The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from an ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment. (Robert M Hutchins)
The dominant discourse in Indian politics, post-independence, was British Liberal Democratic Ideology. Bulk of the Indian intellectual force was educated on British lines. As such after independence, India opted for the democratic model of government, it being the apparent solution to the problem of pluralism in India. Democracy in India is a top-down process as unlike Europe it was not ‘fought-for’ but given to the people by the Government itself. The success of this biggest social experiment of the world was even doubted by Gandhi and Ambedkar, owing to a huge illiterate and ignorant population in the country. Against all odds the democracy in India flourished and India became the largest democracy in the world. Two factors that contributed to its success are “The Rigid and Written Indian constitution” and “Indian National Congress”.
Norms dictate that popular governments are ideologically legitimized by a conscious mass participation. A mature democratic environment demands a political party based on an ideology which presents its agenda in the form of ‘an election manifesto’ and lets the people decide without any manipulation whatsoever. Being the great democratic country India is, this concept has hugely been tussled and turned here to suite the people in power. Indians, as in majority of the people, are delusional about the glorified past that it has and at the same time being ignorant to the fact that this so called democracy is one big Oligarchy. Nowadays, is all about ‘who gets the power’ and who the party to this acquisition is? Janta is no longer a bhagwan, never was to begin with, but a mere vote bank. People don’t choose, rather they are made to choose. Strategists are hired, media is employed, and mind games are played with the common masses. Riots and killings are a set of tools in the hands of these masons. The Irony is that a veteran Hindutva supporter and BJP spokesperson Dr. Subramanian Swamy openly says on national television “we have to consolidate the Hindu vote and divide the Muslim vote”. To consolidate this Hindu vote, hypothetical threat of ISIS, Pakistan etc. is used as a tool. Before the elections, equations are devised. Majority of the vote bank is secured by demonizing a particular religious minority. This whole process will definitely fetch for some people but ultimately it will turn the democracy into nothing but a dishonorable game of vote politics that would suck on the republican character of the nation.
Ever since Modi has come into power, the overall structure and ideals of Indian democracy have undergone a drastic change. The monster of BJP’s election agenda is running wild on the streets. Secularism is the basic foundation of democracy and a country like this which is diverse not just on the outside but that these diverse groups themselves are factionalized, where one sect worships Rama while the other sect worships the conventional anti-hero Ravan, where for some people Vedas are a source of their prestige and for some the source of exploitation, you have no option but secularism. The leaders of Indian national movement, unlike politicians today, recognized this fact very well when they propagated territorial nationalism instead of ethnic or religious nationalism. But in the recent past, Indian masses have been communally charged. The very word ‘secularism’ is being demonized as ‘the appeasement of minorities’. Indian constitution may declare India a secular nation but secularism, as defined by a Modern India historian Bipin Chandra “separation of religion from politics and state, equal regard for all religions and active opposition to communalism”, finds no place in practical politics of India. On one hand people are being killed in the name of ‘the holy cow’, temple issues are central to the contestation of elections and, Gita, the religious text of Hindus, is being gifted to foreign tourists by a sitting Chief Minister, while on other hand Indians are supposed to believe that they live in a secular democracy. India as a nation can’t survive without secularism, even if Muslims are taken out of the equation. Political parties in India, even when they fail to win a majority in a certain state, they still manage to form a government in that state by playing dirty politics. If this isn’t enough conviction that the democracy, which was dreamed of, is dead, then what is?
Next agent in this facade is the media. Media in a democracy is supposed to be the ‘eye’ of the masses. Proper functioning of democracy demands that media must be a constant critic of government. It’s the fear of media that checks the govt. from becoming negligent and authoritarian. It was the realization of power of criticism that made Nehru to write under the pen name of ‘Chanakiya’ and criticize his own policies. If the government and media are not parallel, it can prove disastrous for the democracy. The govt. of India seems to have wisely tamed the media to murk the information of its flaws and failures. Killing its character, media has been given issues like Pakistan, Kashmir and army to feed the masses with. From ‘The Modi Kurta” to ‘Patanjali products’ media will debate anything but not the 450 million Indians which according to World Bank are living below International Poverty Line, earning just $1 per day. The farmers have to come to Delhi to register their protest and instead of realizing their failure to cater to the farmer issues; media is madly on a mission to prove them as ‘fake farmers’ just to hide their unfulfilled promises and depict the fake progress of the government. Media has always been used by dictators to destroy the democracy and that is what is going on. History stands witness to the fact that people buy blindly whatever media sells to them and that when they wake up, it’s often too late.
In 1941 only 11 democracies were functioning in the world, rest of the democratic nations were under the dictators who grabbed power through democratic means. After gaining power through a democratic framework despots like Hitler and Mussolini hijacked the whole system in the name of nationalism, national security and national pride. They eradicated all the opposing ideologies using the democratic institution as tool. Media legitimized all this by shamelessly justifying their policies e.g. the bold justification of the Holocaust at the hands of German media. Isn’t something like that happening in India? In here, anyone who dares to criticize the government is labeled as anti-national and is isolated whether it is some intellectual, journalist or an institution. Even students are not spared. For democracy to prevail the co-existence of all the philosophies is necessary. In India liberals like Arundhati Roy is the epitome of anti-nationalism while in USA an academic like Noam Chomsky, even after calling USA ‘a devil’ and ‘a war mongering nation’, is respected for his intellect.
When accountability ends, so does the democracy. B.R Ambedkar in one of his speeches out rightly warned us about how hero-worship (bhakti) will destroy the Indian democracy. Modi-worship, which ultimately is making him immune to accountability, is proving Ambedkar right. Indian democracy has become so fragile that army generals are interfering in politics, judges are defending the govt. and nationalism is judged by the food you eat.
BJP seems to be profiting from the words ‘nation and nationalism’ more than India, while these being the words that set this whole process of democratizing India into motion. The coffins, even the nails in the coffins of the soldiers have a political price that fetches the concerned parties their votes. This situation is about to blow and the lack of needed steps will turn this democracy into ‘demo-crazy’ and India, as a nation based on sacrifice, greatness and glory, will cease to be.
(Zahid Iqbal Shah is doing Master’s at the Political Science department of the University of Kashmir)