Democracy: Mother of all evils!

BY: RANBIR MANHAS PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 11, 2018

The 16 th US President, Abraham Lincoln who ruled the States of America from March 1861 until April 1865, had rightly described Democracy as the best way of governance because all democratically elected governments are ‘by the people; of the people and for the people’, but for people of Indian sub continent its description is all together different. For us Democracy no doubt is ‘by the people’, but it is neither ‘of the people’ and nor ‘for the people’. “Go to the polling booth, cast your vote and return home leaving the fruit to be enjoyed by MLAs, MPs and Ministers are the meanings of democracy for a common man here”.

Before becoming independent our two top leaders of freedom struggle had given their suggestions about post independence course of action. Whereas Mahatma Gandhi advised Congress to keep away from politics, Subhash Chander Bose wanted imposition of dictatorship in India for initial twenty years.

However, both the valuable suggestions were turned down by Pandit Nehru and co., and the result is for everybody to see.

Democracy might be a good idea, but when the voters do not know the value of their votes and reach the polling booths like drum driven cattle, then what is the fun of elections and democracy? Just imagine if a voter sells his vote for a ‘frooti’ even after seventy years of democracy, what could have been his attitude seventy years ago? Surprisingly, the advice that Subhash Chander Bose gave and was turned down by the so called liberals and democrats of India, was adopted and practiced by China which got independence two years after India and see the results. China not only became member of the all powerful Security Council, it also became world’s biggest economy pushing behind the so called democratic India in the international race. Had India also accepted Subhash Bose’s advice India could have also become one of the five veto powers of the world outsmarting its neighbors who are bullying India so badly today?

The biggest gift that democracy bought for us is the electoral system which is responsible for many evils including division of Indian society on community, caste and regional lines besides ruining the county with the curse of corruption, dishonesty and black marketing. Whereas people like Togadia, Maiwani, Khalid and Owaisi misuse democracy to divide the society on caste and communal lines politicians like Farooq Abdullah, Thakeray Brothers, Mamta and Sidhramaya use democracy for dividing the country on regional lines and Lalu and Maya like public representatives to loot public exchequer ruthlessly and mercilessly and all this is done to achieve political power without realizing that their actions could first break the nation and then their own existence also.

Since our democratic electoral process is expansive, politicians are bound to make money illegally, (because making huge money is not possible with legal means) they desperately need bagfuls of currency notes for purchasing party tickets; for paying to workers; for bribing voters; for greasing hands of high commands; to become ministers and so on. The vicious circle does not end here. Legislators and Ministers compel officers to collect money for them in the name of elections; officers further ask their subordinates to arrange this money and the process goes on and the result is before us all to see as whole the society- from politicians to public to public servants has become corrupt, selfish and immoral to the core.

Like Diabetes which is mother of all diseases, democracy in Indian subcontinent can also be described as mother of all evils. Prime minister Narinder Modi has diagnosed this problem and wants to treat it with his innovative idea of simultaneous conduct of Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, but I want to go one step ahead of him by advocating for adopting either the China’s single party democracy, UK’s two party system or American Presidential way of democracy in this country also, which in my opinion besides successfully curbing evils like corruption and division of the county on communal and regional lines can also save the electoral expenditure to a great extent, that can be utilized for creating job opportunities in the country. But will the Opposition allow this to happen, perhaps not particularly when it has adopted a suicidal policy of ‘opposition for the sake of opposition’.