An Indian Member of Parliament (MP) is said to represent 2.5 million citizens, on average. In comparison, a U.S. House of Representatives member typically represents approximately 7,00,000 citizens. Similarly, in Pakistan, a member of the National Assembly is a representative of approximately 6,00,000 citizens, while the ratio in Bangladesh is closer to approximately 5,00,000 citizens. In this year so far, India had around 4,126 Members of the Legislative Assembly, 543 Lok Sabha MPs and 245 Rajya Sabha MPs. There are far too few parliamentarians/Assembly members responsible for citizen welfare in India. Limited representation, in a democratic setup, seems to be our default preference.
While India does have innumerable grassroots politicians, 1,000-plus municipal councils/corporations with between 50 to 100 wards and approximately 2,38,000 panchayats (according to Press Information Bureau data) with between five to 30 members on average at the national/State level, there is a clear deficit in terms of their adequate representation in order to raise critical issues and enable law-making.
Meanwhile, our political system is riven with malapportionment, with legislative weight being skewed towards the citizens of select States. Unlike India, the United States has a political system that seeks to engender malapportionment, with each State given two senators in the U.S. Senate, enabling a block on legislation. Disproportionate allocation of power is encouraged. This is easier in a homogeneous country with a bi-party political system, where the same parties compete across all States. In India, with its heterogeneous political system across States, malapportionment can mean empowering select political outfits over others. With a sense of a different political culture in south and north-east India growing, one must tread carefully.
