Protect the referee, even as you question the decision

In every game, you can abuse the player. You cannot abuse the referee. If you do, the game ends. Today in India, we are abusing the referee. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is not just another bureaucracy. It is the core of democracy. To protect it is not to support any party; it is to support the game itself. This wisdom is not new. It is in our Vedas, it was in Rome, and it was in Greece.

The Rig Veda does not start with a king. It starts with two institutions: Sabha and samiti. Samiti was the people — the voters. Sabha was the council of elders, the learned, the impartial who ensured the samiti could meet freely and choose freely. The Atharva Veda prays: Sabha cha me samiti cha ma avatu — may my sabha and samiti protect me.

The sabha had no army, no kingdom. Its power came from only one thing — trust. If the sabha was seen as biased, the samiti collapsed and the janapada broke. The ECI is our modern sabha. It has no seats to contest, no vote bank to protect. Its only capital is credibility. When we chip away at that credibility for political points, we are not hitting at an office in Nirvachan Sadan, but at the idea of sabha itself.

The Vedas also gave us a method: Tarka and shastrartha. Debate fiercely, but accept the decision of the sabha. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad shows King Janaka hosting a great debate where Yajnavalkya is questioned by everyone, including women scholars like Gargi. He answers. The debate ends, and his authority is higher, not lower, because he submitted to questioning. The ECI must be questioned. But after questioning, it must be obeyed. That is dharma.

The Romans were the greatest bureaucrats. They knew democracy needs a clean voter list more than a popular leader. They created the office of censor. The censor was not the consul who fought wars. He was more powerful. He prepared the census — the list of citizens. He could remove a senator by marking him with nota censoria. He was elected for 18 months, but his list lasted for 5 years. Why did Romans give so much power to two men who did nothing but count? Because they understood: If the voter list is corrupt, the republic is corrupt.

When we in India politicise the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, or the deletion and addition of voters, we forget Rome. A clean roll will always be painful. Someone’s name will be deleted. Someone’s booth will shift. That pain is the price of a republic. Attack the error with data, appeal to the ECI, go to court — but do not attack the censor itself. If the censor falls, the republic becomes an empire.

Athens, the mother of democracy, had a brilliant safeguard. They did not even trust elections fully. Most offices in Athens were filled not by election, but by “lot” — by lottery among citizens — under the supervision of the “eponymous archon”. Why? Because they feared that elections could be manipulated by orators. Their safeguard was procedure. The archon did not decide who won; he ensured the “procedure” was followed.

The ECI is our archon. Its job is not to decide who should win — 140 crore Indians decide that. Its job is to ensure the lottery of democracy — the EVM, the VVPAT, the ink, the booth — remains pure. Every dharma is two-sided. If the players must not abuse the referee, the referee must also remember why it wears black. In the Vedic sabha, the elder did not speak more than necessary — he spoke through decisions, after listening to both sides. In Rome, the censor was respected because he applied nota censoria equally, even to his own kin. In Greece, the archon was trusted because he drew lots in the open agora, not behind closed doors. The referee protects itself best by transparency, by same-rule-same-speed for all jerseys, and by a dignified restraint that lets the order speak louder than the press note. The moment a referee starts explaining too much, defending too much, or being seen too much, the crowd begins to doubt the whistle. The referees work best when we see them stable, silent, and steady.

I am a doctor, not a psephologist. In the ICU, I see what happens when sodium — a single ion that no one notices — falls from 141 to 123. The body seizes and the brain starves. Sodium is invisible till it is low. The ECI is the sodium of our democracy. Invisible when it works, catastrophic when it fails. You can disagree with an order. That is your right in a democracy. File an affidavit, produce data, go to the Supreme Court. That is Vedic tarka, Roman provocatio, Greek elenchus. But do not call for burning down the office that guards the list. Rome tried that. When Augustus destroyed the power of the censors, the republic never returned. Protect the referee, even as you question the decision. That is the only way the game continues.

The writer is an endocrinologist and public health physician based in Mumbai