The Deepening of Our Democracy
The deepening of our democracy
India started its life as an independent nation with a democracy that many people saw as shaky and thin on the ground – in Ambedkar’s words, democracy was a “topsoil” beneath which, India remained dominated by loyalties to caste, religion and region. India survived this early uncertainty, and has evolved into an increasingly mature democracy. The new maturity has come with a large-scale mobilization of people and a surging awareness of economic and political rights at the grassroots. Since the 1980s, this deepening has been accompanied with the rise of a new, powerful civil society, which is influencing and shaping our public debates.
This awareness and assertiveness among the grassroots has come with new challenges and questions around what India’s citizens are due in terms of jobs, education, and food and financial security. Some of these demands have complicated our debates around how to generate employment, the extent of our social programs, and the rights and responsibilities of the state. In some cases, this new clamor has also slowed down our reform process. But the intense participation within these debates, and the rise of all shades of political parties and caste alignments is a sign of our expanding, surging public square – a welcome development. We have an opportunity to marry this new political vibrancy with our economic growth, and shape a framework within which each aids the other.
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
A widely publicized email message from the largest circulating English newspaper in the world says:
“The Times of India is set to launch Lead India ’09, a country-wide campaign across all our newspapers, with the aim of ensuring that better candidates are put up and elected in the coming elections. The campaign will first try to put pressure on political parties to feature better candidates, by mobilizing the opinions of lakhs of thinking individuals around the country; and then act as a Voters’ Guide to help voters make a more informed choice, through detailed investigation of all key candidates in 40 urban constituencies.”
The paper wants you to contact your friends and “involve them in the movement through simple pledges like ‘I say NO to criminals in politics’ “. Interestingly, I faintly recollect a co-founder of Infosys also making a similar pledge in exasperation.
The crux of the matter is that we have a corrupt set of politicians holding the country to ransom. To extricate the country from these unscrupulous elements I suggest the following steps before and during the impending general elections. I will make my suggestions specific to Karnataka, since I am familiar with the State.
1. De-emphasize the roll of the political parties and choose independent candidates, whose sole qualification is the leadership qualities they have already demonstrated. The young entrepreneurs who became popular in recent leadership contests in Bangalore can be an excellent source here.
2. The mental condition of the affable President Reagan was considerably affected by the Iran-Contra affair during his presidency and even after his retirement. How did a humane President got involved in a controversy of this magnitude? I would blame his uncaring office staff and his advisors. Switching to another issue, a question that bothers me often is, how is it that the highest job in any country does not need any educational qualification! What I want to emphasize is that our candidates for the next election should be those who recognize the conspicuous lacunae in our political systems, like the ones I mention here. For a subtle deficiency in all electoral systems see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D947XdjnAVs
3. Barrack Obama got elected as President of the US, many claim, because of his efficient use of the Internet. I am inclined to believe this, when I watch him speak on the YouTube. So my suggestion is, let those who have lot of money to spare carry on their debates on television, and those us who cannot afford it, let us do our debating on the YouTube. It does not cost you anything, all that you need is a laptop at your disposal. Google which runs the YouTube, I am sure, would love to see this use of the web by the largest and the most vibrant democracy of the world.
Finally, a word about nandan’s blog. First, I would like to see this blog in a little bigger font and second, because of the importance of the next couple of months, can we have stricter control on what gets published in the blog?
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
hats off to u sir.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:38 am
I’m a critic of Indian democracy - not democracy as a concept. The deepening of Indian democracy implies deepening of corruption and corrosion. With poor or no economic freedom, political freedom is of little use. Millions of votes in India are either not cast or sold in return for rice, wheat, alcohol, TV etc. Unlike you, I’m a believer in the East-Asian model of development where the priority is to improve lives of the citizens before giving the right of universal adult franchise. The democracy in India may help gain brownie points in the West but it does not make big difference in the lives of its citizens at home.