As for qualifications, candidates for the Lower House must be at least graduates. As for the Upper House, we need today not a Chamber of States but a Chamber of Talent. Therefore, in addition to being at least a graduate, a candidate must have distinguished himself in a profession including business and agriculture.

Disqualifications as they have been prescribed have become a farce: a list that lets criminals get into legislatures is actually worse than a farce — it is an accessory to a crime against the country... The first change that is required is that, from the moment charges are framed by a court against a person — whether he is a sitting member or not — he should cease to be a member and be disqualified from contesting an election till he has been cleared of the charges. For the one who has been falsely implicated, the incentive would then be the opposite: he will strive to ensure as expeditious a disposal of his case as possible.

‘But our opponents routinely implicate us in false cases,’ politicians say. First, the disqualification commences once charges have been framed by a court of law, not from the moment the police or some investigating agency has filed them. Second, this apprehension can be allayed by requiring that the charges be framed at the level of a sitting judge of the high court. Third, that such persons are inducted to man the courts as will serve the interest of the rulers of the moment, especially courts before which these cases are to come up, will only mean that, knowing that the next person could use the courts against them also, politicians will have an inducement to put more robust persons into courts.

... contd.