Daily Post 1461
DEMOCRACY HAS A SPIRIT…
Democracy has a spirit and not only a form. The form is the hard coded democracy, coded in institutions and the laws which we so meticulously follow. The process is equally hardened with the intention do away with any individual variation. That it can ever be manipulated is not even thought of. The checks and balances are sacrosanct and it is presumed to keep it healthy and also provide the dynamism, which is required in the transformational times. The panchayat raj, the third tier of democracy is a party less enterprise, does it happen that way. That every elected representative literally represents all his constituents and had to be equally approachable.
If an analogy is made with the human body, if you have everything in place, even a great brain and a nervous system, can it manage without conscience. Or conversely, all the apparatus is created to reach a level where the conscience is taken taken care of. The direction the brain takes is also decided by the conscience. It can cut across different situations and lures of every kind and keep you on the right track. In common parlance you can call it righteousness. Where your democratic objectivity cannot be challenged even by your enemies, if you have any. *But if democracy is an art of giving and taking favours, how does this public persona come into being.
If political strategy is the only tool of democratic functioning, then the sprit of democracy never comes into being. If all the bills taken for consideration with application of mind and are given appropriate time and energy, it certainly seems probable that the legal regime would have certainly been radically different. Realistic laws ideally suited for our ground conditions would certainly have provided a much better chance of implementation. Laws in waiting can become a legal term in itself, given the nature of delay it connotes. Sometimes at the final stage, it takes the research route, which should have been gone through long time back. Legal upgrade, which in legal terminology is called amendment, is the requirement of how many Acts in the country, nobody knows.
Floor management is another of such democratic practices, which emanate from the form of the democracy and not the spirit. If the spirit was also to be delivered, the delivery would have been totally different all throughout. Can ownership happen without spirit. Can we be open to criticism and correction, if we don’t live the spirit of democracy? Will we feel bad about anything if we have a commitment to democratic spirit and keep consistently delivering it. The spirit is the DNA is the of Indian democracy so neatly encapsulated in the Preamble of the constitution. The guiding force also translates to a great extent into spirit. We all know the spirit of democracy, it’s time to put it into practice; above individuals, party, institutions, anything. Rest everything will fall in place.
LET DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT NOT BE LOST IN THE FORM. FORM IS JUST A TOOL FOR THE SPIRIT TO COME ALIVE.