Has Indian Democracy Failed?

We take pride in that defining moment in 1950 when, despite a recognition of the enormous challenges of knitting together a 'nation' out of a staggering diversity of communities, ethnicities, languages and disparities, we decided to take the bold political step by pledging India to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. What remains today of this pledge?

Smitu Kothari Delhi

In a dictatorship, censorship is used; in a democracy, manipulation.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, political commentator

….the level of indifference the nation now shows to the fate of its poor calls into question not only the justice of its fiscal policies but also their legitimacy.

Ronald Dworkin, in Is Democracy Possible Here?

Democracy requires citizens to stay alert, to open their eyes and their mouths—to understand that societies of sheep typically beget governments of wolves. It (democracy) facilitates criticism of power.

                 John Keane, political philosopher

From whose vantage point do we assess our democracy? The minority that celebrates our 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges? Or the over 70 per cent who live on less than Rs 80 a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation?

Why is a vantage point important? After all, people have regularly exercised their electoral options, sometimes changing governments who have let them down. But, apart from a few exceptions, have they not elected another set of leaders who are more or less the same? Have they had any power to hold the bureaucrats, who exercise enormous power, accountable?

Compared with many countries, we do not live under an authoritarian regime. We can organise protests and write freely. Unlike China, we have achieved over nine per cent growth with liberal democracy. We take pride in that defining moment in 1950 when, despite a recognition of the enormous challenges of knitting together a 'nation' out of a staggering diversity of communities, ethnicities, languages and disparities, we decided to take the bold political step by pledging India to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic.

But, what remains today of this pledge? Integral to democracy was the commitment to strive for social and economic justice. Any assessment of our democracy must start with an assessment of that commitment.

This essay is not to assess the failures of our political elite to steer democracy in ways in which it could accommodate the aspirations of the people of states and regions like Kashmir, Punjab, and the Northeast or its contentious maneuvering of 'higher' and 'lower' castes. Nor is it my intention to assess the success of the Congress party in representing the plurality of the country or in analysing its decline and the growth of other political forces representing regional and ethnic aspirations, including the rise of the BJP.

My intention is to illuminate how the dominant political, social and economic interest groups have consolidated their control and managed democratic aspirations without conceding their power. Of course, there are instances of dalits becoming presidents and sarpanches, of lower caste/class members demonstrating remarkable entrepreneurial spirit. However, those who have been able to build secure livelihoods are a small proportion of the economically and socially discriminated in the country. This reality highlights many questions. Here are a few.