Power can destroy the world and can also construct the world. It is for people to decide how to make use of it. In, modern nation-state, most democracies are made up of majority and minorities in terms of language, caste, gender, religion. Demarcation of power becomes necessary to provide scrutiny over majority rule. The concentration of power has shown what happened during the Nazi regime. Therefore, the division of powers is needed for ensuring accountability otherwise diffused accountability leads to lack of responsibility of governance.
If demarcation of powers is absent then struggle for power, domination, lack of responsibility, indifferent attitude towards minorities, corruption, sycophancy, personality cult etc destroys the basic fundamental freedom, equality, justice resulting in complete anarchy. The Arab Spring, the Emergency period of 1975 in India, Monarchies of the Middle East have shown to the world an unorganised way of governing people.
The world has seen clashes of interest between different sections of society on different issues like religion, caste etc., unreasonable exploitation of powers, favouritism to a particular section, failure of checks and balances on government. Dictators like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and Idi Amin of Uganda gave their respective nations’ constitutions, which concentrated all the powers in the dictator. Such usurpation of power only resulted in the amassing of wealth by the rulers and untold misery of the populace.
Examples of such state have been many – Hitlers Germany or Mao’s China. The tussle for power and dominance will come out in open, ending up with one Institution having dominance over the other. In such a case the democratic state will turn to autocratic state or totalitarian state. Another possibility is it leads to anarchism, where people lose trust in all the three institutions and take laws in their hand. An example is middle east countries.
In the Indian context, the constitution provides three arms to Indian Government (Legislature, Executive and Judiciary) which are functioning independently without interference in each other’s jurisdiction. This model was adopted from the English constitution and the GOI Act of 1935. So the executive and the legislature needs to be bound by unamendable laws to set limits on their overreach directed towards citizens. For example, the Government cannot interfere in the privacy of an individual, cannot suppress freedom of expression, etc. Any such law framed will become ultra vires to the Constitution. Moreover, Promotion of co-ordination between different parts of government is not possible without clearly defined powers, separated domains and exclusive lists of items. Am independent judiciary is a must for checking the legislative overreach and protecting rights of the citizen.
A per the famous saying – Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Demarcation of powers and responsibilities increases accountability of every organ of the state which is an essential basis of good governance because, in the end, it becomes easier for people to understand as to whom to approach for which problem.