EDITORIALS
The Cause and Effect of the Verdict on Maharashtra
Mass politics has the potential to push the democratic struggle much beyond legal spheres.
T
he judgment by the five-judge constitution bench of the
Supreme Court, pertaining to political developments in
Maharashtra, has neither provided any definitive closure
nor resolved the vexed questions emerging out of these develop-
ments. Although the judgment does point at several key actors
and their actions that contributed to the change of guard in the
state government, it upholds the change itself to be legally valid.
The judgment chastises the then governor for calling a session
of the assembly to hold a confidence motion when he had no
objective material to deem that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)
government had lost the confidence of the house. The judgment
also says that it was illegal to deem the legislature party and not
political party as the appropriate authority to appoint a new
whip by the defectors. However, it leaves the matter of the dis-
qualification of 16 members of legislative assembly (MLA s) to
that very speaker whose election to that post could not have
been possible without the unconstitutionally called session and
recognition of the illegally appointed whip. Such an approach
filled with lapses has adverse implications for the 10th schedule
and could in effect destabilise the party system itself.
In its operative part, the judgment refuses the plea to restore
Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister on the grounds that he re-
signed before facing the motion of confidence, and hence finds
no fault with the swearing in of the new chief minister. So, the
Court chastises the governor for the legal lapses, finds the ensu-
ing process flawed, and yet the verdict effectively goes in favour
of that very process that led to the removal of Thackeray as
chief minister. The incongruence between the Court’s critical
observation and verdict does not leave any hope for the rectifi-
cation of wrongs that have been duly acknowledged by the
Court itself. The purpose of justice being the rectification of the
wrong, the Court could have gone beyond the prayers, for which
it is empowered by Article 142. One expects from courts nyaya
in this sense of justice and not the asatkaryavada of the Nyaya
school of philosophy which completely dissociates the karya
(effect) from the karana (causes). Operating within this pecu-
liar logic of cause and effect, one may satisfy one’s liberal con-
science while refusing to check the actions strengthening au-
thoritarian and undemocratic tendencies.
Ideally speaking, judiciary is considered as a bulwark to check
such tendencies subverting the decent functioning of democracy
that has been put to trial by the rising threat of authoritarianism.
But in several instances available before us, the judicial inter-
vention appears to be falling short of meeting the challenge of
authoritarianism. A palpable feeling seems to be developing
among the masses that the instances of judicial intervention to
8 MAY 20, 2023
curb the anti-people or undemocratic policies and actions have
become increasingly infrequent. Consistent with this feeling,
the common activists–supporters–sympathisers of MVA in gen-
eral and Shiv Sena in particular were not looking forward to the
prospect of the restoration of the MVA government through the
judicial route and unlike the prominent leaders of the Congress
and the Nationalist Congress Party they do not seem to be find-
ing the act of resignation by Thackeray to be a problematic one.
Perhaps there was a legal-technical virtue in facing the vote of
confidence on the floor of the house. Yet, who knows if that alone
would have guaranteed a favourable outcome in the Supreme
Court. In any case, the act of resignation cannot be seen from a
mere legal-technical lens; in fact, its political–moral logic needs
to be taken into account.
First of all, in political terms, facing the confidence vote would
have amounted to willy-nilly sanctifying the series of secretly
engineered wrongs that preceded it. Put differently, in refusing to
face the confidence vote, Thackeray underscored both legally as
well as morally illegitimate character of the whole politics of en-
gineering defections that was aided by partisan politicking by the
governor. Moreover, his resignation and immediate vacating of
the official residence generated immense popular sympathy evi-
dent on the streets and established his position as someone who
refused to bow before the unjust designs of the powers that be. It
would not be an exaggeration to say that this act was the most
important factor that galvanised the common Shiv Sena activist
and supporters even as the MLAs had deserted the party. The
defectors and their patrons in the Bharatiya Janata Party would
have believed that this popular sympathy would wane over time
and with the party name and symbol with the defectors, the mass
base of Shiv Sena would shift towards them. From the different
elections held—and more importantly the ones that have not been
held—in Maharashtra and the consistently increasing support in
the public rallies held across the state, the evidence points to the
contrary. With the feeling of being cornered and having nothing
to lose and also bolstered by the uncompromising stance of its
leadership, Shiv Sena activists and supporters have further
firmed up their resolve against the defectors and their patrons.
With every passing day that the current state government is in
office, the sympathy seems to be further maturing into popular
anger that is waiting to be expressed in the coming elections.
Therefore, as things stand, the decision to resign appears to
be a politically–morally astute one that recognises the terrain of
the fight against undemocratic powers to be mass-political and
not legal. In any case, the Supreme Court judgment has also
driven home this democratic truth.
vol lViii no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly