DailyPost 2810
CABAL DEMOCRACY
We live in a representative democracy and the whole exercise of elections is conducted to facilitate this constitutional requirement. What does representation mean? This can be a million dollar question for any elected representative in this country. The most basic question is did the electorate have any role in selection of the candidate of a / any political party? Was there any process in the political party by which the candidate for a constituency was selected? Whether the local prevalent opinion was taken into account. If none of these hold good then it means that the selection was done on the diktat of the party, leader or supreme leader, on considerations unknown.
Then he or she is elected after you provide the validation, by exercising your franchise. So where does his loyalty remain; with the electorate, or with the person who helped him to get the party ticket. For sure, it is the latter. That is how leaders create their base within the party and beyond. Then the number has to be in the leader’s favor, otherwise nothing is going to work in our democracy. So, the elected representatives become a number. What difference does it make, whether he is from constituency no.1 or constituency no. 543. Political parties know the database of the constituency from the voting point of view and not from the issues point of view.
When your representative becomes a number, then what is the fate of the constituency? That apart, even opposition MPs have a constituency but very little they can pull off. When there is nothing representative to this level, then what is the nature of representation we can expect. Governments are formed on some make believe representation. As we move further, there would be a cabal created of two or more leaders, led by the head of the government, who would call the shots for everything. Their system of governance becomes the operational of governance and priorities too. Rest automatically shift to the fringes. Their influence operates in a similar manner on the political party too. If the cabal is really strong, which generally it is, it creates parallel mechanisms across the democratic ecosystem.
This expedites the smooth flow of influence across different organizations, institutions, NGOs, think tanks, civil society groups, academicians and even business enterprises. You can think in relation to the governments at the central and state level and map it. The picture would become crystal clear. Take the media, what has been the nature of the cabal that was created. Take it over to the business enterprises, they are too eager to create a cabal and have a seamless interface with the main cabal, as it serves their business interests. Not to discount the bureaucracy, they have been a part of this nature of governance formation for ages, and keep on realigning themselves to the changing templates of the cabal system of governance. Some time, depending on the background of the political party the NGO cabal does the main batting. We can add any sector to it, academicians, scientist’s fraternity and what not. Can it be reversed?
FROM MANDATED REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY TO UNSEEN CABAL DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN OUR UNDEMOCRATIC TRANSITION.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.