constable
#
as opposed to, you know, elevated intellectuals.
#
I think Somnath Lahiri said that.
#
So it's, you know, it's very much written in a post-partition,
#
trying to bring the union together stability kind of system.
#
So you combine the political problem of holding the union together
#
and the economic question of central planning,
#
which is hugely reliant on all the revenue that is generated in every state,
#
gets together in a central pie.
#
And then the Union of India will grant, you know, resources back to states.
#
These two things make India quite unique and different from other federal republics.
#
Most federal republics don't have such a high degree of central planning
#
and, you know, fiscal centralism or fiscal centripetalism, as we call it.
#
And most states that have central planning in this kind of fiscal system
#
tend to be communist states.
#
They don't tend to be constitutional democracies,
#
where we have elected members at the state level,
#
both in legislature and in the upper house of the parliament
#
and also their representation in the lower house.
#
So India's bicameralism and constitutional democracy
#
combined with the economic system is what has birthed this problem.
#
So you will hear a completely different narrative, by the way.
#
So when you look at what happened in 1976,
#
Indira Gandhi, through the 42nd Amendment,
#
which is one of the most infamous amendments ever of the Indian constitution,
#
most of it was undone, except some features like delimitation.
#
What she did through that amendment was she said in 1976
#
that we're going to freeze the constituencies for each state based on the 1971 census
#
and we will revisit the matter after year 2000.
#
So that's the constitutional amendment.
#
This is the 42nd Amendment.
#
Now, why was this done?
#
So I'll give you the ostensible reason and the real reason.
#
And the ostensible reason will drive you bananas.
#
The ostensible reason was that the population of different states
#
is growing at different rates.
#
And the southern states came and said,
#
we actually did what the union government wanted us to do
#
in terms of family planning and population control.
#
As if they had a magic wand.
#
And these other northern states didn't control it.
#
And you are going to politically punish us
#
for following the union government mandate.
#
And you're going to politically reward the northern states
#
for violating the union government mandate.
#
So some special provision has to be made.
#
Now, I'll tell you why I say this is the ostensible reason.
#
Because nobody controlled population in India.
#
Fertility rates drop as regions get richer.
#
As families get richer, as regions get richer,
#
infant mortality drops.
#
And people feel the need to have fewer children.
#
This has been true everywhere in the world
#
with minor differences based on culture or religion.
#
In India, for various historical accidents and reasons,
#
the southern states got richer first.
#
Now, these are historical accidents
#
like Zamindari was imposed in the north,
#
whereas Rayotwari was imposed in the south.
#
So the south had better state capacity,
#
better revenue collection capacity,
#
better trade routes, which were long established and so on.
#
You know those arguments.
#
And there is another reason,
#
if we don't credit British India and those differences,
#
there's also a difference between British India
#
So there are some very elevated and elite monarchs
#
like the princes of Travancore.
#
Who actually managed to bring in so much development in Kerala
#
that even before the communist rule comes in,
#
you have very, very good development indicators.
#
Life expectancy is twice as high in Kerala
#
as the rest of British India and so on.
#
So for various reasons,
#
nothing to do with the governments active in the states
#
in the 70s or the 60s or the 50s.
#
And there is literally nothing any of these people
#
did for population control.
#
They said we are being politically punished.
#
But what they were really saying was,
#
we are the rich states.
#
The union depends on us for money.
#
And you need money from us to substitute the poorer states.
#
This entire system works on intergovernmental transfers.
#
We don't have fiscal federalism in India.
#
So you can't take our money
#
and not let us have a voice in parliament.
#
And the reason this becomes important
#
is a set of other smaller rules.
#
One is we don't have a council of states
#
where each state gets the same number of votes no matter what.
#
That was also proportional to population, right?
#
So if you're getting screwed in Lok Sabha,
#
you're also getting screwed in Rajya Sabha based on population.
#
But the other aspect was India has very strange rules, right?
#
Money bills cannot be passed.
#
Okay, so let me rephrase that.
#
Money bills need not be passed in Rajya Sabha, right?
#
So this is Article 109 of the Constitution.
#
So if it is a money bill, anything to do with budget,
#
if it just passes in the Lok Sabha, it's enough.
#
Passing it and sending it to the Rajya Sabha
#
and passing it is not a necessity for the money bill to pass, right?
#
So the rules are that it should be sent to Rajya Sabha,
#
it may be sent to Rajya Sabha for recommendations.
#
Rajya Sabha is supposed to send back
#
such recommendations within 14 days.
#
If Rajya Sabha doesn't send the recommendations in 14 days,
#
it's deemed to have been passed.
#
If it does send back the recommendations,
#
it's totally up to the Lok Sabha
#
whether they want to take on the recommendations
#
or not take on the recommendations.
#
So now you're in a situation where you have bicameralism,
#
you have extreme fiscal centralization,
#
the Council of States actually doesn't give voice
#
to the states that are richer differently
#
from the states that are poorer.
#
So you're a total mess, right?
#
Now, the reason I want to highlight this
#
and emphasize this is there is no long running republic,
#
which is also a federal system,
#
where population grew everywhere equally
#
and where everywhere you had the same evening
#
out of in and out migration.
#
That simply doesn't exist, right?
#
Why didn't this problem happen in those federations?
#
It's either because they were fiscally
#
extremely decentralized,
#
that is, each state largely controlled its resources
#
and very small portion went to the federal government
#
or the federal level and intergovernmental transfers
#
and or the upper house actually functioned
#
as a council of states where the states had a voice
#
irrespective of what was their proportion of population.
#
And in India, central planning, fiscal centripetalism,
#
the weird drafting of Rajya Sabha based
#
on Government of India Act,
#
taken on to bring in the princely states,
#
all of this put together has caused a situation
#
where now populations are growing at very different pace
#
and the money is still highly centralized in a pot.
#
So, before I go on asking you about the history of this
#
and what happens 25 years after this,
#
I just want to make a couple of points
#
about population control,
#
why it is both a term that can be good or bad
#
depending on how you look at it.
#
Firstly, as I keep ranting
#
and I link my viral column on it in the show notes,
#
population we were taught in school
#
is one of India's problems.
#
I've always said that population is our greatest strength,
#
that people are brains, not stomachs,
#
that they are a resource.
#
And this is why, for example,
#
so much migrations happen into cities
#
because there's a greatest population density there
#
and you see the effects of the value
#
that people can bring to each other.
#
So, the entire notion of population control
#
when done by the state is to me fundamentally evil,
#
involves coercion, it's just terrible,
#
the state does not own our bodies.
#
On the other hand, when population control happens
#
on its own by human action
#
and not by human design as Adam Ferguson may say,
#
then I think it's a great thing
#
because what simply happens
#
is that poor people have more kids.
#
When people choose to have less and less kids
#
it means that they are getting more prosperous.
#
And what simply happened in the South,
#
is that they did better on economic indicators,
#
they basically, they got richer
#
and when you get richer, you have less kids.
#
That is simply the way it is for the poor.
#
For poorer people, kids are almost like insurance
#
because they are more prey to infant mortality
#
and so on and so forth.
#
And because they see kids as they should as resources,
#
as brains, not stomachs,
#
they tend to have more of them.
#
But as you grow up the income ladder,
#
that need kind of goes a little bit.
#
And therefore, it's, you know,
#
the population is sort of the downstream thing
#
that is happening here.
#
The upstream thing, the fundamental thing
#
is that you are doing better for your people.
#
And when a state is getting better that,
#
you know, the logic of those guys would have gone.
#
Except like you pointed out,
#
they were getting better for a host of reasons
#
that don't actually have anything to do
#
with the weenal politicians in charge.
#
And I would also give another example.
#
So for instance, you know,
#
no one thinks Haryana is a particularly
#
progressive place in the world, right?
#
I mean, terrible sex ratio,
#
even until very recently,
#
all the horror stories about women,
#
you know, and casteism and your khap panchayats
#
are constantly coming out of Haryana.
#
But you have the Green Revolution
#
The fertility rate drops.
#
So this idea that there is this,
#
you know, very elevated elite thinking,
#
you know, high on governance,
#
which managed to get this problem under control
#
versus the northern states,
#
Now, it is wholly possible
#
that the southern states were better on governance
#
and that has both historical reasons
#
and, you know, the nature of the electorate,
#
how early education was introduced,
#
you know, in Madras presidency.
#
So many, you know, host of reasons.
#
Was it torn apart by partition?
#
Like just so many reasons, right?
#
But even until very recently,
#
we see absolutely no evidence of,
#
oh, you need to be a very progressive state.
#
You know, some of this is a little bit uncharitable
#
because it's coming from the conversation
#
I see on family WhatsApp groups
#
and, you know, things like that.
#
And as you can guess from my name,
#
I'm a Tamil speaking girl,
#
but I was born and raised in Delhi.
#
And now if you consider,
#
you know, if I have any domicile in India,
#
because my parents live in Noida now.
#
So I am very much on both ends of the spectrum.
#
My parents live in Bhutan, Noida.
#
I live in the United States.
#
And, you know, I'm Tamilian.
#
So people just immediately associate me
#
as culturally being from the south.
#
So I hear the southern side of these arguments
#
and the form they often take is,
#
oh, look at us, southern states, so elevated.
#
You know, we are economically so strong
#
and we are culturally so elite
#
and we got our population numbers under control.
#
And look at those North Indian states
#
that are still poor and a complete mess
#
and haven't managed to educate their,
#
you know, millions of illiterate people.
#
So that is very much the narrative.
#
And the narrative is coming,
#
this us versus them, this othering
#
is really coming from this horrible,
#
ostensible explanation of population control,
#
which was never the case in the first place.
#
It was always about a budgetary allocation problem
#
and southern politicians wanting to have
#
a greater share of the resources
#
generated by their people
#
so that they could also control bigger budgets
#
and they could return more to the states
#
to improve their electoral outcomes.
#
And at the heart of this is also
#
one of the original sins that power was too centralized.
#
If it was much more federalized,
#
both in terms of money and power,
#
if government was much more local,
#
in fact, much more local than even the state level
#
and if finances were also much more evenly distributed
#
or much less at the discretion of the center,
#
then this would not have been such a big issue anyway.
#
because so much power and money is centralized
#
and then it becomes something to fight about.
#
Take me through the next phase of this
#
because what Indira does
#
is she kicks it down the can for 25 years
#
and then in 2001, the issue opens up again
#
and now you have a different government,
#
a different party, Vajpayee is the prime minister.
#
What are the ebbs and flows?
#
What are the pulls and pressures at this point in time?
#
It's super interesting.
#
So, you know, even within that 25-year period,
#
because what the 76 freeze did was,
#
of course, it benefited some states over other states,
#
that is states where the fertility rates dropped later
#
were adversely affected by the 1976 freeze
#
and states where the fertility rates dropped sooner
#
were, you know, advantaged in some way.
#
But there were two other problems.
#
One problem was that within states,
#
all states weren't growing evenly, right?
#
This obviously, I mean, it makes sense.
#
It's just a common sense issue, right?
#
There are going to be different parts of each state
#
would grow at different pace
#
and there was a second question
#
which was of SCSD representation, right?
#
So once again, if you go back to the constitutional scheme
#
and, you know, if you look at part 16 of the constitution,
#
this is, you know, special provisions for various groups
#
when it comes to electoral seat allocation.
#
And if you look at Article 330,
#
which is for the Lok Sabha and Article 332,
#
which is for legislative assemblies,
#
there is seats reserved in the proportion of population
#
There's a constitutionally mandated requirement.
#
There's another one which requires, you know,
#
two seats for Anglo-Indians,
#
but that's a small issue and we won't get into that.
#
Now, SCSD populations, as you can imagine,
#
each subgroup's fertility rates are dropping differently, right?
#
So upper caste Hindus' fertility rates drop sooner,
#
even in the poorer states, right?
#
Not everyone is evening it out.
#
and then ST rates drop.
#
These are fertility rates, right?
#
So now, even before the 2000 constitutional amendment
#
question pops up, there is a serious issue of
#
should we update redistricting within each state
#
based on the census in 1981 or 1991 and so on?
#
So this is a constant discussion
#
that is going on in the background.
#
Of course, nothing comes of it, right?
#
And this is, if we are technically thinking about it,
#
it's actually Vajpayee's third term as prime minister, right?
#
Because in 1996, famously, he has a 16-day term
#
or 13-day term in parliament and that government falls.
#
And then you have the United Front government that takes over.
#
In 99, in 98, when Vajpayee's government comes back
#
with the NDA, they are governing for about 18 months
#
and they have various coalition partners,
#
but it's a pretty narrow majority.
#
And one of their coalition partners in the south,
#
AIADMK pulls support and within 18 months,
#
the government falls, right?
#
So that government is also not able to do too much.
#
In 1999, Vajpayee actually comes back,
#
the NDA comes back a little bit stronger
#
with very strong regional partners.
#
In Tamil Nadu, they dropped AIADMK as a partner
#
and DMK becomes their ally.
#
This is an important issue that will come up in a second.
#
And they have regional partners in Andhra Pradesh, TDP.
#
They have Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
#
And because it is this coalition stitched together
#
with such strong support from southern state regional parties,
#
it is going to be very difficult to go back
#
to the original constitutional scheme
#
and actually do this by population.
#
And this is important because the BJP was actually always
#
the party that wanted the malapportionment as we call it.
#
That is the asymmetry in different states
#
having different constituency sizes to go away.
#
This was the BJP in the 80s, right?
#
The other issue that the BJP was simultaneously looking into,
#
and this was also long history like this is,
#
they revisited the question in 1988 first,
#
is the carving out of Chhattisgarh out of MP,
#
Jharkhand out of Bihar and Uttaranchal out of Uttar Pradesh, right?
#
So this question is also simultaneously going on.
#
And it obviously depends on your coalition partners.
#
It was fairly straightforward to do in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
#
You know, they were either the government or they had allies.
#
In Bihar, it was a little bit more complicated,
#
but eventually everyone got on board, right?
#
And sometime in November 2000,
#
what we have is a reorganization of these three states
#
such that new states are carved out, right?
#
And the way the new states are going to be carved out
#
obviously depends on who gets how much seat share, right?
#
Now that also suddenly becomes extremely important.
#
So in the case of the, you know, Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act
#
in Lok Sabha, UP got 80 seats
#
and Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand eventually got five seats, right?
#
And in Rajya Sabha, the proportion was slightly different.
#
You know, Uttar Pradesh got 31 seats and Uttaranchal got three.
#
Now, when we come to Bihar,
#
in Lok Sabha, Bihar had 40 seats, Jharkhand had 14, right?
#
And if we talk about Madhya Pradesh,
#
again in Lok Sabha, Madhya Pradesh had 29, Chhattisgarh had 11.
#
And the Rajya Sabha was a little bit different in proportion.
#
That is, the original states
#
had a slightly higher proportion of seats in Rajya Sabha.
#
So that's how they carved out these seats.
#
Now, between the SESD issue, carving out these seats, right?
#
And figuring out what we are supposed to do with delimitation,
#
you had two sets of problems.
#
Problem number one, you are very strongly supported
#
by the southern state coalition, you know, regional parties.
#
Therefore, you can't say, you know,
#
it was supposed to be till 2000, we killed the requirement.
#
Whatever our union is, imperfect as it may be,
#
whatever state is behind in fertility rates or ahead, it doesn't matter.
#
We're going to go back to the original constitutional scheme.
#
That would have been the right thing to do,
#
but they couldn't have done it. It wouldn't have passed.
#
Now, the other problem is,
#
in every state, you have this problem of internal redistricting.
#
So the way they solve this problem is through two constitutional amendments.
#
Okay. So the first is the 84th amendment.
#
Here, they extend the freeze that was imposed in 1976,
#
till the first census after 2026.
#
Okay. Which now normally would have been 2031,
#
but we still don't have the 2021 census number.
#
So my sense is that, at least my hunch is,
#
that the next census might as well just be in 2026.
#
I don't know where this is going.
#
And the pandemic has ended.
#
They're not, you know, they're not releasing census numbers.
#
So I imagine something else is going on.
#
So the way they thought about it was,
#
the number of seats per state were going to use the 1971 census proportions.
#
Okay. But redistricting within the states,
#
Right. And then they said, we're going for that,
#
we're going to use the 1991 census numbers.
#
So this sounds a little convoluted,
#
but now what happened was,
#
different states had different constituency sizes,
#
they managed to get the constituency sizes to be the same.
#
Right. So is this a great improvement?
#
It's a marginal improvement. Right.
#
At least now your birth accident is not,
#
whether you were born in Eastern UP versus Western UP.
#
Now that problem has been somewhat figured out.
#
Then they passed the 87th Amendment Act,
#
where they said that, you know,
#
because the 2001 census had happened,
#
this 87th Amendment Act was passed in 2003.
#
So because the 2001 census had happened
#
and the 4D limitation commission would have those numbers,
#
they said instead of 1991,
#
let's use 2001 numbers for within the state redistricting.
#
So that's what solved the problem.
#
Right. Now we've had the formation of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand.
#
If you look at malapportionment,
#
the original states are still extremely malapportioned.
#
The new states are not that malapportioned.
#
Right. So you can see what happened through this,
#
you know, consecutive constitutional amendments
#
plus carving out of the states.
#
Later, of course, we've had Telangana carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
#
Again, a fiscal reason, right?
#
The revenue raised in Telangana is way higher
#
than the revenue raised per capita in Andhra Pradesh.
#
And, you know, most recently we've had Jammu and Kashmir
#
converted into a union territory
#
and that had six parliamentary seats,
#
which are now five for JNK as a union territory
#
So that's how that has gotten solved.
#
So now we have 2001 census numbers for within states,
#
which is also extremely outdated, to be very honest, right?
#
Because when a state is growing, it's growing unevenly.
#
The last part that I want to highlight is that in 2008,
#
through a delimitation order,
#
they also managed to adjust the SESD reserved seats.
#
Because if you continue using the old numbers,
#
either 1971 or either 1991 for SESD proportion,
#
and, you know, we know that, you know, communities that were poorer,
#
their fertility rates dropped later.
#
So we know that SESD populations are disadvantaged
#
relative to the rest of the population in each state.
#
So that also got adjusted.
#
And this was really important because there's a constitutional mandate
#
that SESD parliamentary seats are reserved as a proportion of population.
#
So this whole thing is a mess, to be honest,
#
the kind of mess we only make in India.
#
But it's the kind of mess that you get when there is a political compromise.
#
You want to hold the Union of India together.
#
You don't want one after the other coalition governments falling
#
because people can't agree upon something, right?
#
If you have the Vajpayee government, like think of the counterfactual.
#
If the Vajpayee government didn't make this compromise,
#
you wouldn't get a lot of the liberalization measures
#
that we would have gotten that time.
#
We wouldn't have been able to carve out these states,
#
and a lot of good things came out of carving out these states, right?
#
I mean, Jharkhand coming out separately as a state
#
is an enormous sort of leap for the schedule tribes in Jharkhand, right?
#
It's very important for what's happening with the forests in Jharkhand.
#
So it's difficult to say this was all bad, no good,
#
but it is important to say that this was not sensible constitutional design.
#
It was just a backroom political mess that was made
#
and the best compromise that they could find, they came up with it.
#
Now, after liberalization, the second thing that happens is
#
that different states now really start growing economically at a very different rate.
#
Before liberalization, you really just saw the takeoff of Punjab and Haryana
#
because of the Green Revolution, right?
#
After liberalization, the southern and the western states just really take off.
#
They are the biggest beneficiaries from liberalization.
#
For various reasons, they had the state capacity, right?
#
To actually be able to invite and make it conducive for private sector activity,
#
which is very important post liberalization.
#
And they have the human capital, right?
#
So, I mean, these are states that are richer.
#
They have a population which is more educated,
#
which is a more educated workforce,
#
which is why private enterprise comes to those places.
#
And the last part is there was a small elite
#
that just really benefited through the IT revolution, right?
#
India became a service exports economy
#
and the regions that benefited the most were the south.
#
And what ended up happening was,
#
normally when you have very poor regions and very rich regions within a country,
#
they start converging, right?
#
For various reasons, migration, catch-up,
#
there are all sorts of development explanations for it.
#
In India, that has not been the case.
#
They are still diverging.
#
And what I mean by that is that the richest states are still growing
#
at a faster pace than the poorer states are growing.
#
So everyone is growing economically, right?
#
So the growth rate is positive for everyone.
#
But the rich states are growing faster than the poor states,
#
I mean, I'm showing graph with my fingers in a clumsy way for an audio show,
#
but it looks like these states are diverging in their economic outcomes,
#
which means these states continue,
#
the northern states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
#
they continue to be poorer longer, right?
#
Their fertility rates were going to continue
#
to be higher than the southern states and they're going to drop later,
#
which means this malapportionment problem
#
that we're talking about is only going to get worse.
#
So by kicking the can down from 2001 to 2026,
#
what they were thinking was,
#
okay, the worst of the population boom is over.
#
India is now at a much higher growth rate.
#
The states will play catch up.
#
It's going to even out.
#
When we revisit the problem in 2026, it won't be that bad.
#
Actually, it is really bad.
#
So even before 2026, it was bad,
#
but after 2026, it is particularly dire.
#
So, you know, like, first of all, in my last episode with JP Narayan,
#
he spoke about the messy compromises of politics
#
that sometimes, you know,
#
you have to take a few unpleasant decisions
#
to make other things politically possible.
#
And what you're talking about, you know, exactly falls into that,
#
that, you know, ultimately,
#
the dharma of a political party is to come to power.
#
And whatever they do is really a bonus for us.
#
And for the Vajpayee government as part of the NDA coalition,
#
I guess they had to kick the can down the road.
#
But at the same time, that allowed them to achieve a bunch of things
#
which were great for us and indeed great for the next government
#
as well as the effects kept playing out over the rest of that.
#
So, you know, over the rest of that decade,
#
give me, like, when you say that things are really bad,
#
that things haven't gotten sorted out as, you know, might have been expected,
#
give me a sense of all the different ways
#
in which this is a particularly messy problem today.
#
What has been the consequence of that freeze,
#
you know, starting all the way from first 76 and then 2001
#
and now, you know, heavy off almost 50 years later.
#
So, you know, in 1976, if we look at,
#
so, you know, maybe I should say what is malapportionment, okay?
#
So, a perfectly apportioned system would be where every state
#
has exactly the number of constituencies and therefore MPs
#
based on its proportion of population in the union, right?
#
That would be a perfectly apportioned state.
#
Now, there can be many reasons for malapportionment.
#
So, for instance, between two decennial census,
#
let's say that there are certain regions that grow incredibly fast, right?
#
So, we had that moment in, you know, I grew up in Delhi,
#
I saw this happening in Gurgaon.
#
Between 2001 and 2011, Gurgaon just grew not like a little bit,
#
like many, many times over, both economically and in population.
#
In fact, the census came so late
#
that they hadn't even categorized it as an urban area, right?
#
That's how quickly the place grew and they didn't have a municipal government.
#
Currently, the single most malapportioned constituency,
#
I believe in India, is somewhere in Maharashtra, in Thane.
#
And this is because, you know, within the state, remember,
#
we managed to redistrict based on 2001 numbers and it actually evens out.
#
But between two census, if Thane grows really quickly,
#
then there is going to be some malapportionment, right?
#
So, there is that kind of malapportionment,
#
which can happen because of migration,
#
it can happen because a region grew very quickly.
#
It can happen for a host of reasons.
#
What I'm talking about in terms of malapportionment is,
#
because of the 1976 freeze,
#
now different states actually have MPs which are not proportional
#
to the population of that particular state within the union, right?
#
So, in 2001, when they were already kicking the can further down the road
#
and they shouldn't have, the malapportionment was pretty bad.
#
So, even in 2001, Tamil Nadu had five parliamentary seats
#
more than its proportion of population within the union.
#
And Uttar Pradesh had eight seats less than its population proportion, right?
#
And this is quite a big number, right?
#
And so, now you can start counting them.
#
It's going to be quite tedious if I tell you about every state,
#
but group together, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra
#
are typically the states which are gaining in the malapportionment.
#
That is, they are overrepresented.
#
And you have Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
#
these are the states which are typically underrepresented, okay?
#
So, that's the rough thing.
#
Now, since they kicked the can down to 2026, in 2022,
#
last year when I gave the presentation on,
#
based on which you asked me to come on today's podcast,
#
we don't have census data, right?
#
So, now we are basing this purely on population projections.
#
And we can talk about how we did this.
#
You have to triangulate based on election commission data
#
of how many election cards have been issued.
#
We've triangulated using Aadhaar data of what is the penetration in each state
#
and how many Aadhaar cards have been issued and so on.
#
And I'm absolutely sure that I don't have the precise numbers
#
for the population of each state, but nobody else does either.
#
At least they haven't released it.
#
But whatever over-under error we have, it's not even...
#
I mean, I don't even think we are off by one seat.
#
One parliamentary seat, that is.
#
Like, it's going to be...
#
We're going to be off just a little bit.
#
But I just want to put this out there,
#
that everything I say after 2011 is not based on census numbers,
#
it's based on a projection.
#
So, last year when I ran the numbers,
#
Tamil Nadu now has nine seats more than its proportion of population in the Union.
#
Kerala has six seats more than its proportion of population in the Union.
#
And Uttar Pradesh has 12 seats less than it should have.
#
And Bihar has nine seats less than it should have.
#
And when I say should, I mean according...
#
Because I have a normative attachment to the original constitutional scheme
#
that each constituency size is roughly equal, right?
#
So that's what I mean by it should have.
#
So that's where we are today.
#
And that's why I gave you the numbers.
#
Again, for these four states, based on these numbers of over and under,
#
an MP represents 3.1 million Biharis,
#
as opposed to an MP from Kerala represents 1.7 million Keralites.
#
So that's what we have.
#
The smaller states, obviously, are not as malapportioned.
#
The larger the state, the worse it is.
#
Now, we've been talking about states so far as if they are entities.
#
And they really aren't, right?
#
There's a political and geographical entity called Uttar Pradesh.
#
But when it comes to what we are talking about,
#
which is voting and how it affects the franchise of the individual voter,
#
now we need to go one step down, right?
#
We're no longer talking about how many UP MPs should be in parliament
#
or should not be in parliament.
#
We're really talking about what's happening to the UP voter.
#
Now, here we are actually having quite bad outcomes.
#
And when I say bad, I mean relative to what is my vision for India, right?
#
So, as I mentioned many times,
#
fertility rates for poorer people drops later, right?
#
So, regions that are poor, where fertility rates were higher longer
#
after 1971 census, are going to be underrepresented.
#
So, what we're doing is that we're taking away the franchise from the poorest people.
#
Because by definition, it's the poorest people whose fertility rates dropped later.
#
This is very problematic, according to me.
#
Like, of all the things that are worrying about not having sensible representation,
#
taking away the voice of the poorest people and their franchise is,
#
I think, the worst of it.
#
The other aspect, which is also very disturbing,
#
is that the youth are underrepresented, right?
#
Now, again, just logic, right?
#
The poorer states, where fertility rates dropped later,
#
are also the younger states because kids were born more recently.
#
45%, I believe, of Bihar is under the age of 25.
#
No, actually, for Bihar, it's about 48%.
#
For Uttar Pradesh, it's about 45%.
#
So, what we are really doing now is,
#
if you have this kind of malapportionment and this kind of asymmetry,
#
younger people have a lesser voice in parliament than older people.
#
I don't mean younger people have a lesser voice in parliament
#
because of the age of parliamentarians and stuff like that.
#
That's a whole separate matter.
#
I mean, younger people have a lesser voice
#
in choosing their elected representative to parliament than older people.
#
The median age in Bihar is 19,
#
and the median age in Kerala is 2x that.
#
Now, we are reaching a situation where
#
the youngest people who have the most at stake,
#
when we're talking about the future of the republic,
#
are all concentrated in these areas
#
and will continue to remain concentrated in these areas.
#
So, poor people are underrepresented,
#
young people are underrepresented.
#
Now, as if that wasn't bad enough,
#
I can also go into other kinds of groups who are typically disenfranchised.
#
So, if you look at SCST fertility, again,
#
that dropped later than upper-caste,
#
and ST fertility rates are higher than SC,
#
that is, scheduled tribe rates are higher than scheduled caste rates,
#
and also dropped later than scheduled caste rates,
#
compared to the rest of the population.
#
So, once again, you have a situation,
#
until this got slightly adjusted in the 2008 delimitation order,
#
you have a situation where SCST groups are underrepresented.
#
So, I think those constituencies were
#
malapportioned by almost five to six seats,
#
and I think after the 2008 order now,
#
they're only malapportioned by four seats.
#
That is, they have four seats less than they should have had,
#
if we had done this by equal constituency size in every state.
#
The other group, and this is a slightly invisible group
#
and a complicated argument,
#
is Muslims relative to all other groups.
#
Muslims tend to be poorer and tend to have higher fertility rates than Hindus.
#
Now, before all the stupid invades people's head,
#
because there's so much stupid misinformation out there on WhatsApp,
#
this doesn't mean Muslims will overpower Hindus
#
or they will outnumber Hindus,
#
because that's typically where this argument goes on WhatsApp, right?
#
So, when I say Muslim fertility rates are slightly higher than that of Hindus,
#
and they drop later than that of Hindus,
#
we must immediately keep in mind that the Hindu base
#
is six to seven times, I think six or six point one times,
#
the Muslim population base, right?
#
So, even with a slightly high fertility rate,
#
you're never going to have more Muslims than you're going to have Hindus.
#
And sorry for the detour and thanks for indulging me,
#
but I just want to put it out there,
#
because normally when I say this,
#
the standard thing I read in the WhatsApp forwards is that.
#
And I'd also like to double down on this,
#
because I remember a conversation I had three or four years back
#
where there's this friend of mine who did an MBA
#
and all that very educated guy now working at a top production house
#
told me one day after a poker game.
#
So, it was actually six years ago, because that's when I last played.
#
And he said, Amit, do you know Muslims have reproduced
#
this replacement rate of nine and Hindus are this.
#
And I just laughed at his face and I said,
#
spent 30 seconds thinking about it.
#
First of all, the two rates are pretty close.
#
And the only reason the rate for Muslims is slightly higher
#
is Muslims tend to be poorer and poorer people tend to have more kids.
#
And as it is, if you look at the data, both rates are falling.
#
Prosperity takes care of everything.
#
So, it just makes me so mad.
#
It's such a stupid argument.
#
And if you don't account for the base,
#
then immediately people jump to the conclusion that,
#
oh, it must be true that Muslims will very soon outnumber Hindus.
#
It's not going to happen at current fertility rates ever.
#
Some enormous crazy shock like an asteroid
#
hitting most of the Hindu population has to happen for that.
#
So, I just want to leave that aside.
#
Now, hopefully that doesn't happen.
#
Now, why this matters is,
#
any group for whom the fertility rate drops is going to be malapportioned.
#
Now, the truth of it is in Uttar Pradesh,
#
whether you're a Hindu or a Muslim, you are horribly malapportioned, right?
#
But Muslims are more likely to be malapportioned today
#
than Muslims in previous decades, right?
#
And their growth rate was different than the Hindu growth rate in the last decade,
#
which again means they are going to be more or rather adversely affected by the freeze.
#
So, I just want to caveat that, right?
#
So, it's not that, oh my God, Muslims are like completely losing franchise
#
It's a pretty small number compared to Hindus within the same state.
#
But it's important to highlight.
#
So, when we say that these groups are underrepresented,
#
it's because the constituency size is too large.
#
I will say just one last thing about the underrepresentation part.
#
This really starts mattering when we look at the voter turnout, okay?
#
And unfortunately, I can't show the graph to all the listeners.
#
Maybe I can put it up later.
#
The voter turnout is inversely proportionate to constituency size, right?
#
So, smaller constituencies, the voter turnout, for instance, in Kerala,
#
is 20 percentage points higher than the voter turnout in constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, right?
#
So, this really starts mattering.
#
So, if the voter turnout is not high, what we are saying is
#
people know that they are disenfranchised and their vote matters lesser and lesser,
#
and they're just not going to bother, right?
#
These things put together to me are very disturbing.
#
And they are not disturbing because of this political compromise
#
and how are we going to share seats?
#
And that's a very petty today's politics conversation.
#
For me, the bigger thing at stake is
#
what is our vision for the republic?
#
Not today, not tomorrow, for the next 100 years.
#
And that vision for the republic depends on a particular kind of politics that we are forming.
#
And that particular kind of politics depends on who is included
#
and given a seat at the table.
#
And if we had a vision 75 years ago, or 70 years ago rather, when the constitution came,
#
that everyone should have equal franchise, irrespective of who they are,
#
which region they're born in, what caste, religion, gender,
#
educational ability, tax-paying status.
#
If we still haven't managed to get that today,
#
what does that mean for the politics of tomorrow?
#
So for me, that is the core of this issue.
#
Why we need to solve malapportionment is the core of it.
#
So we should break that part into two things.
#
Number one, India needs more MPs, given its population.
#
We can think about going back to the original constitutional mandate,
#
which is, you know, ratio of one MP to 750,000 people.
#
Now, obviously that becomes quite complicated, right?
#
Because your Lok Sabha size is suddenly going to get very, very large.
#
Your Lok Sabha size is going to be over 1800 MPs.
#
Okay, Rajya Sabha size we can adjust based on, you know, a smaller number.
#
So I think it needs to be more than 545.
#
Now, it's a question for us as a polity to decide,
#
should it be in the 1800s, right?
#
And we go back to the original constitutional vision.
#
Or we've built a new parliament.
#
And once again, it's not large enough.
#
I think the new parliament's size,
#
Lok Sabha would be like 888 seats or something like that, right?
#
But whatever it is, we know that the current number is not doing it.
#
So that's one part of it.
#
So we need more representation.
#
And the second part of it is we need equal representation.
#
Every constituency has to be of the same size, right?
#
Now, to get both of those things,
#
we need to solve the fiscal problem and the other problems.
#
And we can get into that.
#
But the way I see the problem, you asked me,
#
your question was more broadly, what is the outcome of this?
#
Why are we in this bad situation?
#
This is how I view what we are in right now
#
and how that impacts the future.
#
So I want to try and sum up some of what you said
#
because I think it's really important.
#
And also leave a caveat to one of the things you said,
#
not as much a disagreement, but as a further point of nuance.
#
Firstly, you pointed out about how a lot of the rhetoric about delimitation,
#
the righteous rhetoric coming from the South is,
#
why should we be punished for doing well?
#
And you've pointed out the issues with that.
#
But I think the greater problem, as you have pointed out,
#
is that leaving things as they are and not adjusting the seats,
#
we are really punishing the poor.
#
And I think that is a core point.
#
The core point is that poor people tend to have more kids, right?
#
And that leads to all the other three things you mentioned,
#
that therefore, the young are disproportionately,
#
their vote doesn't carry as much power as older people
#
because poor people are having more kids.
#
So there are more young people who are poor
#
or who are in those particular states.
#
And secondly, Muslims and SCST people have tended to be poor.
#
Now, it so happens that in recent years,
#
their fertility rates have also been declining,
#
but they've been declining.
#
They've started declining a little after
#
because relative prosperity came to them a little later.
#
So by punishing the poor, you're punishing the young,
#
you're punishing the SCST, you're punishing the Muslims.
#
And that is something that you should want to set right.
#
And the other great point that you made is where you point out
#
that if we stop thinking in terms of states
#
and think in terms of people,
#
that makes a difference to how we view it, right?
#
You can say that, yes, UP did badly by reward them
#
by giving them more MPs.
#
But the point is, what about a voter in UP?
#
What mistake did he make?
#
Why would you punish him by making his vote count for much less
#
than a voter in CTN or Kerala?
#
When he has not done a particular mistake,
#
so for a moment, take the bigger units out of it
#
and think of the citizen.
#
It is constitutional in this respect as well
#
that all citizens must be treated equally
#
and everybody's vote has to count equally
#
whether they are poor or young or Muslim or SCST
#
and that's not happening right now.
#
I'll add one small thing to what you said.
#
I think this difference also comes
#
because delimitation was created as a political compromise
#
between regional parties or regional branches of Congress
#
and, you know, at that time, the Congress party
#
which was at the Union government
#
and then later with the NDA.
#
Now, there is a difference
#
between what is the interest of the political party
#
or the political representative
#
and the interest of the people, right?
#
And I want to make that difference.
#
We normally, the way we set up the delimitation question,
#
and again, I might be uncharitable
#
because I've only heard this in angry,
#
you know, half Tamil conversations
#
and those kinds of environments are on WhatsApp groups.
#
Normally, the way this works
#
is we put all people in Tamil Nadu as a monolith
#
and presume that their preferences are X, right?
#
And then the preferences of UP people are Y
#
and what are the preferences of Tamil Nadu people?
#
Their preferences are to be educated
#
and believe in good governance
#
and lower levels of population growth
#
and all the things they consider good.
#
And UP, their preference must be to be poor
#
and have too many kids and live in awful environments.
#
But that's morally a very complicated argument,
#
first of all, to assume that.
#
But the second part is,
#
it's also analytically a very complicated argument
#
because we have to go back to public choice 101.
#
Individuals have preferences,
#
groups cannot have preferences,
#
groups have choices, right?
#
So only individuals can have a preference.
#
Now, it's totally possible that someone in Tamil Nadu
#
has a preference for Tamil Nadu
#
having an asymmetrically higher representation
#
and someone says, no, I believe in one person, one vote,
#
we should equalize this.
#
But the choice that has been made
#
by the political class of Tamil Nadu
#
is a choice given a set of rules, right?
#
And what is that given set of rules and institutions?
#
It's a world where the revenue raised in Tamil Nadu
#
does not completely stay in Tamil Nadu.
#
So we shouldn't confuse preferences with choices, right?
#
People in Tamil Nadu may have a preference to eat rice
#
or a preference to eat beef,
#
but there is no universal preference.
#
It's an individual's preference
#
and they have a preference ordering, it assumes.
#
People prefer and then make a choice, right?
#
Groups choose given certain institutions and incentives.
#
So a person in Tamil Nadu
#
is going to have a preference for rice
#
irrespective of how we share the fiscal pie.
#
But that person is going to choose politically differently
#
based on how much they are malapportioned
#
and their representative is now a new individual
#
with their own preferences and their own constraints
#
and they are going to choose differently, right?
#
And what does an MP or a political party leader
#
He wants to have control over more resources
#
to be able to redistribute or distribute resources
#
within his states to his electors
#
so that he has a better chance of reelection.
#
That's what this is really about.
#
So I want to step away first of all
#
from the othering of the people
#
and secondly, blaming people for birth accidents
#
as if it's their preference to have been born
#
in a region that was poor with horrible governance.
#
I mean, this is literally no fault of anyone.
#
And now the rhetoric is taking an even more dangerous form
#
where they say, oh, we should punish them.
#
And usually what people mean is
#
we should punish those who are governing, right?
#
We should punish the cabinet ministers
#
and the union ministers in charge of UP and Bihar
#
But what they actually end up doing
#
is they end up punishing the individual voter, right?
#
So you're absolutely right
#
to dig into the nuance on that point.
#
And this is also where public choice
#
can illuminate things analytically
#
and not just rhetorically
#
in the way we talk about the discourse.
#
And another sort of nuance I want to talk about
#
is that one, I completely agree with you
#
that it is but to be expected
#
that if your vote counts for less,
#
voter turnout will be lower.
#
So therefore you will have less people
#
say turn up for voting in a constituency in UP than in TN.
#
Now Pranay Kutasane, our mutual friend,
#
in his latest newsletter,
#
which of course I'll link from the show notes,
#
points out that in 2014,
#
and I think he gets this from a study
#
by Milan Vestrov and Jamie Hinson,
#
but in 2014, there were more actual voters
#
per constituency than in TN than in UP on average.
#
And the explanation he offers
#
is different from yours.
#
Explanation is that, quote,
#
it perhaps indicates that a large number
#
of registered voters in UP have migrated
#
outside their constituencies,
#
but still remain registered, the stop quote.
#
And I want to therefore bring up
#
sort of a provocative point here
#
and a provocative point of view
#
by someone we are both close to, Ajay Shah.
#
And I was having dinner with Ajay
#
just before our recording.
#
And Ajay said that the best thing to do
#
is to kick the can down the road.
#
Now why is this best thing to do?
#
He says the problem will solve itself.
#
It will not exist in 20 years
#
because migration will take care of it.
#
Because what is happening even now
#
in UP, Bihar and everything
#
is that people are migrating
#
in large numbers from states
#
that are governed poorly
#
to states that are governed well,
#
from poor states to rich states,
#
because that's where wealth lies.
#
Like, you know, he speaks about
#
how so many farmers in Tamil Nadu
#
today do not speak Tamil.
#
They speak Hindi because all the,
#
you know, the low level Mazur kind of jobs,
#
the Tamil don't do anymore.
#
So these migrants come in
#
and that automatically is reallocating people.
#
Like, you know, it goes back to this old,
#
it goes back to this old point
#
that James C. Scott makes
#
that states typically don't really care
#
about land or whatever.
#
They care about people, you know.
#
And it seems to me that there is,
#
and even though we are not
#
federal enough and all of that,
#
they just boil down to states in a sense
#
competing with good policies
#
and good governance and with the wealth
#
and perhaps not states competing per se,
#
but it appearing that competing is a metaphor,
#
but people allocate themselves
#
to states with greater wealth
#
and therefore the delimitation problem
#
solves itself and becomes moot in 20 years.
#
Now, I don't know enough to really comment
#
but it's an interesting point of view
#
Well, I think Ajay is wrong.
#
I'll break it down into two parts.
#
So one is a philosophical reason
#
and the other is, you know,
#
what's happening on the ground.
#
So India actually has very low levels of migration.
#
Most migration, a bulk of it,
#
which is about 62% is migration
#
within the same district.
#
Another 26% of migration is between districts,
#
And only 12% of the movement is interstate.
#
I believe this is based on 2011 numbers.
#
Migration has changed a little bit
#
since then, since 2011,
#
but the general trend hasn't changed that much.
#
Interstate migrants represented only 4%
#
of the population in 2011.
#
So now we're more than a decade away from 2011.
#
So surely that must have changed.
#
But it's not like that number has become 20%.
#
And the malapportionment is way higher.
#
It's too high to get evened out by migration
#
And I can only comment based on current policies.
#
Now, if you look at those moving
#
in less than five years,
#
that is between 2001 and 2011 census,
#
because that's all we have,
#
that number of migrants is 1%.
#
So this is quite important.
#
The five-year interval of interstate migration
#
in the US is almost 10%.
#
And China actually controls movement of people
#
in a way that India doesn't.
#
So now there are many reasons for this.
#
Now it's wholly possible, as Ajay says,
#
that migration is actually taking place.
#
But these people aren't official voters
#
Now, why does that happen?
#
It happens for a number of reasons.
#
We are quite familiar with them.
#
The first is non-portability
#
of all the entitlements given by the government.
#
even the centrally sponsored schemes,
#
they tend to be in the state and region
#
where that person and their family
#
We remember the horror story from COVID,
#
where nobody looked after migrants
#
in the constituency that they had migrated to.
#
Now, when they reach their constituency in Bihar,
#
and Bihar has a fifth of the state capacity as Bombay,
#
they were given a warm welcome,
#
they were given rations,
#
and they were welcomed back.
#
They are voters in that state.
#
Their family is voters in that state.
#
And they are not voters in Mumbai.
#
Had they been voters in Mumbai,
#
Mumbai politicians would have ensured
#
and they don't have to live
#
in these dire circumstances.
#
No, no, I'll just interrupt there and point out
#
that I have spoken to Mumbai taxi drivers
#
and auto drivers who are voters,
#
both where they came from and in Mumbai.
#
but I'm sure that's a negligible number.
#
But again, I'm talking about the broader numbers, right?
#
Because India has very large numbers.
#
So what tends to happen to us,
#
and this is why we rely so much on census data
#
and it's a shame we don't have it,
#
is otherwise it's anecdotal.
#
And our lived experience
#
is typically in a very small sliver
#
of middle class to upper middle class India, right?
#
A cab driver in Mumbai is actually middle class.
#
If you look at all of India's income,
#
he falls pretty much in the middle, right?
#
So he probably managed to get his address changed
#
and managed to get some kind
#
of permanent address situation created.
#
The other kinds of frictions
#
that make people stay back is one,
#
urban housing is in such a dire situation
#
that people try not to bring their families.
#
So only one person in the family migrates
#
and the rest remain behind,
#
which is why the family tends to vote
#
in the home constituency.
#
That's reason number two.
#
And reason number three is other frictions
#
like the inability to sell land.
#
If you can't sell your greatest or most valuable asset
#
and that asset and its value and security
#
depends on the political class
#
where the immobile asset is,
#
you're going to try and make sure
#
that you have some vote or voice in that area.
#
So there are a host of frictions
#
and I'm sure there are people who are now changing.
#
I'm sure Aadhaar has brought about quite a big change
#
in people's ability to start having more legibility
#
after they migrate, right?
#
People's ability to actually get access to resources
#
without being in a particular location.
#
But where I disagree with Ajay is in terms of numbers
#
that the problem will solve itself in 20 years.
#
That the numbers, the current trend of migration
#
is nowhere close to solving itself in 20 years.
#
It's going to take way longer.
#
So that's my empirical disagreement with Ajay.
#
My philosophical disagreement with Ajay is
#
are we seriously thinking about creating a kind of republic
#
where you have to literally move location
#
from where you were born to get franchise?
#
That's a disturbing thought to me.
#
I come from a family of migrants.
#
No one in my family has actually lived where they were born
#
or where their parents were born or where they were raised.
#
Every generation going back four generations, we've moved.
#
So I know a thing or two about voting with one's feet
#
and looking for opportunities and things like that.
#
But it assumes an enormous amount of privilege.
#
It is not easy to vote with your feet.
#
It is difficult to move even within your district.
#
It is very difficult to move to another state
#
where you don't know the language.
#
So we might romanticize this idea that,
#
oh, construction sites in Tamil Nadu now,
#
the lingua franca has become Hindi
#
because most of the construction workers are Hindi.
#
And that sounds lovely and quite romantic
#
and very pluralistic and all of those things.
#
But it is an incredibly high bar for someone
#
to have to meet just to get equal franchise.
#
Because of a birth accident.
#
So philosophically, actually,
#
I have an even more fundamental difference than Ajay.
#
Because even empirically,
#
maybe the 2021 census that was supposed to come out
#
will eventually come out.
#
And I will be proved completely wrong about migration trends.
#
And actually we are migrating much, much more.
#
And the problem might solve itself.
#
But philosophically, it's still a very big problem.
#
I don't know about other people.
#
And when I put on my pragmatic hat,
#
maybe, sure, even I would hatch a bunch of political compromises.
#
But when I think about this
#
from a first principles point of view
#
and a constitutional design point of view,
#
then you have to go back to the drawing board
#
and say, what kind of republic do we envision for India?
#
And the kind of republic at least I envision for India,
#
franchise should not be dependent on birth accident.
#
Yeah, I mean, on the empirical matter,
#
I think Ajay is referring to other kinds of data,
#
which are more recent than 2011.
#
But I'll leave that to him and you to discuss separately.
#
But as you can imagine, on the philosophical point,
#
As also on the practical point that you pointed out,
#
that if you're forced to work with your feet,
#
privileged people like you and me are way more able to do so
#
than those who are much poorer.
#
And the basic point is,
#
if I am, say, a laborer in Chhapra in Bihar,
#
and I'm saying that I don't want to move anywhere.
#
And I want my vote to count as much as anybody else.
#
Then that is simply something that the Indian Republic
#
has already guaranteed in the constitution
#
and we should be able to provide that.
#
There's a second unintended consequence
#
of what Ajay is saying,
#
which is how do we know that if people migrate
#
in the numbers that is required to even the problem out,
#
you won't get some serious NIMBYism.
#
I mean, not in my backyard, right?
#
Like people are now going to start erecting barriers
#
this is coming from very cantankerous Tamil-speaking uncles
#
who hate the fact that people who don't speak Tamil
#
are, according to them, and quote unquote,
#
the word they use is invading Tamil Nadu, right?
#
I mean, can you imagine?
#
So the whole thing is preposterous, of course.
#
But if people are othering those in Uttar Pradesh
#
based on a governance problem that started 200 years ago,
#
I mean, how can I have any confidence
#
that they won't start othering them
#
when they move down the street?
#
So this is something we need to think about.
#
I think it's excellent for prosperity.
#
Resources need to move to the highest valued use.
#
And eventually Ajay is right.
#
In a 50, 60-year timeframe,
#
migration will have to solve some of this problem
#
because Kerala is going to be too old.
#
Tamil Nadu is going to be too old,
#
which means a younger group of people need to come in
#
Otherwise, Kerala and Tamil Nadu would decline,
#
and this whole problem will go away for a different reason,
#
which is a fiscal reason.
#
But I'm not sure anything can compensate
#
at the speed at which we need to resolve this problem today.
#
So what I'm now going to do is...
#
so I'm going to migrate to the kitchen
#
to get myself a diet coke.
#
We'll take a quick commercial break.
#
And on the other side of the break,
#
we shall talk about, okay,
#
how do we solve this problem then?
#
Have you always wanted to be a writer
#
but never quite gotten down to it?
#
Well, I'd love to help you.
#
I've enjoyed teaching 27 cohorts of my online course,
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The Art of Clear Writing,
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#
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I share all I know about the craft
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There are many exercises, much interaction,
#
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#
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#
head on over to register
#
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#
That's indiahankar.com slash clear writing.
#
doesn't require God-given talent,
#
just a willingness to work hard
#
and a clear idea of what you need to do
#
Welcome back to the Scene in the Unseen.
#
I'm chatting with the wonderful Shruti Rajgopalan,
#
who is arguing fiercely for one person, one vote.
#
Everyone's vote should count exactly the same.
#
Why is this even controversial?
#
Well, it's controversial
#
because of all kinds of political reasons.
#
But before we get into that,
#
or in fact, we are actually getting into it,
#
if we talk about possible solutions,
#
what are the possible solutions?
#
How could this play out?
#
So, you know, we have to go back to
#
the very beginning of the course,
#
you know, we have to go back to,
#
you know, maybe, I don't know,
#
when it was in the conversation,
#
when we were talking about
#
why it happened in the first place, right?
#
If you think that the problem
#
or the reason it happened is population control,
#
then there is really no sensible solution
#
because we're going to keep blaming each other, right?
#
Different states are going to blame the other,
#
depending on which decade you ask.
#
that was just the ostensible reason.
#
that our bicameralism doesn't function very well.
#
And we are fiscally extremely centralized.
#
So a little bit of history on this.
#
The union-state split in tax shares
#
used to be sometimes as high as,
#
Now, I believe it is 41%, right?
#
The GST has, of course,
#
complicated things a little bit more
#
because now there's state GST
#
that it's allowed to keep,
#
and some of it may come back to the state,
#
depending on which state it is.
#
And then each state has to have
#
its own revenue-raising capacity, right?
#
These are typically all the things
#
left outside of GST and state GST,
#
of course, and property taxes.
#
Different states have different
#
revenue-raising ability, right?
#
And the fact that their money
#
is going to go somewhere else
#
and not come back to their voters
#
who are also their taxpayers,
#
that's the big problem, right?
#
And this takes me back.
#
I didn't realize that, you know,
#
Vincent Ostrom and his theory
#
of the compound republic is once again
#
going to make an appearance at this point,
#
but I think it's very important
#
because my episode with you
#
on the 73rd and 74th amendment,
#
I was very much relying
#
on Eleanor and Vincent Ostrom's
#
and, you know, Richard Wagner,
#
and the political voter
#
and their representative
#
has to be extremely tight.
#
If it's loose, it's a problem.
#
And you can imagine that
#
it's never going to be tight
#
if it's, you know, very far removed
#
and it is going to be the union government
#
So that's one part of the problem.
#
So one way to solve this problem overnight,
#
okay, is dramatically fiscally federalize.
#
Okay, this is basically the solution
#
of every other federation.
#
at uneven rates within the federation.
#
And yet they don't have
#
to do this kind of stuff, right?
#
Either because they are
#
fiscally highly federalized
#
and or because their bicameral
#
legislature system works very well.
#
So if we fiscally federalize a fair bit
#
and we amend some parts
#
in particular, I'm referring
#
to the provision for the money bill,
#
If we manage to do these two things,
#
then we don't need any other change
#
in the current constitutional design, right?
#
so I don't want to think about
#
Now I'm wearing my public choice hat again.
#
an institutional context
#
and then we can sort of think about
#
what are the first order
#
and second order effects
#
So if we dramatically fiscally federalize
#
and we adjust some aspects
#
India will have no malapportionment.
#
In fact, India will even have
#
lesser malapportionment
#
than countries like the United States,
#
because in our upper house,
#
we're not going to have
#
the Wyoming-California problem, right?
#
Both are perfectly apportioned
#
You keep your resources,
#
Now there is still a second order issue
#
of not all states in India
#
are growing at the same rate, right?
#
The rich states are growing richer faster
#
than the poor states are growing.
#
in each state has almost
#
a one-to-one correlation.
#
Now someone might come back
#
you are so big on one person, one vote
#
and you want totally equal opportunity
#
when it comes to franchise
#
for someone in Uttar Pradesh
#
versus someone in Tamil Nadu.
#
But when it comes to fiscal resources,
#
now you've become, you know,
#
now you've flipped on us, right?
#
for intergovernmental transfers
#
they are absolutely required
#
to invest in human capital
#
in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
#
and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan.
#
I keep taking the names
#
of the same four big states.
#
There are also so smaller states
#
There are bigger states
#
which are not problematic,
#
but you get where I'm going with this.
#
The problem with intergovernmental transfers
#
is it doesn't incentivize
#
in that particular state
#
public finance incentive problem
#
that we have to solve at some level.
#
malapportionment goes away,
#
can be taken away overnight,
#
still a functional union.
#
You know, the South States
#
won't suddenly start talking
#
which happens on regional TV channels.
#
So all that will go away.
#
But we won't have enough resources
#
what I said about franchise
#
is equally true for everything else.
#
They have more young people
#
that we need to invest in.
#
There are more disenfranchised minorities
#
because their fertility rates
#
And then, you know, again,
#
we fall into the same pattern,
#
but they can vote with their feet,
#
certain amount of privilege.
#
So option or solution one
#
we want to keep some level
#
of the intergovernmental transfers,
#
they are fellow countrymen.
#
shouldn't affect their ability
#
to get a midday meal scheme
#
So let's say that's the
#
Now we need to completely reformulate
#
how we think of our bicameralism.
#
has to look very different.
#
has written about this.
#
has written about this.
#
They are imagining the upper house
#
the money bill problem.
#
A very well represented upper house
#
where the richer states
#
are going to be overrepresented
#
only in the upper house,
#
because everyone gets two seats
#
or whatever the number is.
#
if that house has some powers.
#
And if the matter is one
#
irrespective of delimitation.
#
of the constitutional design
#
that needs to be adjusted.
#
Another part of the constitutional design
#
that needs to be adjusted
#
is provisions like Article 3.
#
Article 3 is the creation
#
carving out of a new state
#
renaming of a new state,
#
into a union territory.
#
a constitutional amendment.
#
And we've seen this happen.
#
that can actually dismiss
#
an elected legislature.
#
It's extraordinary how we
#
do emergency powers in India.
#
But we've had situations
#
continued for years on end.
#
I mean, I was growing up
#
was sort of at its peak.
#
president's rule for years.
#
You know, northeastern states.
#
we shouldn't create incentives
#
we also don't want a situation
#
lose their state status.
#
proper creation of states
#
was actually the Vajpayee government
#
it needs to pass the resolution
#
has to pass in the state legislature
#
before we actually pass
#
the resolution in parliament.
#
So he did things the right way
#
did things the right way.
#
But we know what happened
#
with Jammu and Kashmir.
#
and we can disagree upon
#
or you can be on any side
#
at midnight through voice votes.
#
This is a very big problem.
#
figure out the council of house
#
as Nitin Pai has recommended
#
how we think about Article 3
#
and up the amendment requirements.
#
We need to fix money bill.
#
There's another small issue
#
but it's actually quite important here.
#
This is not part of the constitution
#
but it's the representation
#
In 2003, there was an amendment
#
the domicile requirement.
#
So people could be members
#
even if they were not domiciled
#
Now one may say domicile
#
is a pretty weak requirement.
#
Anyone can get a local address
#
But we don't even have that.
#
So what ends up happening
#
once we know which party is sending
#
is in power at the state level
#
and who is sending members
#
they just pick their favorite members
#
that they are representing
#
Another way of thinking about it is
#
you have the upper house
#
through direct election.
#
that requirement for the Senate.
#
Now senators are also directly
#
elected by the people in the US.
#
The two senators per state.
#
So we could also do that for India
#
in the council of states
#
So if you have system two
#
which is council of states
#
now needs to pass through Rajya Sabha
#
and you have a system where
#
and willy-nilly uncreated
#
and turn into union territories
#
and you fix the domicile requirement
#
Now what are the outcomes
#
We are going to see that
#
are going to have much more voice
#
relative to states like Uttar Pradesh.
#
And if money bills need to pass
#
in both houses of parliament
#
you can have some level
#
of intergovernmental transfers.
#
Now before the Tamilians
#
get too happy about this
#
that people in Tripura and Nagaland
#
And are we comfortable with that
#
this was never a question
#
representing different interests
#
and each of those interests
#
needs to have an equal voice.
#
That was never the issue.
#
The issue was always one of money.
#
So Tamil Nadu is not exactly
#
allying with the smaller states
#
with a slower population growth.
#
It's allying with richer states.
#
So now if Goa is going to get
#
if Sikkim is going to get
#
if all your northeastern states
#
I don't know the answer to that.
#
But it will solve the problem
#
massive malapportionment
#
if you look at malapportionment
#
by doing a senate style design
#
you're going to get an outcome
#
which is actually much worse
#
is just truly a giant state.
#
And even the smaller states
#
I say this quote unquote
#
They're the size of countries in India.
#
one malapportionment problem
#
malapportionment problem.
#
had proportional representation
#
in both houses of parliament
#
roughly based on population
#
even in the upper house.
#
depends on what kind of republic
#
a senate system downstream.
#
What happens 40-50 years from today
#
when India really urbanizes
#
and the center and the border
#
and the hilly regions hollow out
#
and people move to cities?
#
and therefore Karnataka
#
suddenly gets much bigger?
#
And what if all those other places
#
Then you're going to have
#
which is they still get two votes
#
irrespective of economic activity.
#
you're going to be held hostage.
#
downstream consequences
#
Lok Sabha malapportionment.
#
So that's the good thing about this.
#
Now I have a fantastical idea.
#
which I really, really love
#
and which we should discuss further
#
and we should also discuss
#
the ridiculous pushback you got.
#
you got to it a while back
#
which I don't really understand
#
Pushback is always fine.
#
that have been mooted by others
#
that you've spoken about.
#
But first I want to say
#
that the moment you said
#
that Bangalore could have
#
three times as many people
#
everybody who is in Bangalore
#
now thought, oh my God,
#
the traffic is already so bad.
#
Actually, it'll probably be much better
#
if there are three times
#
Also, every time you say bicameral
#
you said of having chocolate
#
with a double portion of caramel.
#
what's coming to my head.
#
I think you need to eat some sugar
#
is becoming dizzy and fuzzy.
#
when you only eat carbs and sugar.
#
You start hallucinating
#
and saying ridiculous things.
#
and I'm feeling perfectly fine.
#
in that incredible presentation
#
made me call you for the show.
#
You'd spoken about the core conflict
#
and fiscal free riding,
#
And asymmetric democracy
#
obviously is every vote
#
And then you speak about how,
#
one way of sorting this out
#
is fiscally decentralized completely.
#
That changes the whole game.
#
you know, Pranay spoke about
#
how the first step that he proposes
#
The third is the Senate thing.
#
vertical devolution of resources.
#
in increasing vertical devolution,
#
how the tax resources are split
#
between the union government
#
and all states as a whole.
#
keeps less money to itself.
#
All states gain to stand together.
#
And he's elaborated on that.
#
My question to you is this.
#
each of these two proposed solutions
#
that we can't at this point
#
view these solutions in isolation.
#
in the political context of the day
#
where all the different parties
#
are bringing their sets of interest
#
to the table and making choices
#
And I want you to therefore
#
break down both of these
#
possible families of solutions.
#
Like there's a family of
#
fiscal decentralization solutions,
#
and ditto with, you know,
#
the Rajya Sabha becoming
#
and sort of solving that.
#
So tell me about what are,
#
give me a sense of the politics
#
in terms of what are the interests,
#
you know, like BJP's interest
#
You know, I think, yeah,
#
Milan Vaishnava and James Hinson
#
did a simulation in 2014
#
that what would have happened
#
if the seats were properly allocated.
#
would have got 17 more seats
#
than they actually did.
#
I have a disagreement with that,
#
but I'll talk about that in a minute.
#
with that leap they made.
#
But it's otherwise a very good paper.
#
The disagreement I have is
#
that if we break constituencies
#
that you can say both halves
#
or all thirds of a constituency
#
would have then ended up
#
In fact, I think the larger
#
that an umbrella movement
#
like the Hindutva movement
#
can actually win seats.
#
The more you break parties
#
that they will be representative.
#
Right now, a very large number
#
of people trapped in a constituency
#
are trying to find common ground.
#
And it's very difficult
#
given how plural India is.
#
If we made the constituency
#
it doesn't follow to me
#
the assumption they made,
#
though I know what they've done.
#
And I'm not saying they've done
#
or done it in bad faith.
#
has to change downstream
#
You're going to lose so many.
#
Yeah, because you're going to lose
#
Ajay is going to listen to this.
#
Milan is going to listen to this.
#
No, they're wonderful scholars.
#
No, they'll be thrilled.
#
I'm sure I'll get long emails
#
you know, discussing this further.
#
And from Ajay, possibly
#
before the episode is out also,
#
My central question there was that
#
and how those different incentives
#
either of these solutions.
#
Because I would imagine
#
that the BJP would want
#
fiscal decentralization.
#
And I haven't quite grogged yet
#
what they would feel about
#
And equally, the South States
#
that particular landscape
#
of politics and incentives.
#
I think as far as the union government,
#
the current union government's
#
incentives are concerned,
#
money is the most important thing.
#
when Vajpayee was trying to do this
#
when Indira Gandhi did this.
#
You can manufacture GDP numbers
#
and all sorts of other things.
#
But revenue is generated
#
in regions that are prosperous
#
where highly productive people live.
#
even though they stand to gain
#
electorally, potentially
#
they already have a stronghold.
#
Millen and Jamie Hinton
#
BJP would have still won
#
then they have an electoral win.
#
But what good is a union government
#
that doesn't have tax resources
#
raises taxes from the states
#
and the biggest federal compromise
#
that it has hatched is the GST.
#
compromise will completely collapse.
#
And states are going to start
#
creating borders around themselves,
#
fiscal borders around themselves.
#
They're going to start raising
#
The rich states that can,
#
they are not going to be willing
#
to share as much of the resource
#
with the union government,
#
which is very bad for it.
#
all these electoral promises
#
and you try to win in regions,
#
then you have to actually
#
spend money in those regions.
#
You have to have political power
#
depends on how many resources
#
That's it within the country.
#
it might be military might
#
and diplomacy and all of those things.
#
controlled by these guys.
#
many seats in Tamil Nadu
#
a hero's welcome there and so on.
#
And they are absolutely
#
the business in Uttar Pradesh today.
#
Even though all of that is true,
#
they will hatch is the one
#
And I think that solution
#
Compromise things in the upper house
#
create a slightly different
#
I think what they'll do is
#
they'll have states of two
#
or three different categories.
#
They'll have union territories.
#
Then they'll have small states
#
And then they'll have large states
#
and small states will probably get
#
one seat and large states
#
will get three or they'll do something.
#
And then they will also break up UP
#
so that they have some representation.
#
OK, if they are thinking
#
about the next 20 years, honestly
#
they should do the first solution.
#
Because the only way a state
#
will gain revenue raising capacity
#
eventually is learning by doing.
#
If you give soft budget
#
constraints to state governments
#
and basically they can free ride
#
on macro and monetary policy
#
set by the RBI and they face
#
no personal strong budget constraint.
#
And for all the really important things
#
which is education and health
#
you have centrally sponsored schemes.
#
So now what's the only thing
#
Law and order and garbage
#
and agricultural subsidies.
#
your state government is about.
#
So the only way out of the solution
#
if BJP is a sensible thinking party
#
they should pick the first solution.
#
They should fiscally federalize dramatically.
#
And when UP is staffed of resources
#
suddenly they'll get their act together.
#
When MP is staffed of resources
#
suddenly they'll get their act together.
#
But if they are staffed of resources
#
when I say they will get their act together
#
I mean elected representatives
#
and if they are coming from the BJP
#
or BJP-esque stronghold
#
they're going to have a rough 15 years
#
without resources to redistribute.
#
the compromise playing out.
#
I will caveat this though.
#
Census happens every 10 years.
#
The delimitation problem
#
we're talking about is 50 years ago almost.
#
Or at least the numbers are frozen
#
to more than 50 years ago.
#
to have had a time in my lifetime
#
when BJP had two seats in the Lok Sabha.
#
I don't think young people today know this.
#
In 1984 BJP had two seats in the Lok Sabha.
#
They dramatically increased it
#
and then of course post Rath Yatra
#
you know BJP was on the up and up
#
but they had two seats in parliament
#
Not the lifetime of the Republic.
#
I was just over 10 years old at the time
#
and you know when we first met
#
and you were an enthusiastic teenager
#
I used to now I just suddenly remembered
#
refer to you as someone
#
who was gurgling all the time.
#
you would have been literally gurgling.
#
Yes, I was born that year.
#
But in my lifetime still, right?
#
So when I talk about the next 40 years
#
I know we are obsessed with the current politics
#
and not even what happened yesterday
#
like what happened in the last hour
#
and what's blowing up on Twitter.
#
But this is not about the BJP.
#
This is not about you and me
#
being left-wing or right-wing
#
wanting to side with the BJP
#
to get a larger share of resources for UP.
#
This is simply not about that.
#
This is much bigger than that.
#
if the BJP will be around 40 years from today.
#
that the Indian National Congress will have
#
I don't know how many do they have
#
in looks about 40 seats, 44?
#
Some embarrassing number.
#
And I want to button here
#
and make a point that JP Narayan
#
in an earlier episode with me
#
but episode 149 made a great point
#
about how he was once close to the powers
#
at being equally respected by all parties.
#
he'd managed to convince
#
let's say proportional representation
#
hey the communists don't want it
#
and they're lying with us
#
obviously must have thought
#
of the Congress's own interest
#
and then the Congress was in power
#
this was after the 2004 elections
#
and her assumption must have been that
#
why should we give away seats
#
we'll be the immediate losers
#
and had she agreed to it then
#
the BJP would be much weaker today
#
and the Congress would be much stronger
#
with proportional representation.
#
just indulge me on my nitpickiness on this
#
but that leap is again difficult to say.
#
No but the vote shares of 20%
#
34% would have been pretty similar
#
the Congress at least would not be 40 seats
#
that's practically impossible
#
there would have been more than 100 seats.
#
but I think what will end up happening
#
if the constituency sizes are smaller
#
is more regional parties
#
will start having a pulse
#
and will speak to the local people
#
so yes there will be Congress.
#
proportional representation
#
not smaller constituencies.
#
if we do proportional representation
#
and actually have sensible sized
#
you know constituencies
#
then that's true you're right.
#
I was just giving that as an example
#
of how parties can change
#
and I think even Nehru at one point
#
I think during the first amendment
#
when he was trying to get the
#
odious first amendment through which
#
you know stifled free speech so much
#
Nehru was warned by someone that
#
hey your party won't always
#
Yes, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
#
and yeah Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
#
you know and if you look at their
#
it's very which are reproduced
#
in Tripur Daman Singh's
#
that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
#
who comes across as a great liberal
#
in that particular context
#
great man as he was otherwise
#
and Nehru had the arrogance
#
Sonia Gandhi had the arrogance
#
no doubt today Modi has the arrogance
#
but things change so fast
#
I think it's fair for people
#
who are in active politics
#
to think on electoral horizons
#
I think it is not sensible
#
and those who are thinking
#
by the question analytically
#
to think in such a short-sighted way
#
definitely agree on that
#
what would have been the
#
consequence for one party
#
can we not say anything
#
I think you and I are both
#
tend to be more long-termist
#
when it comes to design questions
#
so I think that still holds
#
apply public choice principles
#
behind the current politicians
#
I mean with people like Vajpayee
#
and even Nehru before him perhaps
#
but with the current lot
#
I think the immediate interest
#
at the union government
#
is to propel economic growth
#
because that is the only way
#
to politically redistribute
#
I think that's a good thing
#
they're trying to do this
#
and all the tax terrorism
#
you can try and extract
#
that you think people are
#
you know sort of hiding
#
but India apparently recently
#
I read in the newspaper
#
and its tax regime is awful
#
so much the union government
#
the leadership in the BJP
#
over the next 100 years
#
I think they need to pick
#
and I think fiscal federalism
#
regardless of incentives
#
discard these two solutions
#
these are all on the table
#
of my solution as a solution
#
you don't even let me be
#
I was being tongue-in-cheek
#
all these other solutions
#
and go to your radical solution
#
you know how you arrived
#
at your design proposal
#
and therefore the solution is
#
then we need a solution
#
intergovernmental transfers
#
it has to do it a little bit
#
but it doesn't do it too much
#
can actually get the resources
#
to have a very different
#
when they design something
#
it has to be incentive aligned
#
and now the incentive alignment
#
is that the political interest
#
with the economic outcomes
#
of the people in those states
#
this is the presentation
#
that you were talking about
#
is perfectly apportioned
#
original constitutional scheme
#
one MP per 750,000 constituents
#
it will be a loud cacophony
#
but even with 545 people
#
every member of the Lok Sabha
#
actually gets speaking time
#
in fact what happens is
#
because of anti-defection law
#
and bypassing committees
#
and Lok Sabha is basically there
#
and redistribution politics
#
everything actually gets decided
#
this larger number of legislators
#
it's going to do two things
#
it's going to make it much harder
#
to have centralized diktats
#
because now you have to serve
#
are much more bifurcated
#
if each UP constituency
#
is now broken into three parts
#
even the caste politics
#
those three will not have
#
the linguistic policy politics changes
#
industrial versus farming
#
so what you will see happening
#
formation of different kinds of caucuses
#
so you will have a UP caucus
#
but there will be people
#
who will have overlapping memberships
#
where there are members of UP
#
from agricultural constituencies
#
but Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi
#
MPs are not part of that caucus
#
they are part of a different caucus
#
a schedule tribe caucus
#
but not all schedule tribes
#
have the same interests
#
those in Jharkhand and Odisha
#
gets taken away by builders
#
whose interest it is to build roads
#
and destroy the ecological diversity
#
on which their livelihood is based
#
but if you look at schedule tribes
#
in the northeast states
#
because their livelihood
#
depends on connectivity
#
they want roads and railways
#
and bridges and airports
#
so the way we currently paint
#
so this kind of different
#
of caucuses in parliament
#
a real parliament venue
#
where you will have true
#
aggregation and adjudication
#
of preferences and true negotiation
#
now it's going to be very difficult
#
to have centralized dictates
#
so that's just one of the good things
#
it's also going to be difficult
#
it's going to be very difficult
#
because now you need to buy out
#
and negotiate a lot more interests
#
so I don't know if you've read
#
if Irfan Nooruddin's book
#
on how coalition governments
#
actually have lower growth volatility
#
because it's difficult to do new things
#
but it's also difficult to undo
#
what previous governments have done
#
and honestly if you talk to Ram Guha
#
he's talked about how coalition governments
#
actually are freedom preserving
#
and actually have better governance
#
and this is because consensus
#
is already made before arriving
#
at the table for decision making
#
whereas if you're single party rule
#
you don't need to do that
#
which is why we are so centralized
#
and if your guy has the centralized rule
#
but if the guy you don't like
#
is the one with the centralized rule
#
now you're suddenly getting very nervous
#
you're like oh India is authoritarian
#
and you know India is illiberal
#
one way to directly cut at that
#
is having a very large Lok Sabha
#
with true aggregation of preferences
#
since we're talking about
#
constitutional design principles
#
you have to get rid of 52nd amendment
#
all that garbage has to go out
#
right and then we'll get something
#
where the union cabinet is quite small
#
right so if you think about it today
#
parliament has 545 members
#
you have 300 odd members
#
or supporting the government
#
you have 55-60 cabinet members
#
one in six chance of being in cabinet
#
what who is going to hold anyone accountable
#
right but if you have 60 cabinet members
#
now you have a much more realistic
#
separation of powers right
#
so that's the Lok Sabha piece
#
but that's not my radical idea
#
that's just my defense of sticking
#
to the original constitution
#
my radical idea is redesigning
#
Rajya Sabha into what I call revenue sabha
#
okay so what I want to do is
#
neither have Rajya Sabha representation
#
by population proportion
#
you know senate or council of states
#
kind of Rajya Sabha representation
#
which is you know two per state
#
or three for big states
#
based on your population proportion
#
let's say there's a baseline
#
every state gets allotted
#
okay this is completely based on population
#
if your own state's revenue per capita
#
that these are the revenue resources
#
raised within the state
#
okay not union government taxes
#
and I'm not including any of the
#
you know corporate taxes and dividends
#
because otherwise people will
#
you know Maharashtra obviously looks much better
#
this is own state revenue
#
and I can walk you through
#
what all is part of own state revenue
#
but state's own revenue per capita
#
if you map it with GDP per capita
#
it is literally a one-on-one mapping
#
okay so what the formula
#
for the revenue sabha will be
#
is there's a baseline allotted by population
#
and then if your own revenue
#
compared to the average revenue of India
#
is higher you get the same proportion
#
of higher seats in Rajya Sabha
#
if it's lower you get lower proportion
#
of seats in Rajya Sabha
#
right so if you want like a sort of formula
#
for the for the sake of making this formula
#
it would read as follows
#
so seats in Rajya Sabha would equal
#
divided by national average
#
of own revenue per capita
#
times the seats based on population proportion
#
right now what this really does is
#
I can walk you through the numbers
#
of what Rajya Sabha would look like
#
if the question is one of fiscal federalism
#
and one of incentivizing the political class
#
to do well economically
#
you want to tie their fortunes right
#
so if your political power
#
and representation in Rajya Sabha
#
is going to be directly tied
#
to how well your region is doing economically
#
now you're going to start pursuing
#
very different policies
#
than the kind of redistribution
#
and anti-growth based policies
#
but before that let me just quickly
#
walk you through some you know
#
like these are rudimentary numbers
#
if you look at the own tax revenue
#
per capita for Uttar Pradesh
#
if you look at look at it for Bihar
#
if you look at it for Maharashtra
#
Tamil Nadu is 13,000 right
#
Andhra Pradesh is 10,000
#
so Telangana is seven to eight times
#
relative to Bihar right
#
Maharashtra is three times
#
own state per capita relative to UP
#
and these are all per capita figures
#
so now the population gets adjusted in this
#
so now the way this will work is
#
own state per capita for all the states
#
and you have own state per capita numbers
#
you will get a ratio right
#
who is actually doing better than the average
#
in other words you are a revenue
#
contributing state to the union
#
and if you are on the receiving side
#
of intergovernmental transfers
#
then the ratio will be below one
#
so the ratio for Andhra Pradesh for instance
#
so the way we would calculate
#
or revenue sabha seats is
#
the population proportion would be nine seats
#
for something going in the other direction
#
own state revenue over national average
#
for that ratio for Bihar is 0.27
#
which means Bihar based on population
#
gets 21 seats in Rajya Sabha
#
but based on this formula
#
gets only five seats in Rajya Sabha
#
I'm not telling you the decimal numbers
#
I had the decimal numbers both
#
for the raised tax revenue
#
and I also have the decimal numbers
#
for the proportion and so on
#
so I am giving you all the
#
as they say mota-mota figures
#
because this is not a visual representation
#
otherwise I would have actually shown
#
the entire table and the entire chart
#
so now when you think about this
#
suddenly your upper house
#
is going to start looking quite different
#
the population proportion seats
#
if we actually allocated
#
according to population
#
not what's happening today
#
Uttar Pradesh would get
#
nine more seats in Rajya Sabha
#
whereas in Revenue Sabha
#
Uttar Pradesh would lose 17 seats
#
at current revenue raising capacity
#
now what I like about this formula
#
for the union to change
#
tomorrow if Uttar Pradesh
#
genuinely starts doing better
#
and starts growing even more
#
and starts growing economically
#
it also has the young people
#
it has the future workforce of India
#
then Uttar Pradesh won't get stuck
#
in the Senate kind of system
#
this allows for room to grow
#
tomorrow if Kerala starts declining
#
and young people coming from UP and Bihar
#
can't find work in Kerala
#
because we don't know what's going on
#
what it's going to look like 50 years from now
#
then Kerala's seat would go down
#
it won't stay at the above one proportion
#
because this is such a visual description
#
I can literally show the pie chart
#
and Revenue Sabha look like
#
based on population versus not
#
I can read out more of the table
#
but it's going to sound quite tedious
#
but that's the general idea
#
now again money bills has to be adjusted
#
once again we shouldn't be allowed
#
with the federal system
#
that a lot of the current
#
economic growth engines
#
all the other things are roughly the same
#
but this allows for a dramatic amount
#
of fiscal decentralization
#
or intergovernmental transfers
#
so if the political class
#
of certain parties believe
#
that their political strength
#
and they are okay trading off
#
through intergovernmental transfers
#
but this allows for that kind of negotiation
#
and to me the most important thing is
#
if you make Rajya Sabha membership
#
extremely important politically
#
by making other amendments
#
and other constitutional amendments
#
to get power politically
#
is the most important thing
#
or any size Rajya Sabha
#
the new parliament size
#
to the constitutional amount
#
or you know whichever way
#
it will be proportional
#
proportional Rajya Sabha
#
whereas Karnataka will go
#
so this kind of negotiation
#
but each every five years
#
which is also not a bad thing
#
this is my radical idea
#
on the table is twofold
#
I don't expect anyone's
#
actually going to do this
#
and a level of acknowledgement
#
and there is always a bias
#
and hoping that the union
#
so there's a very big status
#
from what we have right now
#
so that's part one of it
#
I want to put it on the table is
#
it is one of diverging growth rates
#
this is not some obscure
#
and demographic problem
#
you know in some nicely packaged
#
by population control agenda
#
this is genuinely about people
#
so now we have to actually
#
very legitimately count people
#
and we have to very legitimately
#
count per capita growth
#
and all sorts of things
#
but it's very difficult
#
you know own state revenue
#
I have two more caveats
#
to add to this entire formulation
#
people always are amazed
#
actually I got criticism
#
but the libertarian criticism was
#
you really want to do this
#
won't states have a huge
#
there are a few checks against it
#
of course is just the Laffer curve
#
right if you raise rates too much
#
you're actually going to end up
#
collecting less revenue
#
the second is people can leave
#
India does have free movement
#
right and if the tax pressure
#
in fact people in India
#
are leaving the country
#
again it assumes a certain amount
#
but if you're talking about
#
tax terrorism on the poor
#
then they are even more likely
#
to leave than on the rich
#
right now suddenly privilege
#
the third is there are very strong
#
most of these governments
#
intergovernmental transfers
#
right now actually don't tax
#
their local populations at all
#
right so we don't have tax
#
we have no state income taxes
#
so many of those things
#
that the states could do
#
because of the democratic pressure
#
can't engage in tax terrorism
#
just to increase their revenue
#
to get seats in Rajya Sabha
#
because they don't have
#
the state capacity to do it
#
or into the informal sector
#
so there are some natural checks
#
taxes will be generated
#
own taxes will be generated
#
genuine economic growth
#
that's one kind of caveat
#
the second kind of caveat
#
which I'm happy to get into
#
is part of own state tax revenue
#
so there are things that it includes
#
like state excise taxes
#
you know imposed by the state
#
what it doesn't include
#
all of those sorts of things
#
so you won't have a situation
#
where Mumbai or Bangalore
#
because lots of corporates
#
are headquartered there
#
that's not what will happen
#
just because a lot of rich people
#
they will also not get reflected
#
except in consumption taxes
#
state's own tax revenue
#
so this is how I'm thinking
#
and I'm not trying to sell this
#
the design aspects of this
#
I think it's worth doing
#
because it will get us quite far
#
to the original question
#
what we want India to be like
#
and one of my sort of visions
#
or goals for what I want India
#
to be like in the future
#
is that the political class
#
is very tightly held accountable
#
to ensure that there is
#
economic growth and prosperity
#
for the poorest among us
#
which are unfortunately
#
in very large number in India
#
so I think this is an interesting
#
incentive compatible way
#
I'll stop here and wait
#
on the crazy radical plan
#
and I love that it's radical
#
and I'm still kind of processing
#
and groping it even as we speak
#
but I have sort of two questions
#
and then a bigger question
#
and the smaller question is
#
when I look at your table
#
you know Bihar would go
#
UP would go from 40 to 23 seats
#
you know Kerala would go
#
I totally get it number one
#
that own tax is a proxy
#
and I have an argument with that
#
I'll get to in the second question
#
but assuming that it is
#
I love it as an incentive
#
focus on economic growth
#
part of what they need to do
#
to get more political power
#
why would the poorer states
#
because even if you tell them
#
you'll have good incentives to grow
#
they will also be starting
#
and therefore the task for them
#
where you're really thinking
#
to the next elections and not
#
that they'll do this in 30 years
#
how would this be politically feasible
#
that's my first question
#
so you know the question is
#
okay so if it is relative
#
then we have to remember
#
they're losing seats in Lok Sabha
#
to not lose seats in Rajya Sabha
#
farther behind on the economic curve
#
than the richer states right
#
now how many are willing
#
but that's a lousy trade to make
#
you're saying they'll have more power
#
they'll have more power in the Lok Sabha
#
because this is contingent
#
apportioned representation
#
so you know the revenue Sabha
#
is not on top of the delimitation
#
freeze we have right now
#
this is reimagining the Lok Sabha
#
so let's say we compare it
#
I think then they should
#
because they are actually
#
going to increase power
#
in a different house of parliament
#
and they're going to lose power in this
#
they're going to lose some power
#
in this house of parliament
#
this is a better trade for them
#
because alternative one
#
was radical fiscal decentralization
#
intergovernmental transfers
#
and people may not vote for you
#
right and if you compare it
#
and it can never change
#
quite picks up in population
#
you're still going to be stuck
#
only with those two seats
#
whatever number we come up with
#
so I think for the poorer states
#
this is actually a pretty good trade
#
relative to the status quo
#
especially solution one
#
okay so instead of coming
#
to my bigger contentious question
#
I'll put in another smaller question
#
about the 1800 member Lok Sabha
#
I can have a lot of questions about
#
that like one I get that
#
it gives sharper representation
#
in terms of smaller constituencies
#
and therefore more local interests
#
and that's a sort of a good thing
#
and equally it might seem unwieldy to some
#
what my question is about
#
you've been saying that
#
this only works if you know
#
money bills are outlawed
#
or the anti-defection law is reversed
#
and by the way the anti-defection law is
#
I've had two episodes on it
#
and one with MR Madhavan
#
but also this and the idea
#
what the anti-defection law
#
which came out in the late 80s
#
did was that it was meant
#
from one party to the other
#
and but it basically meant
#
that you could run parliament
#
because what it did was
#
you said you have to obey
#
no matter what the party whip is
#
there's no point debating anything
#
in the Lok Sabha anymore
#
because you're going to have to do
#
whatever the party line is
#
you don't even have to show up honestly
#
just run the whole thing
#
but you know you've assumed
#
okay we can't have the money bill
#
we can't have the anti-defection law
#
you know we can't have this
#
and if you start thinking
#
you know these are the things
#
we've got to reverse them
#
then I mean that's a slippery slope
#
that can take you all the way back
#
to the original constitution
#
and say let's just write
#
so therefore I'm wondering
#
on the practicality of it
#
adds tremendous friction
#
then we are saying that
#
okay this is my solution
#
if x y z don't exist as well
#
to the original constitution
#
because that didn't have anti-defection
#
it's not practical right
#
I'm speaking in terms of practicality
#
yeah I think practically
#
we won't get any of these solutions
#
the way I have placed them
#
it's always going to be
#
a crazy political compromise
#
nobody will be particularly happy
#
but we will adjust the problem
#
and kick the can down the road
#
that's what Indian politicians do
#
that's what we do as a polity
#
mainly because we don't want to confront
#
some of our very uncomfortable truths
#
about how diverse we are
#
of being one single country
#
but we don't really think of people
#
who are very different from us
#
and we like to keep othering them
#
and we like to deny them resources
#
and we like to deny them representation
#
actually confront those problems
#
which the constituent assembly members
#
if we need to rethink this exercise
#
so that actually on practicality
#
I think all the solutions fail
#
because you need to confront
#
this uncomfortable truth
#
nor our elected leaders
#
are really willing to have
#
a thoughtful conversation about it
#
it happens as a political compromise
#
actually I'm not saying
#
if that from a point of view
#
of actually being able to do the solution
#
as an analytical question
#
as if then propositions
#
if you have this set of rules
#
then you get this outcome
#
make sure that money bills
#
have to pass Rajya Sabha
#
or you need to make sure
#
anti-defection amendment
#
52nd amendment is reversed
#
actually reversing them
#
to get the great outcome
#
because that outcome won't show up
#
if you don't make the other adjustments
#
then we can't seriously
#
be considering a council of states
#
right so that's what I mean
#
are we actually going to
#
have a constitutional amendment
#
to make Article 3 sensible
#
I doubt anyone wants to do that
#
are we actually going to have
#
any of the other things
#
on a practicality question
#
none of this is practical
#
but all of it is deeply important
#
because this is a design question
#
who gets a seat at the table
#
and how large their voice is
#
when they sit at the table
#
that decides everything else
#
so if we are not willing
#
and design conversation
#
none of it is practical
#
and design conversation
#
we will understand ourselves better
#
to make other trade-offs
#
I'm willing to trade off
#
intergovernmental transfers
#
but I'm not willing to trade off
#
of constituencies and so on
#
You know I agree that at times
#
and then try to figure out
#
the practicalities around it
#
because at least you know
#
and you know what will work best
#
and you can weigh them up
#
addressed in different episodes
#
is that people often conflate
#
for how well you're doing
#
and I think that's a mistake
#
because rising tax revenues
#
there is a greater chunk of money
#
going from the productive part
#
setting on each state government
#
on each state state as it were
#
because what laffer curve
#
when you're doing short-termism
#
you know you will not have
#
the politician in power
#
that sometimes higher taxes
#
to less money coming in
#
and also where is that high point
#
you're going to test it
#
and the immediate temptation
#
if we want more power in politics
#
we have to get more taxes
#
let us raise the tax rate
#
and we've seen how politicians
#
growth versus redistribution thing
#
people like us who argue for growth
#
know that the pie is not a fixed pie
#
and it's a positive sum game
#
people who argue for redistribution
#
that there is a fixed pie
#
and therefore you have to
#
redistribute from the haves
#
you're thinking in that zero-sum way
#
of zero-sum thinking comes in here
#
where short-sighted politicians
#
you know increase tax revenues
#
is to allow growth to happen
#
which may often mean lowering taxes
#
on the productive part of the economy
#
their intuitive and wrong solution
#
based on zero-sum thinking
#
let's just raise taxes now
#
get two more seats in the Rajya Sabha
#
where politicians don't understand
#
where zero-sum thinking
#
and populist thinking dominates
#
people don't understand
#
the balance between the state
#
the more the state taxes
#
the more that balance shifts away
#
what I really worry about here
#
that as in the design itself
#
you've got these perverse
#
now there is a difference between
#
initially we were talking
#
about how we need to think
#
about the incentives of the voters
#
of those who are elected
#
this entire delimitation freeze
#
which state gets how many seats
#
that is being conducted
#
between the elected representatives
#
and different regional parties
#
so I want to put that out there
#
so that is a zero-sum game
#
how many fixed number of seats
#
there are in Rajya Sabha
#
someone else has to lose those seats
#
whether you stick with the status quo
#
or go into revenue sabha
#
No but the zero-sum game
#
that I am talking about
#
is the economy is not a zero-sum game
#
I will get to that in a second
#
so that part of the zero-sum game
#
a fixed size of the pie
#
so now let me come to your objections
#
and why I think it's not a problem
#
a Rajya Sabha term is six years
#
which is a fairly long time
#
and Rajya Sabha is never dissolved
#
willy-nilly suddenly call elections
#
like you can in the Lok Sabha
#
or the state legislature
#
impose president's rule
#
you can't do all that hanky-panky
#
with the Rajya Sabha right
#
six years is a fairly long time
#
and a standard protection
#
against crazy kinds of tax terrorism
#
because on a six-year time frame
#
if you don't provide services
#
so this is very very important to note
#
I understand six years is short term
#
in terms of the vision of the republic
#
but six terms is not short term
#
when we think about taxes
#
and imposing too many sad taxes
#
so the kind of short-termism
#
let me just raise some taxes
#
and increase revenue and so on
#
remember it's a proportion
#
as a proportion of the average
#
so you have your own tax revenue
#
and then all the other states
#
so if everyone does the same thing
#
there's really no point
#
in you doing the same thing too
#
so if it's that easy to raise taxes
#
I understand what you're saying
#
it creates a vicious circle
#
which is a race to the bottom
#
I know it won't be a race to the bottom
#
which I'll get to in a second
#
is a little bit overblown
#
because it's a proportion
#
which is not so easy to gain
#
that you are worried about
#
the parts that are included
#
in states own tax revenue
#
and that's why I very carefully
#
didn't include all taxes
#
I didn't include union taxes
#
I haven't included any tax
#
except maybe stamp duty
#
when you're selling land
#
from one party to another
#
that we're talking about
#
which is taxes on entertainment
#
taxes on goods and passengers
#
you know when you have ports
#
agricultural income tax
#
which is actually the largest
#
part of this entire thing
#
and consumption based taxes
#
increasing consumption based taxes
#
you face a huge backlash
#
states have low revenue
#
to the populist aspect of
#
and if I'm not taxing them
#
they also won't have any expectation
#
of services being provided
#
do the political calculation
#
and what ends up happening in India
#
they're buying market rate water
#
the poorest of families
#
they're paying for such
#
are paying for garbage disposal
#
because most municipalities
#
are completely dysfunctional
#
so Indians are accustomed
#
so now if you start taxing them
#
and don't provide services in return
#
we've made this extremely local now
#
now we're talking about
#
the state's own tax revenue
#
it's going to be very difficult
#
to impose very high taxes
#
so the race to the bottom
#
because you can do it once
#
but you can't do it again
#
people will over a six-year
#
states will have incentive
#
tibu competition takes care
#
suggested the solution in China
#
but India has constitutionally
#
guaranteed freedom of movement
#
this actually incentivizes
#
because they will actually
#
contribute to this tax base
#
the entertainment services
#
and pay tax on a movie ticket
#
so I think the pressure
#
no one is going to engage
#
trying to boost their numbers
#
I mean that's always possible
#
but it requires a much higher
#
degree of state capacity
#
than you're imagining right now
#
will be an awesome day in India
#
not because they are able to
#
have that kind of crazy coercive
#
they have enough state capacity
#
they simply don't have it right now
#
don't have the incentive to do it
#
because they know how the system works
#
have incentives to game it
#
it's very difficult game
#
or that some random thing
#
that previously wasn't taxed
#
or there won't be a fight
#
right it's going to be your BD
#
they're going to be certain goods
#
which are just targeted
#
so those things will happen
#
those numbers are so small
#
it can't get you one tenth
#
of a seat in the Rajya Sabha
#
so you have to genuinely
#
for each additional seat
#
so I'm not too worried about it
#
that your concerns aren't legitimate
#
your concerns are extremely valid
#
but the state of development
#
in Indian states right now
#
quite playing out that way
#
I'll defer to your wisdom
#
and I hope you're right
#
but just from a public choice
#
sorry short-sighted politicians
#
who don't understand economics
#
and the kind of pressure
#
I'll take some time to grok it
#
disagree with the parts
#
disagreeing with the parts of it
#
that there are more radical
#
kind of getting out there
#
what really irritates me is
#
sort of frames of reference
#
you know when you presented
#
you presented the paper
#
I was sadly stuck in a room
#
but you were practically
#
strong objections to you
#
of our intellectual world
#
so tell me about that experience
#
this is just a difficult
#
I mean it's a while ago
#
so I'm trying to remember
#
but the general response
#
or at least not even the response
#
the knee-jerk reaction was
#
right this is Pandora's box
#
you're going to break up
#
and what's going to end up happening
#
is that the southern states
#
threaten some kind of secession
#
great constitutional compromises
#
you know figuring out GSD
#
and hopefully will get better
#
will just completely fall apart
#
so I think one part of it
#
was just the knee-jerk reaction
#
okay it's very important
#
to keep the union together
#
and I think we have to appreciate
#
you know the older generation's
#
was a very precariously
#
privilege of having been born
#
post-liberalization India
#
we've had border conflicts
#
you know Naxal movements
#
recently what's been happening
#
but largely there was never
#
that the union will break up
#
and there are people still alive
#
who are worried about that
#
sort of my parents generation
#
so I'll be charitable about
#
the knee-jerk response of this
#
I mean you talked about
#
why are we talking about this
#
just kicked down the road
#
when I heard about a session
#
what really pissed me off is
#
like even I disagreed with you
#
after your presentation
#
this is people not letting you finish
#
you were not able to finish
#
that pisses me off so much
#
it is an uncomfortable thing
#
to confront for a summit
#
because what we are saying
#
let's kick the can down the road
#
what we're implicitly saying is
#
that someone born in Uttar Pradesh
#
is going to have lesser franchise than ours
#
and we're just going to look the other way
#
nobody wants to be on the side of
#
oh our malapportionment is
#
severely taking away franchise
#
and we're talking about
#
hundreds of thousands of people
#
disenfranchised communities
#
who wants to be on that side
#
putting together graphs
#
putting this up on on stage
#
constitutional compromise
#
of kicking the can down the road in 2001
#
this is the impact of that
#
you know the average person
#
it's just a very uncomfortable reality
#
my uncharitable version will be
#
I think the Chicago type seminar
#
culture of interrupting people
#
so that would be the uncharitable view
#
it's just a very tough question
#
and it is a difficult conversation to have
#
nobody really wants to be
#
on the side of malapportionment
#
kick the can down the road
#
the problem will one day resolve itself
#
I know what these people are saying
#
they're saying we don't want
#
because that's also bad for economic growth
#
and it's terrible for poor people to have
#
that kind of political instability
#
whether the union of India
#
will survive or not right
#
so that's my charitable version
#
my smug version of what happened is
#
I was so cool and so provocative
#
and my charts were so amazing
#
that people couldn't quite hold
#
their thoughts within themselves
#
and they just came bubbling out
#
yeah it's it's like Galileo
#
sort of after he was imprisoned
#
and he looked at the ground
#
radical I'm also reminded of
#
which you'd once posted
#
which was when some idiot guy
#
from some other discipline
#
and you posted this beautiful cartoon
#
without referencing him
#
where this man sits across a
#
woman at a dining table
#
to interrupt your expertise
#
that's what happened in that room
#
the topic is very inflammatory
#
elite economists tend to be
#
from privileged backgrounds
#
living in the better cities
#
we have to account for that
#
yeah and they don't care
#
who's being denied of his vote
#
or the poor Dalit in Bihar
#
who's being denied of his vote
#
no but you don't want to be
#
it's very uncomfortable reality
#
I care more about the union
#
so then the attitude is
#
why are we talking about this
#
don't open Pandora's box
#
I think that's what's happening
#
to a lot of younger people
#
I think the second thing
#
and this is a genuine thing
#
I think a lot of people
#
so the fear in everyone's mind
#
is really strengthening
#
if we allow this to happen
#
it'll further strengthen
#
and so there are all these fears
#
whereas what I'm trying to talk about
#
constitutional design question
#
which is much farther down the road
#
or at least the response is
#
forget the poor disenfranchised Muslim
#
today we have bigger problems
#
certain kinds of hegemonic forces
#
I'm not saying everyone was correct
#
I'm willing to appreciate
#
that the knee-jerk reactions
#
the very emotional responses
#
come from a very particular place
#
this is none of this is easy
#
and I really love the way
#
you're being so diplomatic
#
all of them will listen to the issue
#
this is this might be different
#
from a seminar culture right
#
people would critique a paper
#
and my early drafts of my papers
#
so really pick it apart
#
and then we'd go have a beer
#
sometimes they were literally
#
they were in the next room
#
and they were picking apart my paper
#
the assumption was always
#
or a question doesn't mean
#
we have fundamental disagreement
#
and there is an assumption
#
of good faith on all ends
#
so I know that you're saying
#
but I think more than that
#
I just don't come from a culture
#
where we're willing to lose friends
#
and important professional relationships
#
because of an opposition
#
whether it's a good idea
#
but that's just not where I come from
#
an interesting story on this
#
about Professor Bhagwati
#
but before you tell me the story
#
I just have to point out that
#
the nuance here is that
#
I'm not saying disagreement
#
you've disagreed with Ajay and Milan
#
it's a manner of the disagreement
#
when you heckle someone
#
and you don't let them finish
#
and I don't know how much of that
#
and how much is academic culture
#
but if anyone tried that with me
#
if anyone didn't wait for the Q&A
#
that person would be in serious trouble
#
I think I managed to get
#
I got my point of view across
#
the heckling stopped me in any way
#
so I've been trained in that
#
the story about Professor Bhagwati
#
I have publicly disagreed
#
this was about demonetization
#
and he and a couple of his co-authors
#
me and my co-author Larry White
#
we wrote a sort of response
#
that's how I remember it
#
but the difference of opinion
#
and our simple point was
#
when you count the benefits
#
a very simple economic point
#
I'm in touch with all of them
#
I have met them in person
#
they're incredible lovely
#
on a question I might ask
#
on more than one occasion
#
they were throwing a party
#
I think someone was visiting
#
and attend some of the Columbia events
#
when I used to live in New York
#
decided to agree upon something
#
even when we are in very stark terms
#
the personal relationship
#
that's a good place to be
#
I would like to be there
#
I know all your points about
#
you come from a podcast culture
#
where you don't interrupt people
#
it's a heckling not a disagreement
#
that I have an issue with
#
and I remember Alex Tabarrok
#
you know who's taught me
#
a lot of the public choice
#
that I know came and said
#
so I was really thrilled
#
because this is a solid
#
public finance argument
#
yeah and I'm proud of you as well
#
we should all have the courage to
#
we should all have the courage
#
what might be unpopular truths
#
and I guess we should wrap it up
#
and I think this is just over
#
three hours which is pretty short
#
I could of course talk to you
#
but we might as well end it here
#
thank you for listening
