The World's Largest Democracy?
©Prax Maskaren, Bombay. 21st March 2003.
India claims that it is the World' Largest Democracy. But this claim goes on much beyond mere size to a direct claim to be also the most moral democracy. How correct is this claim? A Further Exercise in Demolishing Lies - Demythifying the Enemy!
Last week, I had posted a riposte to the Mid-Day article "Yankee Go Home!" Today, I will investigate further the high moral grounds on which the Indian Union stands while lecturing the world.
India likes to delude itself that it is not only the World's moral arbiter, but also the World's Largest Democracy and looks down on the USA, even making cheap and stupid jibes at it. The Indian media — and not just the vernacular press — is guilty of fanning the flames of this claim. But this delusion has no foundation in fact.
Disregarding the morality of the actions of the USA's founding fathers and their rebellion against the legitimate government under the auspices of 'Great Britain', it still remains a fact that they were original thinkers, that they had worked long and hard to gain the adherence of the bulk of the population, and that the Independence movement had a true popular comprehension and support.
These men also were original thinkers, for they bucked the trend to fashion a Democracy instead of yet another monarchy. Moreover, they fashioned a deliberate and balanced system - one that perdures to this day with great success, despite its obvious defects.
Again, since the movement was truly ex populo, and not imposed from above, the people of the US have been the most zealous guardian of their system and have forced it to progress along its founding principles to extend democracy to all branches of the government.
But let us examine India's claims in comparision to that of the USA.
India is first of all the most populous state that follows some form or the other of democracy. And this is the actual basis of its claim to be the largest democracy. But quantity does not make quality.
Indian democracy never did strike deep roots. Even today, democracy remains a foreign concept that is distorted and hijacked to conform to caste politics and to caste aspirations to dominate others, to dominate to the exclusion of others.
And like the classic banana republics of Latin America, where dynasties like those of the Somozas and the Battistas flourished, India too is held prisoner to dynastic politics where father yielded to daughter, daughter to grandson, and now the daughter-in-law stands waiting in the wings. Nor is this restricted to only the Nehru family, but this dynastitis pervades India at all levels. This is because the Indian people have never been able to understand democracy and are still fixated on monarchy. Democracy is an alien concept imposed upon India by the English.
Unlike the Americans, the Indians have faithfully taken over the outward form of the British administration and have not made any progressive development in it. There has been at least one major and significant change, however, and we will examine it.
When England vacated India, the British East Indian Empire was organized as provinces with real autonomy, having their own Constitutions and governed by Provincial Governors, Prime Ministers and having each their own Provincial Supreme Courts. Above them was the Federal Government, Federal Governor-General, Federal Prime Minister, Federal Supreme Court. Moreover, the provinces also had their own flags, anthems, etc. This is still the system that exists in federal Australia and Canada, and which existed in the federal South Africa under the Apartheid Dispensation.
As provinces, they had a full and legal status as political entities or polities or states.
The Indians changed all that. They were uncomfortable with the concept of provincial autonomy and so they municipalized the provinces. They took away the title of 'Prime Ministers' of the Provinces and reduced it to that of 'Chief Ministers'. They took away the designation of the 'Supreme Courts' of the Provinces and reduced it to the 'High Courts'.
And, as if to top up the joke, they changed the official designation of the administrative units from Provinces to States.
Thus, they reduced the administrative units from being real provinces to being merely glorified municipalities. And, in keeping with glorified municipalities, what need do they have for their own constitutions, colours and anthems? These too have been taken away and actually forbidden.
And it is this that is the main cause of Kashmir's dissatisfaction with India: The then Princely State's elected Government under Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah, and Governor-General (Sardar e Riyasat) His Royal Highness, Prince Karan Singh Dogra made a treaty of Accession with India under which Kashmir would retain its statutory autonomy, constitution, flag, Prime Minister, etc. But, with the Municipalisation of the provinces, Nehru etc., forced the same on Kashmir, arm-twisting them, in violation of this treaty. Because Abdullah was not amenable, he was deposed and arrested under false pretexts, and a puppet installed who had Nehruvian Municipalisation rubber-stamped by the legislature. It is this that remains the core of Kashmir's dissatisfaction with the Indian Union.
Now this Municipalisation, of course, to the perspective student of history and of civics, is the real heart of the joke.
For the Unitarists have taken away the real substance of Provincial autonomy and have given them the empty honour of a promotion to states!
This mock promotion, of course, is a mimicry of the States of the USA. But it is precisely that these American States are true sovereign states, not glorified municipalities like the Indian 'states'! And today, this American and British model has been faithfully adopted by many developed and progressive countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc., to extend Subsidiarity to the provinces and to fulfil provincial aspirations.
On the contrary, in the Indian system, the 'states' are just glorified municipalities and nothing more. They are merely administrative units of the Unitary State and thus without any identity of their own or of any real subsidiary role or position, and their boundaries may be changed, modified, etc., by the central government at its whims and fancy.
But bad enough as this mockery of democracy is, it is not the most important defect in Indian democracy.
That defect is that Indian democracy is, unlike the American model, not a thorough-going democracy.
In the USA, popular pressure has translated into the dependence of not only federal and provincial rulers on the popular mandate, but also of every ruler. Thus, magistrates and mayors and sheriffs are elected. District (County) administrators are elected. School boards are elected. Etc.
The very concept of representative democracy depends upon this thorough-goingness.
So, how does it apply in India?
We have the district Collectors who are nominated civil servants (the 'servants' part is a joke, they serve only themselves and their robber-overlords; the IAS constitute the highest and most privileged Caste of modern India!)
There are also the District Magistrates, Tahsildars, Mamlatdars, Kotwals, etc.: Ditto!
There are mayors and sheriffs, but, according to the British India formula, they continue, fifty years down the line to be ceremonial clowns, with the real power vested in the unelected Municipal Commissioners and Commissioners of Police.
No Indian Magistrate is ever elected.
While village rulers have some real power, they depend upon the unelected Block Officers, District Magistrates and Collectors, etc.
Ditto for the 'State' Governors.
Thus, Indian 'Democracy' has, fifty years down the line, utterly failed to penetrate to grassroots.
There is another important defect in this joke-democracy: The Chief Ministers, unlike the US State Governors, do not have a fixed tenure but depend upon horse-trading in the provincial legislatures. And this joke is all-pervading, carried over to all the levels of governance. In some states, the Chief Ministers have managed to hold on to power only for a few months, with very few succeeding for even a full year, let alone the full five year term.
Fifty years down the line, this sublime and noble pedestrianisation of all things Indian continues and has become the hallmark of India. Even the matter of education is continually being dumbed down, lower and lower.
It is this great joke of a democracy that is touted as the greatest moral democracy of the world.
Of couse, this fantastic claim rests entirely upon the gross ignorance and conceit of the Indian masses, who have been indoctrinated to make only an idolatry of democracy and not seek its application.
Therefore, fifty years down the line, 'reformists', such as there are, do not seek to remedy this great debilating fault, but proudly tout and tomtom Indian 'democracy' as the greatest moral democracy. There is no reformist who actually even perceives this great and grievous defect!
Worse, this model of mock democracy has been adopted with felicity by such glorified banana republics as Nigeria and post-Apartheid South Africa in order to give the outward appearance of democracy even as real democrary is totally thwarted.
In Nigeria, in order to destroy democracy, the 'states' were arbitarily redrawn to increase their number to almost infinity. South Africa under the ANC of Mandela has done exactly the same with the former - and historic - provinces of the Cape Province, Natal, Transvaal and of the Orange Free State being subdivided to provide new super-municipalities that have no historical character and identity that they could use to defend and assert themselves against the center.
This is India's original contribution to democracy!
And the same is now being advocated in India by the Hindu 'nationalists' ruling at the center, who desire to de-emphasize the provinces in order to emphasize the unitariness of the Indian state as a reflection of the mythical uniformness of the Indian 'nation'.
So, the next time this greatest democracy, this archdemocracy is adulated, kindly do not forget to make a deep bow of reverence and awe in the face of its incontrovertible magnificence.
The following table illustrates my point more amply:
Prax Maskaren OFFICES USA INDIAN UNION Federal Executive Elected Elected Provincial Executive Elected Elected District Executive Elected NOT Elected City Executive Elected NOT Elected Magistrates & Justices Elected NOT Elected School Boards Elected NOT Elected