Mahatma Gandhi wanted grassroots gram sabha and panchayat to be able to control the government. Politicians today find it easy to infiltrate, manipulate and control these bodies via the Director of Panchayats and Secretaries! Governments are getting impatient with democracy and people are either too busy making a living. The UNO has not deterred mankind from disastrous wars, failed globalisation and increasing loss of humanity and compassion! We have polluted and destroyed nature, many fauna and flora extinct thereby irresponsibly perpetrating climate change and imbalance in this world! What is worse morality is a fading concept, worldwide. Money and religion seem to be the root of all evil!
Democracy has 4 important aims: 1) System put in place to choose/change governments in free and fair elections 2) Active citizens’ participation 3) Protecting human rights of all 4) Rule of law. As early as 1914, John Adams observed “Democracy never lasts. It soon wastes, exhausts, murders itself. There is never a democracy that didn’t commit suicide”. The problem is not with democracy but with human nature! Why are the 4 aims of democracy not being met? We sponsor winnable candidates against honest and competent people based on money power, racism, caste, religion, vested interests, etc. Seen in the British election of Liz Truss chosen as the British PM. Democracy keeps correcting itself throwing up the impossible like Sonak, a staunch Hindu brown man, richer than the monarch, in a prejudiced Christian nation under a white King! After Liz failed and had to step down, nobody wanted to risk becoming PM and Rishi is perhaps the fall guy. The racists in his party will have their knives out if he fails and the opposition will make his life hell anyway!
BJP brings laws and rules by ordinances without discussion in Parliament or with stakeholders! Free and fair elections require fiercely independent election machinery. Citizens have to be able to choose from trustworthy and competent candidates and have the freedom to criticise and debate freely without coercion and fear where rule of law will prevail! Democracy in India with the dominant right wing Hindu majority is led by a RSS hardcore undisputable leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi with majority in Parliament ruling with the emotional mix of religion and hyper nationalism backed by big business and most media, controlling enforcement agencies and influencing the judiciary, using every means to destabilise the opposition which renders our democracy shaky and malleable! The PM keeps inaugurating targeted mega projects and promising “non revdi” freebies “which empower the masses!” With marketing blitz a personality cult has been built. “Modi hai tho mumkin hai”
An inappropriate comment by opposition politician will bring prompt massive agitation, burning effigies, riots, FIRs lodged and so on, big issues that matter comparatively mild reaction or are suppressed! The suspension bridge on the sludge and sewage contaminated Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujarat, the PM’s trumpeted model State, collapsed just 4 days after it was opened on completion of extensive repairs killing over 140 people, many of them children! This was primarily due to gross negligence and corruption! Gujarat had two terms of Modi rule as CM and 8 years as PM providing double engine government and such resulting scam is not a model to be proud of? Pre-election Gujarat survey shows although people appreciate Modi’s achievements, they are angry with recent Morbi maladministration, tardy subsequent investigative justice and the past blunders of this government. Propaganda seeks to cover up past deaths all over India and traumas associated with demonetisation, oxygen shortages, Covid lockdown and migrant labour upheaval, loss of jobs, bankruptcy of many small scale business and industries, prolonged farmer’s agitation etc. Not that Gujarat has not progressed, however these days using media and hype it appears one can bamboozle most of the people all of the time with smart cities!
All over India people continue getting killed, countless family lives shattered due negligence of the authorities, be it potholes, accidents, flooding, agitations, communal riots and so on! No one accepts any responsibility. Scapegoats are found and the higher-ups invariably go scot free! There is no equitable justice and accountability. There used to be a time when the minister resigned after an accident when lives were lost due administrative failure although personally not having anything remotely to do with the accident, but morally accepting responsibility that the buck stopped there! When an undisputable majority leader usurps all levers of power, then democracy is in doldrums. Fallouts are sycophancy, arrogance and dictatorship. The VIP culture is still dominating and alive! Representatives are not freely chosen, resources not democratically utilised the matter of religion, culture, society, internal struggles complicate things and the organised few prevail over the gullible masses that are polarised, terrorised, herded or brainwashed/ enticed/ bribed with cash, freebies or emotional issues. This eventually leads to mobocracy of the masses versus the tyranny of the state now happening worldwide. The horrific Ukraine war is prolonging with the nations of the world participating in one way or another! It is sad that all the catastrophic disasters perpetrated could not firmly be prevented or monitored and controlled by the collective world morality and humanity via UNGA and UNO!
(The author is a retired naval officer, freelance writer resident in Porvorim)
