By Rima Saini

In light of Prince William's marriage to the commoner of the hour, Catherine Middleton, a 'comment is free' article from the Guardian last weekend discussed the issue of social mobility in reference to scholar, freedom fighter and father of the Indian constitution, B. R. Ambedkar. Born into a poor, untouchable family, his appeal to equality as the cornerstone of political democracy is indeed as relevant to our time and place as much as it was to his. Relevant, most certainly, to the current debate pitting our first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system against the Alternative Vote (AV).

With the imminent referendum on electoral reform, pro-AV campaigners have been making the bold claim that AV could potentially revive democratic political accountability. In ranking our political preferences, our individual votes will hold far more significance, and with MPs having to gain a majority of the vote, candidates will no longer be complacent.  The term 'majority' in this sense translates as over fifty per cent of the vote, giving AV the edge over our current system which has resulted in an overwhelming number of MPs being elected with less than half the electoral vote. In allowing political parties to gain a disproportionate number of seats in correlation to the often less than impressive number of votes they garner, it does indeed harbour gaping flaws.

The Indian constitution, heavily influenced by British parliamentary democracy, also chose to adopt this system over sixty years ago. It was debated in its infancy that proportional representation (PR) might be better suited to the multi-ethnic nature of India's society and bypass the 'winner takes all' ethos of FPTP. Indeed, many members of marginalised groups with the formidable legacy of Ambedkar still campaign relentlessly for a more inclusive electoral system such as PR. At the time, however, the simplicity of the system and the stability of governments afforded by this system in a country that at the time was mired in widespread illiteracy and poverty was seen as far more desirable.

Ever since, Indian National Congress has largely dominated the Indian political scene. Although relatively moderate and inclusive in sentiment, they ultimately fail to reflect an increasingly fragmented party system that has only been exacerbated by a systematic under-representation of marginalised groups. This particularly applies to those who straddle minority identities such as the Dalit Muslims or Dalit Christians and the poorer, disenfranchised echelons of society for which the reservations and quotas built into the parliamentary system are still too far out of reach.

The egalitarian ethos of Ambedkar's message has not only been lost in India, however. The domestic media have recently been keen to discuss the issue of whether the phenomenon of social mobility has come and gone, as British politics, has in recent history been largely defined by a perpetual tussle between Labour and Conservative, parties as dominated by the upper-middle classes as ever, a 'gilded political elite' that fail to reflect the experience of the masses.

It would be naïve to assume that if electoral reform were to ever become an actuality, therefore, it would hurtle either country further towards a fairer political system.  It may herald a step away from the 'winner takes all ethos' embedded in FPTP but this is not the defining political problem of any country that operates under this system. Without a fundamental change in the resilient political culture embedded in an elite politics of power, it is unlikely to be a ground-breaking democratic leap forward. If a country such as ours with a social context far more receptive to FPTP is willing to open the debate on the possibilities that lie in political pluralism, however, it is certainly one more deserving of attention in a melting-pot such as India.