By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on November 12, 2006
Democracy is not a popular word in today’s world because it has been coupled with the word ‘force’; people talk about establishing democracy and spreading democracy to other countries.
What is forgotten is that democracy is a form of government that has to be allowed to grow its own roots and only then will it flourish. These roots are the institutions of state and society which create an atmosphere in which democracy can flourish.
Democracy has been defined as many things by many people. For Aristotle it was ‘mob rule’ and for Winston Churchill the ‘worst form of government except for all the others.’ Democracy is defined as that form of government in which most of the power resides in the people and is exercised by them either directly or through their representatives.
The growth of democracy in the West, over the centuries, has been extensively analyzed by scholars. Statistical analyses of various causes of democracy like economic growth, rise of bourgeoisie, rising literacy and the social mobilization has been undertaken. In the non-Western world too these same indices have been applied with some adjustments.
According to Samuel Huntington there have been ‘three waves of democratization’ in the world, the third wave starting in 1970s. For Francis Fukuyama, in 1989, the world was moving towards “the end point of man’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Theories provide us models to view the world but they are not always trued predictors of reality. Many of the scholars of democracy, including Barrington Moore, did not believe that a country like India could become democratic. The class, caste and religious cleavages existed as did poverty and there was very slow economic growth and development.
India has had democratic elections since 1951 and except for the brief interlude of the Emergency in the 1970s India’s democratic setup has continued uninterrupted. In the 2004 elections to India’s Parliament around 60% of India’s population voted and the Election Commission of India employed 4 million people to run the elections.
India has a wide political spectrum with parties of all hues; from right-wing nationalist parties to left wing socialist and communist ones. The consensual and pluralistic form of government and decision making has ensured that coalitions between parties with different ideologies and voter bases can still form and run the government.
One of the factors in favor of democracy has always been that every group or party accepts a verdict which may not go in its favor in the present in the belief that next time round it has an equal chance of coming into power. In an multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like India this reason is very crucial.
India has a multitude of religious, caste-based and socio-economic groups and parties. Each of these groups would one day like to hold political power and office. The majority, however, are too small to ever be able to do so on their own. The Indian democratic system, however, provides such an opportunity.
Every group or party believes that it has an equal opportunity for one day coming into power if it indulges in moderation. In 1989 elections the right-wing nationalist parties and the left-wing socialist parties were part of the same broad coalition against the ruling centrist Congress party. In the 1999 elections the right-wing BJP moderated its ideology and its demands in order to tie with centrist and left-of-center parties. In the 2004 elections the left-wing socialist parties allied with the Congress against the ruling BJP coalition.
It ensures that every group has a stake in the democratic process and instead of seeking to subvert the process. The problems India faces in Kashmir, Punjab and the North East are partly due to external reasons but a large part of the problem has been that groups in these regions have felt that they don’t have a stake in the democratic process and have preferred to subvert it rather than work within it.
The world’s most prosperous and powerful democracy, the United States, had its elections last week. The point of democracy and people’s power was made once again. The issue at hand is not whether it was the Iraq war or the values debate which led to the loss of the party in power but the reflection of democracy in the elections.
The average person on the street believes in moderation and prefers his or her government to reflect that view. The 2000 and 2004 elections were seen as polarizing events; America was seen as being divided into blue and red regions ‘where never the twain shall meet.’
Whenever the political pendulum swings too far to the left or the right, it is always brought back to the center. It was a vote against extremes in politics and a vote for moderation.
And this is the miracle or charm of democracy. Democracy depends on moderation and democracy enforces to moderation.