Threats to democratic rule in the world

Threats to democratic rule in the world

WITH EYES WIDE OPEN

D. N. Bezboruah

What has never failed to intrigue me is that some of the best democracies in the world are to be found in countries that are still ruled by monarchs. That is why these countries are listed as constitutional monarchies even though the spirit of democracy has flowered in these countries better than in those that are proclaimed to be democracies. We have countries like Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands that are listed as constitutional monarchies but are some of the finest examples of democracy at work. A country like Great Britain has been looked up to as a model of sound democratic rule. It has set laudable standards of democratic rule for many other countries to emulate. In fact, most new democracies look up to how Britain functions whenever there are situations that give rise to questions of democratic propriety. People are interested in finding out how the British parliament functioned whenever there is any political or administrative situation similar to what Britain had to face much earlier. This importance given to how Britain handled similar situations in the past is because Britain has had a tradition of democratic rule that is older than that of many other countries.

By contrast, we have many other countries of the world, long used to monarchic or feudal regimes that have chosen to be democratic countries. India, the world’s largest democracy, has long been used to monarchic rule through a large number of co-existing kingdoms that had not come together to form the India that we have today. And even when India became independent in 1947, we had a number of princely States that had to be merged with the Indian Union. This was a task that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel undertook with remarkable competence and determination. As a result we now have a situation where all the princely States have become constituent States of the Indian Union. India no longer has any rajas and maharajas; we only have former rajas and maharajas. But we in India have lived with monarchic traditions for so long that we are still used to talking about thrones and about chief ministers as if they are kings of their States. It will probably take several more decades for the old associations to be abandoned fully and for a real democracy to emerge from what we already have. I say this because it is my humble submission that we have not yet totally accepted the democratic spirit that alone can help to create a real democracy.

In what ways has India fallen short of being a true democracy? There are several reasons why India, having accepted democratic rule, has not yet managed to become a true democracy in spirit. Perhaps the most important reason is that we have not yet been able to accept the notion of having a ruler of a State or the country who is the ruler but not the king. Our major failing has been that many of us have not yet been able to accept the idea of having a ruler who is not a king. As I have said on a previous occasion, we still talk of thrones and have no qualms about naming new-born males Samrat—emperor! We ignore the fact that in order to acquire the democratic spirit we must be able to think of the ruler as someone elected by the people who no longer has any hereditary rights to the State. We cannot afford to ignore this fundamental difference: in a monarchy, the ruler is a descendant of a family that literally owns the State. Hence the responsibility of the ruler passes from one generation to the next, without the subjects having any say in the matter. In a democracy we have the right to choose our leader and elect him to be our ruler. True, not every democracy has a system by which the president or prime minister of a country is directly elected by the people. In India, the President is elected by duly elected representatives of the people. We thus have a system where the elected representatives of the people elect (on behalf of the people) the President of the country. The Prime Minister and the chief ministers of different States are also elected indirectly by the people through our elected representatives. This has always seemed to me a major aberration of the democratic principle, since a small coterie of the people’s representatives can gang up to pull down more honest and deserving elected representatives who aspire to be selected as presidential candidate or as a candidate for chief ministership and put up their chosen representative who can be expected to turn a blind eye to all corrupt practices.

The aberrations to democracy in India were brought in by the very people who would normally be expected to protect democracy with great dedication—the politicians who come seeking our votes every five years and sometimes more often when a government falls before being able to complete its term. The people’s ability to elect good representatives to Parliament and the legislative assemblies is limited by the availability of deserving candidates. Unfortunately, there are not too many deserving candidates left. The electorate has to look for honest, efficient, educated and committed candidates. The entry of lawbreakers and criminal elements into the political arena has made the prospects of winning elections very dim for good persons with the interests of the people foremost in their minds. Today, fighting an election costs a lot of money. Depending on the constituency, this can run into a few crores of rupees. A lot of honest, educated, efficient and committed people do not have the kind of money that is needed to fight the general elections of today. And the principal motive for anti-social and criminal elements who contest elections is that becoming an MP or MLA is seen as the best means of securing immunity from legal action. So, in their case, what is spent on winning an election is really an investment for immunity. No wonder there are MPs and MLAs who strive to win elections so that they can be assured of being spared by the custodians of the law. Fortunately for us, the custodians of the law have begun to see through this expedient of remaining out of reach of the long arm of the law and there have been several cases of MPs and MLAs being arrested for unlawful conduct. This is a welcome change from the earlier stance of not daring to take any kind of legal action against the representatives of the people.

The crux of the matter is that the so-called representatives of the people are often representatives of no one at all except their own families. They need to become the elected representatives of the people not because they intend to serve the interests of the people, but rather because they seek immunity for their unlawful activities. And more often than not, they can manage to secure this immunity because the bureaucracy is more concerned about how its actions will affect the future of their progeny, rather than how it will affect the entire State and its people. Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from what is happening to the world’s largest democracy is that a democracy can cease being democratic as soon as its common aberrations begin to get a hold on it. Thereafter, a democracy can appear to be democratic without being so. That is when we begin to learn the lesson that a country can go on pretending to be democratic even long after it has ceased to have any trace of its democratic character apart from the periodic elections that it continues to conduct.

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