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Dear Indians,

Today, many people are expressing their concerns about the state of democracy in our country due to the perceived undemocratic attitude of Prime Minister Modi and other BJP leaders. This does not mean that only BJP leaders follow undemocratic practices to gain power. It is a popular opinion that the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Congress Party and the CPI(M) party West Bengal unit also adopted undemocratic policies to gain power. (This petition is not intended to determine who are truly leaders with dictatorial tendencies, who are merely accused as such by opposition parties).

But what everyone can agree on is that some leaders, regardless of party affiliation, try to destroy our democracy for power because they do not want to be accountable for their actions. And how can we protect our democracy from such leaders?

We can insure our democracy from such leaders by adopting a simple constitutional reform. The reform is to limit a person to hold the PM or CM posts for not more than 10 years. This principle already exists in the US with suitable conditions for their constitution. 

Therefore, I propose that this most needed constitutional reform, to protect the existence of our democracy, be enshrined in our constitution immediately with the following conditions.

1. No person shall hold the PM post for more than 2 Lok Sabha terms or 3650 days, whichever is higher. No person shall hold any constitutional or government post after the completion of the above limit (Putin Effect). 

2. No person shall hold the CM post for more than 2 Vidhana Sabha terms or 3650 days, whichever is higher. No person shall hold any constitutional or government post at the state level after the completion of the above limit.

We can arrive at more nuanced conditions after proper discussion is held about this reform in our country. For example, the limit on a person who has served as the Chief Minister of a State for 10 years to not hold any constitutional or government post at the state level can be exempted for the Governor’s post after a cooling-off period. But we need this reform fundamentally.

Advantages and implications:

This reform is the best insurance for democracies against authoritarian leaders who might eventually lead to the destruction of democracy if they are allowed to hold power for longer periods. 

We don't take life insurance with the intention that a person really dies. Life Insurance protects against the uncertainties of life. Also, this reform does not mean that every Chief Minister and Prime Minister will try to destroy democracy. It is necessary because there is no certainty that some people will not make efforts to destroy democracy for their selfish reasons.

It also helps to curb family politics as this reform is likely to prevent a single family from staying in power for too long. This could prevent other family members of such a party from getting the unfair advantage of training as the next generation of politicians and consolidating their power within the party.

For example, let us assume that this principle has been in force since the inception of our constitution. Nehru should have come out of the government either in 1957 or 1960. Then we cannot say whether the Congress Party could have transformed into a family party and whether Indira Gandhi would have become the Prime Minister or not. The same can be said about the Karunanidhi family of Tamil Nadu, the Chandra Babu family of Andhra Pradesh, and several other family parties.

This reform will help our youth to get more chances in politics. M. Karunanidhi, N. Chandrababu Naidu, Jayalalitha, Narendra Modi, Jyoti Basu, Mamata Banerjee, and many others would have had premature closing for their service to state-level governments and gave way for a younger generation. 

It appears to me that this reform would give an advantage to national parties over regional parties. It may discourage the emergence of regional parties as a person who has served as chief minister for 10 years can only get posts in the central government (A person can become the de facto head of a government again only at the central level). This would help to prevent regionalism in our country.

Another advantage of this rule is that it will automatically solve the problem of selection of CMs among different groups and will bring another benefit to the national parties. For example, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot would not have fought if this rule had been in place. If the Congress comes back to power in Karnataka in the future, there will be no feud between K.Siddaramaiah and D.K.Sivakumar (at least explicitly).

Another advantage is that this reform would help to maintain moderation between the worship and hatred of a person both from historical and contemporary perspectives. For example, Nehru is portrayed as an ideal man by one group in our country, while another group portrays him as a person who risked the future of our country for his selfishness and assassinated his personality. But if we look at history with objectivity, Nehru was a politician, who did some good deeds and made some mistakes. He neither deserves the uncritical adulation nor the vicious attack on his character and policies (In my opinion, he deserves the credit for the sustenance of democracy in our country since many former colonial countries slipped into dictatorships shortly after getting independence.) 

Since this reform allows a person to be in power only for 10 years, worship of that person or hatred towards him will be moderate rather than excessive, moderation being the most desirable in the present deeply divided world. (Would Nehru face disproportionate criticism for the 1962 China war result, which might not have changed irrespective of who was in power then, if this reform had been in force?).

Another use is that this reform can discourage even people with truly dictatorial tendencies from harming the democratic system since they cannot lead the government for more than 10 years anyway. They cannot satisfy their hunger for power without directly attacking this reform. If someone goes that far, it is easy for the people to know who is a dictator and who is a democrat.

For example, if this rule had been in place, Indira Gandhi would have had to leave the government in 1976 anyway, so we cannot say certainly whether she would have dared to declare the Emergency in 1975.

It also helps to break the usual nexus that exists between the politicians and and their cronies.

Possible Criticism and Answers:

Some people may criticize this as copying from the West (They don't present alternative ideals but criticize ideals like liberalism, socialism, and secularism as Western ideas). This criticism has no real meaning. Whether or not a reform is useful to the human race should be weighed, not where the idea first originated.

There is no rule that an idea born in one place cannot be born independently in another place. Agriculture in pre-historic times emerged independently at many places on many continents at different times. A look at modern history reveals that the idea of the “theory of evolution” came independently from the scientists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace (However, most credit is given to Darwin).

Another criticism that can be raised is that this reform forces a person away from the government. This is also not a reasonable criticism. This reform mainly works on the principle that the “system is more important than individuals”. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with giving priority to this rule, which is necessary to protect the existence of a democratic system, rather than the right of an individual to be in government.

Moreover, if a person really believes in the democratic system he will voluntarily invite and respect these types of reforms. Also, if he really wants to serve the country there are many opportunities to work for the country even if he is not in the government. Above all, we must remember that this reform restricts a person from holding government positions only after holding the highest de facto power in the country (or state) for 10 years. This reform does not stop a person from working for the development of the country.

Another criticism that could be raised is that this reform may stop the most "talented and capable" person from holding the post of Prime Minister (after serving 10 years). This analysis is not meant to discuss “talent, competence” so I cannot say completely, but it is naive of us to think that only one person out of the 140 crore Indians has the most “talent, competence” for the post of Prime Minister. 

Any person who is truly responsible and loves and thinks about the country's future will work hard to prepare the next generation of the most "talented and capable" people to lead the country when he takes over the post of Prime Minister for 10 years.

Some might argue that one dictator is enough to set this reform aside (as Putin did in Russia). This argument is also not correct. The reason for this happening in Russia is that the roots of democracy are not strong there. But in countries where democracy is strong, it is almost impossible to destroy this constitutional reform.

Therefore, in any democratic country, especially in India with a representation of roughly 1/5th of the world’s population, it is imperative to impose term limits on the posts of de facto leadership of the executive branch.