Is there life after democracy?… By
democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the
working model…What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been
hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions
has metastatized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and
the Free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin,
constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of
maximizing profit? Is it possible to reverse this process?
-
Arundhati Roy, ‘Introduction’, Listening
to Grasshopers: Field Notes on Democracy, Penguin (2010).
India.
One of the facts that fascinate people about our country is our
socio-economic-political system ‘constitutional (representative) secular
democracy’ that pulls the chords to keep the nation going and growing as one
country despite diversity. Thanks to the colonizers, they did the ground work
by re-engineering the kingdoms big and small to form a single colony for their
vested interests. Otherwise, the present demography a conglomeration of
multi-ethnic groups with their unique language, culture, social structure,
governance, worship and political system would have never been possible.
Whatever be the past, now we function as one – one country, one citizenship; we
aim at the integral growth of the society governed by a secular representative
democratic political system. But, we shall not take things for granted. With
the rise of political scandals, the arrogant governance in parts of our
country, lopsided development projects and neglect of the major section of our
society, suspicion abounds as to whether the present socio-economic-political
system for justice and stability we once dreamed it would.
An
aerial view of India make people believe that India is fast developing. Growing
urbanization and westernization of our country with its long straight roads,
the feature once envied in Hollywood movies, big malls, sky-scrappers, cities
crowded by cars, rivers regulated with big dams, forests invaded for minerals,
fast trains, rise in the literacy rate, metros in major cities, and (100
billion euro) monitory assistance to the European economic crisis impress
people about its rapid growth. The women in rags, on the other hand begging
around with her kids is a not a rare sight here. Taken as a symbol she
represents the suffering side of our country, where millions of poor -
displaced, outcast, let-down - with mixed feelings of sadness and anger look at
the affluent as their source of support next to God.
It
is not difficult to find people, Indians who have nothing more to lose but
their breath in a stone’s throw anywhere in India. Let alone the mentally ill.
We find families and groups of people spread across cities and pavements. Where
have they come from? Where are they going? What are they doing for a living? Do
they actually live or learn the art of slow death? The latest statistics of UNO
presents that the largest number of the world’s poor live in India. It is only a
part of the story. Added to them, India has people deprived of culture,
language, land, religion, respect, human dignity and freedom of speech:
adivasis, dalits and minorities. ‘Poor’ therefore mean all these people in
India. Their stories are pathetic. For most of them, it has gone from bad to
worse.
In
Kashmir in a situation that almost amounts to war, an estimated seventy
thousand people have been killed since 1989.
Gujarat riots (2002) which cost the lives of thousands of muslims and
livelihood of almost all of them are fresh in our memories. No worse is the
plight of Christians in Orissa (2007). Atrocities against the low caste are
rampant we do not see them mentioned in the media but for some sensual stories
like rape, riots, and murder in various pockets of India. Truth is the India is
not immune to caste-virus. They were
hunted down village after village until they disappeared in the wilderness. In
Chhattisgarh the Adivasis of Dantewara the poor and the most vulnerable people
are being evacuated in thousands, the free the land for steel plants. Already
644 villages have been emptied. But in our country, 70 per cent of the rural
population – seven hundred million people – lives in rural areas. Their
livelihood depends on their access to the natural resources. To snatch these
away would result impoverishment in a barbaric scale. Utsa Patnaik, a well
known agaricultural economist, notest that 40 per cent of the rural population
in India has the same food grain absorption level as sub-Sharan Africa. India
hosts more than a third of world’s under nourished children. (Roy, Listening to Grasshoppers)
Such
is the state of our development and welfare of the nation – one nation, India.
This raises serious questions about our governance. The data suggests that the government
consciously chooses to be indifferent to a group of its citizens, the Poor.
Otherwise how can this happen in a secular democracy where everyone is
represented in the parliament. It is simplistic to throw the blame on
politicians. How can everyone be corrupt or co-exist with corruption, injustice
and fascism? Basically something is wrong with our system. After all they are our representatives. We have elected
them. Democracy in India is anything but good governance. It means well being
of the politicians, the political party, the rich, the middle class, the
educated, and the (religious) majority. None of us are surprised at the report of the alleged assets
of Mayawathi, the BSP leader and former Chief Minister of UP. Of course she is
nowhere close to Raja, the former Central Minister of IT. The mess begins with
elections.
As
Deepavali, Pongal, Ramzan, Christmas comes every year, we have general elections
every six years in India. With all the banners, loud music, public gatherings,
meals, fasts, sacred vows, celeberations and media hype the latter outdoes
every other festival in our country. Election campaigns are ethnic (racial,
cultural, lingual) caste based and communalized. The grandiose of a festival
comes with the amount of money and number of people engaged in it. How true
then, general elections tops every other festival for it involves minimum of
two to ten billion US dollars and people all over India. No wonder, BBC
arranged a special tour, across India, for journalists from all over the world to
witness the recent general elections. Whether election has any connection to
democracy remains a debatable query. We have ministers in prestigious posts who
never made it in the present general election.
Money
works miracles in India. Elections are a ‘million dollars business’, everyone
wants to be part of it. Since, it involves buying and selling ‘vote-banks’;
only the richest and powerful (majority) finally get through. To be minister
you have to be either rich or right wing fundamentalist in India. Take the case
of the successful young politicians they are either rich, influential (Yadev
groups in UP) or take up fundamentalist ideologies (Varun Gandhi). Therefore,
there is hardly victory for an independent secular candidate. Let us neither
blame the people nor the politicians because in India representative democracy
functions this way: rich and majority rule the country the rest are tolerated
until they work for the welfare of the Country which belongs to the former.
What
happened to our democracy? What have we turned it to be? Narendra Modi the
master mind of Gujarat pogrom, becomes the third consecutive chief minister of
Gujarat. We have sold our democracy right-wing ideologies (fascist Hindutva)
and to meta-private firms so much so that they
define what does democracy, development, progress, good governance, justice and
equality mean in India today. If democracy means people’s governance of the
country through their representatives, of course it happens in India. But the
term ‘people’ in the above definition has specified connotation, in countries
like India it refers to not all but the chosen – the aristocracy, the middle
class and the caste-hindus. They rule the country with their representatives -
Congress, BJP or Communists it makes but a minor difference. They would fight
against corruption and rape-murder cases of their people. But make no noise
about people brutally murdered in Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Kashmir,
Manipur and other distant lands of India. Their voices are heard, opinions are
taken and complaints are received. Development
projects are directed to their wellbeing. Legal system is their watch dog. Like
the roman citizens of old, they (aristocrats, politicians) escape punishment.
In
the past over 2,50,000 farmers have committed suicide unable to withstand the
economic crisis’ in their families. Millions of people in Orissa, Chattisgarh
and Jharkand are displaced to make space for development; others who are bent
on defending their home land (mountains and forests) are being hunt down as
‘terrorists from within’. Another great section of people are persecuted,
bludgeoned and are treated as ‘refuges’ to be sent back to their countries
(holy land) because they worship different
gods. Freedom fight in Kashmir and Manipur is a different story altogether. We
cannot afford to lose them because they are India’s pride. We hold them under
force. We use military to keep their voice down. There is a soldier for every
twenty citizens in Kashmir. Yet India is the second largest democracy in the
global scenario. Probably it is true because one finds a democratic rule for
its citizens - the term narrowed down to aristocrats and middle class wo/men.
The rest are tolerated in as much as they contribute to the development of its
citizens.
This
is Indian secular democracy. It appears then that we have two choices either we
try to catch up with the affluent powerful, thereafter become part of the
growing India or perish by falling down to the bottom line. The latter would
always remain a stranger in this country worse as its workforce and resource to
be exploited for its development. Neither the myth of ‘we are indians’ nor the
current political system is going to transform our lives. They have taken and
are waiting to swindle even the little we have. Probably they are passing clear
messages that we are not wanted. It is time that we realize and work on our
future. We have the duty to build a nation for our children, a secular political
system that would work for our well being. Left to the present scenario we may
suffer a slow destruction until one day we are extinct.
For
the poor in India, there is no life after democracy.
