Two recent news reports paint an image of India today. The first report was about how Delhi’s residents saw a dip of ₹20,000 in their average income during the Covid-19 period. If this is the case in Delhi, one can well imagine the situation in many other states.

The other report, from Assam, highlighted how more than ₹18 crore in cash, alcohol, drugs and other banned substances were recovered in the state in just 11 days. So, on the one hand, the world’s largest democracy has been left poorer by the pandemic. On the other, the political system, instead of doing anything constructive, is using cash and liquor to woo voters, in a democratic election.

These reports remind me of a dinner I attended when the Janata Dal was in power. The host was a Union minister and many Members of Parliament (MPs) and influential people were in attendance. Before moving into the Lutyens’ bungalow he now occupied, the minister lived in a tony area of Vasant Kunj in Delhi. A self-proclaimed socialist, he was born into riches.

At that party, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Rajasthan blithely told me that liquor and money were necessary lubricants for elections in India. He went on to say that the main demand from voters after the elections was not to build roads, schools or hospitals but for jobs, contracts or a back-door entry for some sinecure or other.

That, said the MLA, is why elected representatives need much more money than their salaries would afford them — to build up a corpus to provide liquor and cash for the next election, not to mention hiring musclemen.

His words were met with much mirth. But I was deeply disturbed. I recalled a popular slogan of that time — “Raja nahi faqir hai, Bharat ki taqdeer hai” (not a king but a beggar, he’s the destiny of India)

Many in that room were fellow travellers of the then faqir-raja prime minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh. Yet, their sentiments were that voters could be bought with cash and liquor.

Since the conversation, three decades ago, a whole new generation has emerged in the country. Statistics may not always be completely accurate, but they give us an indication of which way the wind is blowing. It does not matter which party won the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but the figures that the Election Commission made public are shocking.

During the 2014 elections, ₹300 crore in cash and hundreds of kilos worth of drugs was recovered across the country. Action was taken against more than 1.1 million people in this connection. And during the next general election, ₹844 crore in cash, liquor worth ₹304 crore, narcotics worth more than ₹1,200 crore, and jewellery or gifts worth about ₹1,000 crore were recovered. In just five years, this trend has deteriorated sharply.

The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) found in an investigation that out of 539 members in the Lok Sabha, 475 were multi-millionaires. Of these, 266 have assets of more than ₹5 crore. There has been a steady increase in the number of millionaire MPs in our country. In the 2009 Lok Sabha, 58% of the MPs were crorepatis. In 2014, their number rose to 82% and 88% of the MPs in the current House are multi-millionaires.

It does not end here. At least 51% of those elected to the Bihar assembly in 2020 have serious criminal charges against them. The previous assembly had 40% members with criminal charges.

At the same time, the people’s incomes have not gone up, and, in many cases, they have come down. In the Covid-19 era, many people have sunk further into poverty while another section has profited significantly. This disparity does not bode well for our democracy.

Elections in a democracy should not be so expensive that only those with financial power can hope to win. Such high-cost elections can never lead to a healthy democracy. The great socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, a champion of the poor, came up with the slogan “one note, one vote”.

His candidates used to hand around bags at their meetings and appeal for one rupee notes. Many of these people won and went on to have successful political careers. But most of them changed, for the worse, once in power. If they had followed the principles of Lohia, surely our democracy would have been the better for it.

These are all matters of regret. But regret changes nothing. For the last five decades at least, our collective consciousness has been largely guided by money power. This goes against the very grain of democracy.

Our leaders and the people who elect them must introspect on this and hopefully engage in course correction before it is too late.