It was a crowded train station with the passengers going in and coming out. Everyone in the vicinity was there for a purpose – business as usual. While most of those, the eye could see, found a justification in the intellect, a few were those you are never sure, should have existed in the first place. More often than not, those were the incomplete stories of injustice. The indignant eyes of a huge man in shabby clothes were desperately trying to seize his Sitar back from the affluent man – his exploiter. The wealthy man did not hand over the Sitar to the rightful owner until he removed a few strings from it and until he reached the corner of the street, where other artists were performing in symphony. Although it was a symphony, it was not quite worth to be described by that word. The music went out of tune on occasions more than one. The man in his shabby clothes did not know what to do with the suddenly bestowed gift he had struggled to grab for so long. He sat in the same symphony with few missing strings, trying to imitate the disorderly music being played. He never realized how his Sitar could exactly ever imitate other violins being played that too with a few missing strings.
India gained independence on 15th of August 1947. Is the term ‘Independence different from ‘Freedom’? It might be, otherwise we might not have required two different words to describe the same idea. On 18th of July 1947, the Indian Independence Act that came into force divided the British Indian territory into two new states of India and Pakistan, which were to be dominions under the Commonwealth of Nations until their constitutions were in effect. This Act talks about the constitution but not the form of governance. Does it mean that we gained independence to formulate the constitution but did not gain freedom to choose the form of governance? Was it for the indignant eyes of the Indian leadership at the time of Independence that made them to sit in the symphony that was not meant for the country they were holding in their hands?
What is the wisdom in questioning democracy as a form of government after more than sixty years of independence? Having already experienced and watched the dance of democracy for more than sixty years, are we still not eligible to question it? Human beings progress when a principle enlightens them owing to its flexibility. On the other hand, the light of knowledge emanating from the same principle dwindles in darkness when humans practise intolerant and obstinate behaviour in the name of reverence of the same principle. A testimony to this fact can be found in the principles of religion. However, let us not digress from the topic of democracy as a form of government.
Hundreds of pages can be spent on various philosophies of democracy including one of the most authentic works on the subject from Plato – The Republic, where Socrates discusses the various forms of government from timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, to tyranny. Before choosing a form of government, I am sure, our great leaders whom we consecrate as semi-gods, would have analyzed whom they are choosing it for, had they been given that opportunity. Democracy is a form of government that sets equality as a precondition and liberty as its guiding principle. While equality can be numerically justified in terms of headcount, the liberty stands as a marionette controlled by the strings of tyranny and materialism in one hand and the strings of social and moral constraints in the other. Although counting may be used as a means to implement equality, can you really count your apples along with your oranges?
Democracy as a form of government in the modern world, had found its emergence in countries where people were almost similar in terms of language, culture, religion, and above all, sufferings. The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy. They were sceptical of the chaos that democracy might display in the demographics of diversity. Plato’s terminology of ‘mob rule’ was more refined to sound ‘majority rule’ in representing the shortcomings of democracy when they decided to use it. That perhaps was the reason why the two-party system was introduced in the political system of the United States, so that they do not end up with different political priorities and affiliations for whites, Mexicans, Blacks, and Spanish for instance. The entire Europe had to be re-structured into countries based on ethnicity due to the democratic form of governance that they chose. The glimpses of its inability to hold multiple ethnicities are apparent in the case of United Kingdom where they have a trouble managing the expectations of English, Welch, Scottish, and Irish, despite the enormity of wealth in the country. Although it is a huge topic in itself and the form of governance might not be the only reason, but the fact remains that it is one of the strongest reasons.
Talking in mathematical terms, for the democracy to be successful, the average diversity of a random sample of population should be equal to that of the statistical average of the entire population. Unless that is guaranteed, we may end up being a majority rule within various institutions of democracy. The pockets of diversities seldom sublime to the spirit of equality specifically in the situation where ghettos of diversity have incentives to offer, more often than not – unlawful.
It would certainly be unwise to allege that the founders of modern democracy were unmindful of its transition into majority rule in due course of time. The majority rule that appeared as a fundamental flaw towards a fair system of governance has fortunately been addressed fairly but unfortunately not been addressed fully. It is not by co-incidence that in any form of democracy – be it representative, constitutional, participatory, or even the concept of cosmopolitan democracy, an authority exists along with democratic government that in principle has the authority to overrule the decision taken by the elected government. In Indian democracy, the judiciary is an independent authority with the Supreme Court being the ultimate interpreter of the constitution.
What else could be more beautiful than the atrium of democracy where the judiciary in its pure white robe holds the book of constitution in its hand with the chants of the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the ambience, ever brightening the chandelier of humanity! Think twice if you believe that it is just about the disappointment of not being able to achieve such perfection, which in principle should have been built upon the foundations of modern democracy. There appears to be a fundamental flaw in the foundation itself.
Democracy is a form of government where the governing power is derived from those being governed. What appears to be a concentrated stake in one individual in autocracy is distributed to the entire population to term it democracy. While the former is ruled out on the pessimistic assumption that an individual may not always be morally exemplary, the latter is welcomed on the optimistic assumption that most of the people would not be morally bankrupt. It is quite clear that the principles of democracy as a form of governance, revolves around the assumption of moral values in most of those being governed. We now have a cursory and vague glimpse that the gene of democracy is inherent in the moral code.
Besides being binding upon their followers, the moral values of almost all the Abrahamic religions have a consensus largely. However, what is the connection between the Abrahamic religions and democracy? As per the statistics, democracy has been most successful in the countries where people belong to single ethnicity and follow one of the Abrahamic religions. We observe a failure of democracy in the regions of multiple ethnicity and diverse moral values. Most of the African nations attest to the observation. With the wings of corruption spanning the system, with the discrimination of diversity acting as moral guidance, with the matters of absurd faith acting as citation in judicial system, it is high time we put our heads together to analyse and arrive at a better solution for the well being of humanity.
Reforms are the need of the hour. Call it is a design issue or call it a bug, but one thing is for sure, it cannot be bigger than the willingness to improve it.
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