INDIA AS A DEMOCRACY

 

INDIA AS A DEMOCRACY:

 

India is the largest democracy in the world. The world is convinced that democracy has endured in India from the time it became independent. It was only during Indira Gandhi’s rule that Indian went through a period of emergency when the constitution was held in suspension. But soon the elections were held and Indira Gandhi and the congress party were punished for their misdeeds.

 

There have been regular elections to the parliament, to the state assemblies and even to the local bodies, like municipalities and panchayats. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that every year there are elections in India. Now we are witnessing the elections in four states and in one union territory.  How do we view these elections, are they the mark of our democracy?

 Democracy becomes the central issue of governance of our nation.    We are proud that from day one of independence India has adopted universal suffrage that gave right to all adult member of the country to vote and elect a government of their wish.  But this electoral democracy has not delivered much. 

“Even the universal franchise where we give one vote to one person in a country like India it poses a problem. Our way of life has been communitarian.  Either we behave as a caste group or behave as a religious group or we behave as linguistic groups in certain situation.  Our way of life is never based on individualism.  The entire idea of democracy in the west is based on individual rights – my conscience, my belief, my faith, my family.  Whereas in India, it is “I as a Hindu”, “I as a Muslim”, “I as a Brahmin”, “I as a Lingayat”, “I as a Dalits”, “I as a Thakur”!  Therefore, democracy with universal franchise on the one hand and communitarian way of life and outlook on the other hand is the situation in India.  We tent to vote as Brahmins, for example, and not as individuals.  Those who vote as individuals are a tiny minority.  This leads the political parties to field candidates on the basis of castes and communities” (Communalism and Democratic Perspective, Asgar Ali Engineer.)

The essence of democracy does not consist in the casting of vote every five years.  In a nation whose population is illiterate or mere literate, the people have been hoodwinked by the powerful and have defeated the idea of democratic election process.  Our governments have never represented the will of the majority of the people.  In majority elections not more than 50% of the people cast their votes.  And in any election the parties that get barely 30% of votes out of the 50% of the voters, form governments.

The normative core of ideal politics:

The normative core of ideal politics is to create a democratic ethos among both the voters as well as the political leaders.  Voting has to be made one of the most responsible acts that has to be necessarily exercised in crafting the ethos of democracy.  It is needless to emphasise that the future of democracy depends on the creation of such ethos; ethos that is defined in terms of the degree to which the internalization of democratic values takes place among the citizens. Such ethos defends these values by taking a moral initiative without waiting for the lead from political leaders.  Citizens as voters should campaign among themselves for the candidates who can genuinely promise to strengthen such an ethos.

Politics with an idealist orientation is necessary to built the society around the distributive principle of justice and values of equality and dignity.  Making political judgements and decisions commensurate with such ideal, thus, becomes a moral responsibility of both the voters and the political parties.  In fact, parties do have higher levels of responsibility to convert these ideals not only into an agenda for election campaigns but also to involve voters into the collective project of creating a democratic ethos, not just periodically but almost on an everyday basis.  Voters as citizens, however, have their own responsibility to impress upon the leaders to integrate this agenda into their politics of electoral mobilization.  Citizens have fundamental responsibility to seize the deliberative opportunity to not only create and stay with the democratic ethos but also exert necessary moral pressure simultaneously on the political leaders to take qual responsibility to create and participate in the creation of democratic ethos.  Did it not happen in the recently held presidential elections in the United States?

Democracy and ownership:

Further, when the vast majority of the people have no ownership or control on the wealth of the country there cannot be economic democracy.  The poor are offered doles and freebees to make them vote for a particular party or candidate.  The government keeps the poor on doles.  Beyond this there is nothing they benefit from a democratic state. “Parties that invest too much not in persuasion but in creating illusion (abhas) among the people cannot treat illusion as a resource that is permanently available for garnering electoral support.” (EPW Vol LVI 8)  For the rest, the governments implement the agenda of the industrialists and the corporate houses.  The governments take away the land of the people and promise them 100 days guarantee of work.  They are promised employment in place of their land.  But this employment does not last long.  When the rate of profit of the industrialist employers begins to fall, they fire the workers from employment.  This leaves the vast majority of the people out from the development agenda of the state and therefore out of the democratic system.

The Panchayati Raj system and decentralization of power would hold the hope for the nation to be truly democratic.  But the problem is that whatever power the 73rd constitutional amendment has given to the panchayats is often usurped by the state level assemblies and bureaucracy.  

When the citizens are kept in jail without trials or bails because they have expressed views opposite to the views of the ruling dispensation; or because they fight for the human rights and the rights of the Adivasis and Dalits are branded as urban Naxals and are put behind the bars in such situation where do we go to look for real democracy?

“The government has become more intolerant.  We see this particularly in the context of farmers’ protest.  This is so, because these farmers represent a solidarity of conscientious activists across caste, class and gender backgrounds.  This solidarity is rooted in a democratic assertion against incarceration of these activists, as well as challenges the state and party nexus aimed at dismantling the farmers’ protest.  The government, through its action, is inverting the essence of a free and democratic society, where freedom from fear is now a fear of freedom.” (EPW, Vol. LVI NO 8 Feb 20, 2021)

In a capitalist society the state comes in conflict with democracy.  The state stands behind the corporates and big business at the expense of the rights and livelihood of the working masses.  In the case of farmers’ protest, the government is not willing to budge on the farm laws that clearly go against the long term interests of the farmers. These people experience the state as repressive.  “The state’s passive response to violence and, some time, active involvement in such violence against women leads women to characterize the state as patriarchal.  For Dalit women it is not only patriarchal but also Brahminical.  For Adivasis, the state is both coercive and callous. For minorities, the state, led by the right-wing party is necessarily communal.” (EPW January 2, 2021) 

What we have been witnessing in the last seven years is out right denial of even rudimentary democracy.  Use of money and muscle power during elections has become common. As elections are approaching directing enforcement directorate, income tax raids, anti corruption squads against the leaders of the opposition parties have become common. These are used against the prominent leaders of the opposition parties to make them leave their parties and join the ruling dispensation so that the opposition gets rendered powerless.

Sometime elections are rendered meaningless. By using money power and threats the elected majority is turned a into minority and the elected governments are thrown in dustbins.

The idea of the Indian nation revolves around three major principles, secularism, socialism and democracy.  These three are like three lions of our national emblem or three colours of our national flag.  They are not stand-alone elements.  Democracy is meaningless without secularism and socialism.  Similarly, the two principles are hocus-pocus without democracy.

 

THE IDEA OF INDIA

 

THE IDEA OF INDIA:

The character of a nation is defined by the character of its citizens. The nation today is in search of people who will put nation before themselves, who believe that their destiny is intrinsically linked up with the destiny of the nation; the people who do not want to use the nation to build their destiny but build their destiny by first building the destiny of the nation. 

“Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part.  And that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may life.” Robert A. Heinlein.

The subject “The idea of India” is hotly debated during these days when alternative “idea of India” is being put forward by the contending section of the Indians.

They argue that those who are speaking of ‘Idea of India’ think India came into existence only after independence.  They argue that India existed since thousands of years.  But there is a big fallacy in their argument.  This fallacy is because they confuse India as a geographical territory and India as a political entity. 

The geographical land called India existed from, not only thousands of years but also from millions of years. The fact is what existed thousands of years ago in the geographical land, now called India, is not the same as what this land has come to be. It is the history that will tell us how this land has evolved from primitive reality to the modern 20st century India.

Before the British arrives in India there were many war lords, kings, and emperors who rule on difference parts of this land.  There was the Maghad empire, the Marathas ruled over huge territory of India. In the south there was a Chola dynasty, Pallavans, Maharaja of Mysore, Haidar Ali, Tippu Sultan.  From the coming of the Muslim sultans, Babar, Akbar ruled a huge territory of India.  The British arrived in India and they went in war with many of these rulers and defeated them.  They made a treaty with some which allowed them to keep their territory under their control but would owe allegiance to the British rules.  When the British rulers consolidated their hold on the entire territory of India it was in their interest to unite the territory of India. Such united territory did not exist before the British rule.

Emergence of Nationalism:

During the freedom struggle and with the influence of wester education the sentiments of nationalism took roots in India.  The leaders of the freedom struggle were looking for an identity of Nation State as the British was a nation state and empire.  The idea of Nationalism strengthened the freedom struggle.  Under the leadership of Gandhi all people of different origin, cultures, religions and economic classed got united to fight for independence for the British rule.

Hence the idea of India existed from thousands of years is a fallacy.  It is only through the rise of nationalism and finally achieving independence from the British rule that India as a Nation state came into being.

The leaders of the freedom struggle searched for the idea of India.  The founding fathers of our nation inspire and instill in us about the idea of India.   

There was near unanimity among them about how our nation should be moulded.  During the freedom struggle the people of India with every shade of ideology had identified themselves with the Indian National Congress.  The manner in which this movement functioned during the struggle for independence indicated what idea they had for the nation that they had laboured to bring forth.

We are a nation that is blessed with many great people who have fought for great values and dedicated themselves to build the nation along these values.  We should solute to these leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Maulana Azad, Jyotiba Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar, etc.

“Men and women in every age and society want to make their own history, but they do not make it in an historical vacuum.  Their effort, however innovative, in finding solution to their problems in the present and charting out their future, are guided and circumscribed, moulded and conditioned, by their respective histories, their inherited economic, political and ideological structure.  Our past, present and future is inextricably linked to it.

By the very definition of making history is in the context of our past and our vision for the future. India set on its path, on its own as it were, after independence, i.e., from 1947.  But this path has deep roots in the struggle of the people for independence.  The political and ideological features, which have had a decisive impact on the post-independence development, are largely a legacy of the freedom struggle.  It is a legacy that belongs to all the Indian people, regardless of which party or group they belong to now; for the force which led this struggle from 1885 to 1947 was not a party but a movement.  All political trends from the Right to the Left were incorporated in this movement.” (Bhipin Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, K.N. Panikkar and Sucheta Mahajan, India’s Struggle for Independence.)

The vision for the future of Indian was set by the Constituent Assembly which with long strenuous deliberation drafted a Constitution for India. At the heart of the constitutional document was the indelible faith in Indian Nationalism.  The visionary founders espoused to deliver the promise of freedom to the masses.  The primary aim of the constituent assembly was fostering the goal of social revolution and this was matched only by an interest in securing ‘national unity and stability’.  The engine of this social revolution emerged from both the pressing needs of the newly independent country and the Indian National Congress’ long experience of anti-colonial nationalism.  The leaders of the Congress successfully transplanted the goals of freedom struggle as constitutional maxims.  According to Nehru, ‘Indians did not default their tryst with destiny’.  The fundamental rights and the directive principles are the ‘conscience’ of India.

Along the history, in the context of emergency of 1975 and in 1992 the demolition of Babri  Masjid, there was increased demand for further democratization and empowerment among the economically and socially deprived.

The founders’ vision of social revolution, national unity, and stability through democracy that formed the ‘seamless web’ continued to both influence and pose problems for their successors.

The country lost its maternal immunity late in the sixties with the decline of the founding generation ...   Approaching maturity in the nineties, its most difficult time lie ahead.

Can India be a great democracy, strong in itself and, in the eyes of the world, so long as so many of its people are denied the promise of the Preamble?

If the constitution of India was the finest expression of Indian nationalism, why did it not enchant two of the most significant communities of India, the Muslims and the Dalits?

The Indian nationalists were at the heart of the founding document, the constitution.  Such nationalists believed in democratizing power, in accommodating differences and in integrated pluralism and, above all sought to uplift the down trodden through a social revolution.

What are the outstanding features of the freedom struggle? A major aspect is the values and modern ideals on which the movement itself was based and the broad socio economic and political vision of its leadership (this vision was that of a democratic, civil libertarian and secular India, based on self-reliant, egalitarian social order and an independent stand as against the rest of the world.

• Democratic ideas and institutions in India:  The Indian National Congress was fully committed to and organized on a democratic basis and in the form of a parliament.  Having experienced the British authoritarian and despotic rule which did not give any space for freedom of speech and press, the national leaders were whole heartedly committed to drive out not only the British rulers out of the country but also their despotic rule and replace it with democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of press. The national movement did not see the democratic values to be practiced only after independence, but these values were built in the functioning of the movement itself.  There were no decisions taken in the congress without thorough discussion and through consensus. Every resolution was put to vote. People were free to disagree and dissent.  Mahatma Gandhi even congratulated those who had the courage of conviction to vote against a resolution.
• From the beginning the nationalists fought against the attacks by the state on the freedom of the press, of expression and of association.  They made the struggle for these freedoms an integral part of the national movement.  The defense of civil liberties was not conceived narrowly, in terms of one political group, but was extended to include the defense of other groups whose views were politically and ideologically different.  Gandhiji thus writes on the total civil liberty, “Liberty of speech means that it is un-assailed even when the speech hurts; liberty of the Press can be said to be truly respected; only the Press can comment in the severest terms upon and even misrepresent matters.  Similarly, freedom of association is truly respected when the assemblies of people can discuss even revolutionary projects.” “Civil liberty consistent with observance of non-violence is the first step towards SWARAJ.  It is the breath of political and social life.  It is the foundation of freedom.  There is no room there for dilution or compromise.  It is water of life.” (B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi -- a Biography.)

Nehru was known for his deep commitment to civil liberty.  He kept the civil liberty at par with economic equality and socialism.  He wrote, “If civil liberties are suppressed, a nation loses all vitality and becomes impotent for anything substantial.” (S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru – a biography vol. one.)