The Perils of Legislated Morality

Morality in politics is not an abstract virtue but a way of framing politics, argues American linguist George Lakoff in his seminal work, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. In his analysis, moral politics is shaped through two dominant family metaphors: The “Strict Father” model that embodies authority, discipline and punishment as a stern patriarch. The “Nurturant Parent” model, on the other hand, emphasises empathy, care and collective responsibility. In this worldview, the role of the State is to empower citizens and nurture democratic bonds.

When transposed in the Indian context, the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill 2025 presents itself as a measure to place ministers “beyond any ray of suspicion” and claims to “restore political morality”. The Bill seeks to insert provisions in the Constitution that would compel the resignation or trigger the automatic removal of the Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Ministers who remain in custody for 30 consecutive days on charges carrying a potential sentence of five years or more.

Both the language and the objective of the Bill, introduced in Parliament in August, reveal an attempt to enforce political morals as a ‘strict father’. Though political morality becomes convoluted when law is wielded as a moral instrument rather than a neutral framework of justice.

Furthermore, the Bill does not reproduce the constitutional morality that ensures a commitment to procedure, restraint and respect for individual rights. By conflating custody with culpability, it blurs the distinction between allegation and conviction.

In India’s labyrinthine criminal system, arrests and extended detention are not uncommon. Especially since the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Samhita, 2023, and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act permit up to 90 days of custody, with the latter imposing particularly stringent bail conditions.

The Bill does more than just question the rights of an individual to hold office; it chips away at the freedom to govern even after gaining a popular mandate. Moreover, it strikes at the delicate balance of federalism. The mechanical provision making 30 days of custody the ground for resignation/removal, dilutes the mandate of the masses. Simply put, a government chosen by the people’s mandate can be destabilised by the stroke of an effectuated arrest warrant.  

If such a law had been in force when Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was jailed or when Chief Minister Hemant Soren was detained in Jharkhand, both leaders would have been compelled to relinquish office automatically, not by the legislature, but merely by virtue of their status as undertrial detainees.

Far from neutral enforcement, the provision creates selective vulnerability, arming Central agencies with a powerful tool to dislodge elected governments and tilting the federal balance decisively toward the Centre.  

Likewise, Satyendar Jain, a minister in Delhi, would have been disqualified long before the court accepted the closure report by the CBI. In such a framework, innocence becomes irrelevant, for the damage to both the individual and the democratic mandate is already done. 

Furthermore, by singling out the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and Ministers while sparing MPs and MLAs, the Bill bakes asymmetry into the Constitution and invites political gamesmanship. Under Articles 102 and 191 of the Constitution, read with the Representation of the People Act, 1951, legislators are disqualified only upon conviction for offences carrying a sentence of two years or more, yet the executive would be forced out after 30 days in custody.

Supporters claim the Bill will cleanse politics of tainted ministers and fortify democracy. The question is not the goal but the route, where morals are postured for discipline. Indian democracy has endured not because of the punitive gestures, but fidelity to fairness and procedure, even when dealing with the unpopular or despised.

The deeper problem lies in that the Bill effectively replaces constitutional morality with political morality. B.R Ambedkar’s idea of constitutional morality was never ornamental; it was conceived as a panacea to the inevitable contradictions that would arise once India became a republican democracy.

A law that sidesteps procedure in favour of expediency, on the contrary, births a brittle democracy. In doing so, it turns justice into performance and reduces the Constitution to an arsenal with the incumbent. In a polarised democracy, this could be perilous.

Moral rhetoric is easy to summon; it is far harder to sustain when it meets the demands of procedure and individual rights. The true measure of democracy lies not in the speed with which it punishes the unpopular, but in its commitment to the principles that safeguard all. Judged by that standard, this Bill falls short.

The writers are legal practitioners based in Delhi. The views are personal.