This blog is inspired by a dialogue conversation café on “State of our democracy” I attended today. Though we spoke about America’s democracy, mainly I began thinking about what democracy meant to me.
To begin with, I shall state the dictionary meaning of democracy. Democracy is a “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system” / political or social equality/ a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
What is the means by which people exercise their democracy? Is it just the votes or is it more than just the votes? If democracy is about political and social equality whose voice gets heard? So we are the biggest democracy in the world. We are 1.2 billion people. If everyone would make a voice, it would be too loud and chaotic. So whose voice really gets heard?
If some one describes the way in which our government works would anyone think it is democratic. (Do not ask me how I do not really understand it). Just look at all the news happening with Walmart coming in, with farmers being displaced and killed (ironically in a state with communist government) and with SEZs coming up all over the country. So is democracy about the voice of the politically and economically powerful people? Whose democracy is it? The way it works would anyone proudly say this is my democracy?
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I think the first step is representative democracy - and that is something many countries - have become good at - and most political parties and vested interests have become very good at manipulating the system through representative democracy. In countries like India at times and in some states the dominance of the political representatives becomes so much that the executive and judiciary are cowed down by it.
Also I think the power representatives wield varies from the inconsequential to the draconian depending on the level (like panchayat to delhi).
The next step however in deepening democracy (!)is the legitimising of what is being called participatory democracy, meaning that citizen groups need to have opportunities and spaces (beyond that of merely exercising their franchise as individual voters) for the purposes of expressing their 'voice'and 'agency'. Further that an environment should be created wherein the traditional pillars like the 'executive' 'judiciary''legislature' and the 'fourth estate' see this participation as a welcome development and not something that is obstructive of 'business as usual'.
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