Democracy& the people of India.. I recall an article written by Shri Vir Sanghavi of The Hindustan Times in connection with his visit to China when Shri Atal Vihari Bajpai, the then Prime Minister, paid a visit to China. So far as I could understand and recall now, Shri Sanghavi had observed in the said article that we, the people of India, are paying the price of democracy. Perhaps, he meant to say that, in China, decision making process was fast because there was no democracy there. On the other hand, in India, it very slow as we are democracy and hence decision making process in our country is democratic and takes time. In what sense he had made the said observation? He had the said observation I the sense of economic development which China has made. He, however, as I guess, concluded that we are happy with less economic development because we have all sorts of freedom here. So far as India Vs China is concerned, he was absolutely right. But there are other democracies in the world where decision making process is not so slow as is in India. In my view, beside slow decision making process, there are several other reasons because of which we are paying the price of democracy. One of the several reasons, in my view, is the lack of proper education. In the dictionary definition, democracy "is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." The above definition is applicable to an ideal society whereas they have achieved democracy through struggle and they know its value. In India, we achieved the freedom but not democracy. Democracy in India has been thrust upon the people of India and hence I am afraid we the Indians – even the educated ones don’t know the value of democracy. The Constitution and the various institutions which have been created by the Constitutions are the soul of the democracy. The public at large should be aware about the salient features of the Constitution and the role of the Institutions which it has created. But how many Indians know about the salient features of the Constitution and the role of the Institutions which it has created? Is there any mechanism to make the people at large aware of the same? As per my little knowledge, I can say no. As per the said definition, people are the part of a democratic government and ‘the supreme power is vested in the people’. Is it true about us merely because we elect a leader by exercising our voting rights? Are we truly aware of why we elect a leader? Does our role end with the end of the election process? Are we able to judge the performance of an elected leader during his tenure? What is the mechanism to judge the performance of our elected leader? My answer to all these question is emphatic ‘No’. We can judge the performance of an elected leader only if we know what role our leader has to perform after election? My observation is that the electorate of our country doesn’t know the role of the elected leader. They don’t know that providing Bijli, Sadak, Paani, Health, Education etc. in the constituency from which he has been elected is not his job and it is the job of govt. machinery. The MP or MLA can merely raise the issue in Parliament of State Assembly. What happens? If the MP or MLA belongs to the ruling party and if he is influential in the ruling party, he can manage to arrange the said amenities in his or her constituency. But if he belongs to opposition, no one in the govt. will heed to the problems of his constituency. The people of his constituency blame that he did not do anything for his constituency. He does not vote for the said leader. The ire of a constituency is against the elected representative and not against the power. To douse the fire, therefore, the ruling party often change the candidate. The new candidate is elected and meets the same fate as his predecessor had met. For him, however, the five years period is enough. In such a scenario how can one say that we are a healthy democracy when we don’t know the basics of the democracy? My observation is that not to speak of an illiterate or semiliterate or less educated people, but the people having university degrees often ask an elected leader as to what he has done for their constituency. Thus almost 100% of the electorate of our country believe that providing amenities in their constituency is the job of MP or MLA. The MP or MLA does’t have courage to correct the understanding of the electorate of his constituency. Instead, he goes to the Thana, DM, SSP etc., misbehaves with the officials etc get wrong thing done by force. Perhaps, this is the reason that in our country, criminals are more preferable to the right persons as representatives as the criminals are more in a position browbeat the govt officers and get the wrong thing done. None-the-less, I am of the view that even the weak democracy is the best model of the governance in the world and what is needed in our country is to explore the modes and methods to make the people aware of the constitution, the institutions which it has created and, the last but not the least, the role of an elected candidate in the present set up of governance.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:44:57 +0000
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