by Dr. Sangit Sarita Dwivedi 23 July 2020
During the period of the nineteenth century, liberal and democratic theorists invariably looked upon ethnic diversities as only rare challenges and proclaimed countries like India as unfit for democracy where the democracy should not be practiced, and if by any chance it was introduced, it was bound to fail. Since democracy is a way of saying no to inequality, injustice, and coercion, it upholds equality, justice, and freedom. In a general term, democracy is comprehended as a form of government that is subject to popular sovereignty. However, a democratic system can stay on and sustain for longer period, vide massive participation of masses. The basic objective of the Indian state has been the establishment of a sovereign-democratic setup that promotes and fosters a social and economic order. The institutional foundation of the Indian republic was laid by the effective and sagacious leadership of the great men and women with vision. In India, the representative democracy and its institutions have been enduring aptly for seven decades proving itself to be a great tribute and testimony to their aptitude, strength, and resilience.
A widespread cynicism against parliamentary institutions and erosion in respect of normal parliamentary processes and conduct of parliamentarians present a very disturbing and hazy picture. Furthermore, there remains a total paucity in the application of genuine efforts in examining and analyzing the main issues, persistently been plaguing the Indian Parliament, or to ascertain the root cause for the erosion of its traditional authority, self-esteem and glory of the institution. The basic objective of the proposed paper is to examine the depth of democracy and its characteristics, ensuring its survival and stability in India. It analyses the ways to enhance intervention on related issues, raising awareness, sharing of knowledge, and evolving a way out towards the challenges and prospects of the institutions in contemporary Indian democracy.
The political system in India has ‘parliamentary democracy’ comprising of federal structure which primarily incorporates ‘regional aspirations’ and fundamental rights as enshrined in the constitution. It does establish a government of laws, the mass media reflecting the contour of Indian society, the civil services, striving to ensure a high degree of administrative efficiency; the election commission playing the role of a pillar, bridging the gap between political parties and judiciary beside protecting rights of citizens. Nevertheless, the government is totally committed to protecting the unity and integrity of the country in total compliance to the constitution, despite facing practices often orchestrated by forces with ulterior motives to demean and derail its smooth functioning.
The Challenges for Indian Democracy
The very nature of Indian polity has been shaped by its historical, social, geographical, economic conditions, various religious rituals, and other traditions of the society and as a political system cannot sham and alienate itself from these facts. Indian society, being one of the most heterogeneous in the world in terms of multicultural diversity, mostly comprising of language, race, caste, religion, tribes, and social inequality. In fact, India’s inequality in terms of wealth, land distribution, education, or human capital, is one of the highest in the world. These markers serve as an identity for ethnic groups and their mobilization. Yet India, with the world’s largest electorate, experiences and enjoys the outcome of democracy and its acceptance, without much dissension. India’s ethnic-communities have multi-layered and multi-dimensional identities that impinge on each other in a dynamic manner. The identity composition of ethnic-communities has been further complicated by the imposition of class distinctions. Accordingly, people belonging to specific religions, tribes, castes, races, and languages are found scattered in various territories. These special conditions have given a distinct shape to Indian politics.
According to Rajni Kothari, the problem of national integration remains the fundamental problem of political development. National integration means political, social, and cultural binding, a feeling of oneness by the people of a country. A critical study of the nature of Indian politics indicates that national integration is under threat owing to various factors mainly, the role of caste, regionalism, or demand for creation of small states. Communalism, reservation, politics of language, the problem of minorities, backward classes, violence, political opportunism, socio-cultural conflicts, terrorism are glaring problems posing a big threat invariably haunting the spirit of democracy.
In recent years, there have been quite some serious contemplation and debates about the decline of Parliament’s authority and its disengagements, in resolving, pervasive inequalities within society on the basis of caste, class, and gender thus limiting representation of citizens and the credibility of the judicial system. Although the development process in the country aims at the growth and development of all regions, the very presence of regional disparities and imbalances in per capita income, literacy rates, state of health, education, continue to remain unabated. The values of democracy, civil liberties, secularism, equality of all citizens irrespective of religion, caste, region or gender notwithstanding, are often targeted by communal forces at different levels. The socio-inequalities are a few major causes hovering over for so long and thus proving too detrimental to the country’s economy and its growth. Despite formal democratic rights, ordinary citizens find it too irksome to engage in the state purposefully. Nevertheless, Indian democracy has endowed citizens with formal rights yet sordidness in the system and pervasive inequalities within society scantily involve citizens to act adequately.
Since the judicial system is the cornerstone of India’s democratic polity, rapidly losing its credibility. It is presently mired in a multiple administrative and functional implications- both externally and internally and thus causing a massive and alarming threat to its credibility and utility to the nation. On one hand, the increasing politicization of appointments in the highest court of the land has eroded the independence of the judiciary, on the other; the vast number of cases pending in the Supreme Court as well as the other lower courts have defeated the very purpose of reliability over judiciary in general. In recent years, scandals about lack of integrity have besmirched the reputation of the judiciary. The subordinate judiciary works in appalling conditions. Any reform undertaken must be in its totality rather than in isolation.
Mere conducting elections periodically does not prove that India is a republic and has sufficiently effective democracy. It is the way elections are held, the quality of people elected, their performances, and accountability that make our democracy effective. In the current scenario, the widespread delusion in the political system is well perceptible. Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy levels indicate the inefficiency of the Indian political system. Even after seven decades of independence, people are deprived of basic amenities in life. But can we put the entire blame of the current state of affairs on the political system or should the society be made accountable for the present rot? The behavior of political system is its responsibility to society and to reform the political system, there is a need to reform the society and its system. Although there have been few changes made from time to time on our electoral system, yet there was no significant headway in this context.
Media is often hailed as the fourth estate, but the time has come when some introspection on the Indian media is equally warranted. It remains a common perception amongst the people that Media has become irresponsible and partisan to certain sections, vociferous enough and calling the shots in day to day politics. Under the Constitution of India, freedom of the media is part of the freedom of speech guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (a). However, no freedom can be absolute, and reasonable restrictions can be placed over it. One of the basic tasks of the media is to provide factual and objective information to the people groping in dark to a search of it, enabling them to form rational opinions, recognized as a sine qua non in a democracy. As always, the role and performance of Media, have often raised many doubts and questioned frequently by people. Although avenues of media have increased manifold with a large share of the space being occupied by social media. Yet in the era of paid news, sensationalism, fake news, etc. have gained perpetuity alarmingly in a system, sans any regulatory measures to rein it.
The issue of women’s representation has been the most controversial and highly debatable in the political scenario. The state-sponsored ‘empowerment through representation’ remains the main theme of women’s politics, despite having marginal representation in state and national legislatures and also in another political arena throughout India. Often women’s reservations were vehemently opposed sans any reasoning, thus consequently curtailing, the issue to its unwarranted size. These movements, NGOs and the civil society initiatives termed the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments as indispensable for the survival of Indian democracy. Yet efforts on the part of the state were inadequate to keep democratic pressures under control. A complex practice often adhered to by system i.e., the interweaving of caste, community, and gender discrimination in society and interventionist policies acquired by the state forced the movement to remain state-centric. However, the state’s women’s movement affected enormously the autonomous dynamics of such politics. Instead, the state intervened in the processes of identity formation and selectively opened the representative arena to different social sections.
It is true that regionalism and sub-regionalism are inevitable in a vast and plural country like India. It is apparent and axiomatic that regionalism has posed a serious threat to national unity and its integrity. Indian democracy has been struggling with regionalism which is primarily an outcome of regional disparities and imbalances in development. To be sure, regionalism is firmly rooted in India’s manifold diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, communities, religions and so on, and encouraged by the regional concentration of those identity markers, and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. The politics in these states soon acquired a complex character and the state was unable to respond to it from within the democratic framework. Despite, all the grand ideas of taking power to the doorsteps of the ordinary citizens, the local government has been an utter failure and found wanting in its compliance. . Since the poor usually get mobilized on caste and ethnic lines, the modalities of such mobilization are often multi‐dimensional. The politics in the states acquired a complex character and the state was unable to respond to it from within the democratic framework. The complex nature of the state as imagined in the constitution was an outcome of the state-centric nature of the constitutional and democratic discourse in India. In the absence of positive interventions of the state, democracy remains limited and unable to expand its tentacles in the socio-economic sphere.
In his candid assertion, Tocqueville disclosed, Democracies function well when citizens make use of their associational capacities and mutual recognition… Despite multifarious challenges faced by Indian democracy, its people have incredibly been capable of holding it aloft, since independence.
Prospects for Democracy
The Constitution of India in its Preamble declared India as the secular democratic sovereign state. The existing discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, and creed is ruled out from the very beginning. Yet, the religious divide and where boundaries between state and society became blurred and the state arena opened up as terrain of social contestations. After successive uses of accommodative and repressive strategies for legitimacy, the state acquired a manipulative character.
Modernization is the process of social change whereby less developed societies acquire characteristics more common to developed societies activated by international, or inter-societal, communication. The Indian political culture is in the transitional or formative stage. Given the highly unequal and exploitative social relations in Indian society, even partial incremental changes must be termed and seen as remarkable achievements of the state. To promote better governance, the government takes initiatives to improve people’s participation, strengthen Panchayati Raj Institutions, involve civil society, voluntary organizations, civil service reforms for improving transparency, judicial reforms, strengthen the right to information act. Redressing regional imbalances has indeed been a vital objective of the planning process in India. India’s on-going programmes and policies such as Make in India, Skills India, Smart Cities, Digital India, Clean India, infrastructure development and making the country self-reliant is a step in that direction. The Government from time to time makes efforts to alleviate intra-state disparities. Some of the major programmes are – the Tribal Development Programme, the Hill Area Development Programme, the Border Area Development Programme, the Western Ghat Development Programme, the Drought Prone Area Programme, the Desert Development Programme, etc.
The Indian state, with its new economic policy and democratic principles, has been successful in decimating the threat to national integration and development of the state. In all the phases of Indian politics, the overall nature of state discourse on democracy was procedural and selective. The politics of negotiations in which the state engages itself marginalizes democratic claims of the under-privileged majority and undermines public welfare in spite of its procedural gain. India’s record of relative unity and integrity stands in sharp contrast to many post-colonial federations, controlling the conflicts. While the development of the backward regions is a national responsibility, the State and the local leaders have a significant role to play. The need of the hour is to integrate these regional forces and tendencies within the national mainstream so that the nation gains strength and prosperity. Unless the local leadership at all levels – political, bureaucratic and intellectual – resolves to usher in development based on sharing the benefits on an egalitarian basis with the masses, results will be hardly achieved.
Towards a Conclusion
From its complex character, the state selects certain roles for manipulation of the democratic process. In India, all three condensed functions of the state about sovereignty, social regulation, and welfare became difficult to achieve in the light of various compulsions. These compulsions reserved a possibility where democracy, especially in the social and economic sphere could be appropriated by the entrenched sections under the leadership of the state. But at the same time, these compulsions also opened the possibility of unleashing diverse patterns of social and economic changes that reached the underprivileged sections and encouraged them to participate in democracy at the electoral level. The contemporary theories of consociationalism and federalism have exposed the ethnocentric and anti-liberal and anti-semitic temper and tenor of the conservative and quaint ideologies. One possible alternative to garner democracy may be the collective and democratic functioning of the economy at the level of production which means sharing. For this to take place, Indian political-economic context, electoral and non-electoral politics, civil society movements and people’s resistances have to play a major positive role in the years to come. In the context of democracy and development in India, there is an expression of Gramsci: emphatically quoting, “Live without illusions, and yet not to be disillusioned.”