“Democracy”
1 a form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through elected representatives. 2 a state governed in such a way. 3 control of a group by the majority of its members.
This is the oxford definition of the word of Greek origin. Of the three definitions, in the
Elections are around the corner in this part of the country (hmm.. who knows we could also have general elections soon). This is the time when political parties start making promises, and release manifestos. For most public, these promises and manifestoes form a significant factor that help them to decide whom to vote for. Obviously there are many other issues – caste, money, liquor, etc., that could have even more effect on certain sections of the society. When I say most public, I mean to refer to citizens for who development issues rather than other issues form the basis while selecting their representatives.
In most cases the public’s voice is what, which forms the part of the political promises and manifestos. Like poverty eradication, electricity, education, social security, infrastructure, etc. The parties promise many things in their public meetings and manifestos, depending on which people decide which party to vote for. But once these parties are in power, do they care to implement these promises? Forget implementing these promises, many times the governments do exactly the opposite.
Don’t we need a proper mechanism where political parties are penalized if their election promises are not implemented? Not implementing these policies certainly amounts to cheating the society. Is this not a criminal offense? A party wining an election and not honoring its promises is a breach of mutual agreement between the representatives and the society. There cannot be a greater crime that this in a democracy. There is an urgent need for some regulatory mechanism to over see this; this will not only deter the political parties from making false and opportunistic promises and duping the public.
Nandigram – this is the reason I am writing this. I would be surprised if any of the pro capitalist governments would even think of trying to do something that the communists did there. They did the exact opposite of what they were preaching for the last 30 years there. All of a sudden they woke up to development and decided that they had to give land to capitalists.
Karnataka – how can I forget this? As long as they had power it didn’t matter to them about any of the promises to the public. All they wanted was power. It was the dirtiest dance of democracy anybody could have witnessed. How a hand full of people played their games with the hopes of 50 million people of this state. Bond papers and ministries were more important to them, than the interest of the general public.
What ever democracy that we have at present is the worst form of democracy. People are displaced from the ancestral lands without proper compensations, women are striped and beaten brutally because someone does not like what she asks for, another lady is made to run from city to city because someone did like what she writes, natural resources are illegally mined and exported to other countries, the list goes on and on….
Do we have any hope? The only thing that can force a government to do its job rightfully is the civil society. But how strong is this society whose stake holders are me, you and every citizen? We are more concerned about our self well being, than about the collective good.
Do we have a solution? Is our system the worst form of democracy?
4 comments:
Rithu ....your writeup shows a lot of pain which you feel for whats happening around you.
Certainly whatever happened in Karnataka is a matter of shame for the Kannada people. The only other instance was some years back in the UP assembly when people started throwing mikes and chairs at each other. This was as dirty as that. This time around if there are elections ........Kavi and I have decided to come to Bangalore and vote with a vengeance. We don't want the JD(S) to come anywhere close to power. We want them to be wiped out of the state. We want to contribute to that. Not that the other majors like the BJP and Cong are any better. But atleast they haven't stooped as low as these people. As George Bernard Shaw once said that ........all politicians are devils .......and we need to vote for the devil who is least bad (he said something to that effect).
-Rajiv
The biggest problem of our system is that there is no accountability. Public money is siphoned off without any shame. There has to be a revolutionary change. Its sad to say but we have to accept the fact that our system has failed and we are all collectively responsible for the malaise
I think the people who are responsible for all these are the public themselves. Many of us including myself are lazy bumps sitting here and blogging about these things but not taking any step to correct or improvise it. I guess people just keep cribbing but don't take a step forward to initiate something. We need to somehow get people like NRN and SS to come forward and do something before we run out of whatever democracy we have. But who is going to bell the cat!!!?
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