DailyPost 2580
FEUDAL DEMOCRACY
However much we make claims of our democracy being completely in tune with democratic principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, yet the fact of the matter is that we have barely implanted the democratic superstructure on our prevailing infrastructure; creaky, obscurantist, non-modern and semi-capitalist. The crazy match making with no effort henceforth, to align the human infrastructure with the democratic superstructure, has brought us to the democratic imbroglio we are in. We are world’s largest democracy and that ranking I presume is based on the population numbers we carry. Carrying the will of the people and their aspirations to fruition, even most sincere of the politicians would be scared to utter.
There is possibly no way to deny the fact that we have a super caste ridden society and wafer-thin layer of democracy was not expected to do wonders, and that is precisely what has happened. But having no plan and no timelines to wipe out, the incongruities is the trillion-dollar mindset the Indian democracy has not been able to handle in seventy-five and in all likelihood, it is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. At the core of it is a political class which has emanated out of his crazy mix of feudal infra and democratic superstructure.
Deep seated in their feudal values, non-conformist to anything modern and with a total lack of futurism in the ever-changing world, they have picked up the god forsaken expertise of putting a democratic garb on literally anything they do and however nefarious it might be. The paternalistic attitude is nauseating to say the least and necessarily so, the political parties have been informally created in that manner and finally run under all the paraphernalia of a democratic party. Whether they have any semblance of any modern organization leave aside a true democratic one, we have been experiencing the latter through the twists and turns of our democracy.
To put the democratic narrative of the post independent India straight, we have been dealing with paternalistic governments and the vast masses being supplicants but for the unique distinction of the electorate pressing the EVM button every five years. On the top of it, India democracy has very successfully transformed into a caste-based democracy and more often than not we hear this feudal lingo in the public domain rather than the constitutionally mandated one. Even welfare state and secularism have its own connotations and variants. India’s feudal democracy has consolidated and where it would take us is anyone’s guess, if we don’t get into course correction immediately.
CAN WE EVEN REACH SOMEWHERE TO THE DEMOCRACY ENCAPSULATED IN OUR CONSTITUTION?
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.