Democracy of the people, by the people and for the people
Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg speech in the year 1863 said “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”
If we were to enter a time machine and transport ourselves to 2500 years ago to ancient Athens, we would find ourselves in the Greek city that revolutionized the concept of democracy. Democracy is derived from two Greek word Demos meaning people and Kratos meaning power which implies that democracy is nothing but people’s power.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech on the eve of India’s independence noted that “the service of India means the service of millions who suffer…it means the ending of poverty, ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity”
Following independence, India’s fledgling state of democracy commenced on a herculean journey to democratically transform a hierarchical, institutionalized state into a state of people’s power.
Democracy is a structure of government in which the citizens exercise their power directly or elect representatives among them to form a polity and a governing body like a parliament. We as citizens of a democratic country vote for our representatives and the one who gets the most votes goes on to act for the majority where the majority is the collective people who voted for the representative. This entire act of where all adult citizens of a country have a right to vote without any hindrance is called Universal Adult Franchise.
However, democracy as a governmental system is not flawless. A question may arise as to what happens to those who are not the majority? The minority in India are not being indirectly represented by a politician, but the minorities still retain their basic rights. To ensure both the will of the people and the rights of the minorities, there would be a requirement of a system of “checks and balances”. This is achieved by the holy book of democracy called The Constitution.
Democracy doesn’t mean that it is only the majority’s rule, it instead implies that individuals of a democratic country enjoy certain rights against the state. These rights and duties are illustrated in the holy book called The Constitution. Our Indian Constitution is one of the world’s bulkiest constitution with a combination of rigidity and flexibility. Our Indian Constitution provides a parliamentary system of government where the executive power rests with the council and cabinet of ministers and the President is only a nominal ruler. The Indian Constitution provides a detailed and intricated list of fundamental rights and duties which are core to the democratic values of India. The Indian Constitution in its preamble has five basic principles which are sovereignty, socialist, secular, democratic, and republic. Our Constitution provides special provisions for minorities, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, etc. by conceding them with special rights and provisions.
But with how the current scenario of our country is, these questions arise in my mind. Is India a democracy? Is India’s democracy really in decline?
Ever since Independence, India has survived to stay on the path of democracy in a way unparalleled among states freed from the rule of colonialism during the last century. However, the recent supremacy of the Hindu nationalists under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how they have ruled has given a mutiny to India’s democracy and the minorities in our country. India was supposed to be a country that holds secular principles to its core. But now, it forges a relationship with religious actions in civil society on an unequalled scale. The conclusions drawn from the Modi government endorses significant responsibility for a decline in India’s democracy and this trend correlates with the notion of building a so-called Hindu Rashtra (an ethnic Hindu state).
India’s anti-democracy symptoms are way too many. A classic example of this are the so-called gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes)-a term that has been used to describe the euphemism for criminal gangs sanctioned by forces in civil society to attack a particular group of a minority who are or have been claimed to be meat-eaters. There have been journalists who have succumbed to their lives for taking a critical stance in defence of secular values. The brutal killing of well-known journalist Gauri Lankesh is just one. So-called low-caste groups have also been persecuted, discriminated and harassed by such kinds of goons. One such example is the Bhima Koregaon case. Violence erupted at Bhima Koregaon and many Dalits were attacked due to the very same reason. In the aftermath, several social activists and academicians have been harassed and arrested for speaking up against such evils. But we cannot just blame a government for all the tyrannies. One of the most significant breaks in India’s democratic trajectory came during the Emergency, from 1975 to 1977. Indira Gandhi’s eighteen months-long suspension of a democratic Indian system of government was comprehensive. During the emergency time, the liberal democracy index of India was down to 0.28 which effectively turned India into an authoritarian state. Post that, the hegemony of dynasty politics was broken and new parties emerged. The freedom of expression dramatically fell from 0.81 in 2004 to 0.59 in 2007. These trends claim that India’s democracy is in decline and the question that arises in citizen’s minds is, what is the Indian state turning into?
