For millennia humankind has been experimenting with various kinds of forms of government and if we closely observe, we discover that till the advent of the twentieth century, most of the world was either ruled by various monarchies or was colonised by the European powers. After the American and French revolutions, democracies started evolving in the Western world and as large parts of the remaining world was colonised by the Westerners, there was no question of self-rule in the enslaved countries. However, most of the countries freed by the European powers, with exception of Arabian countries, opted for democracy as a system of governance.
In context of Bharat, we were the first to introduce democratic system when we had Janpadas few centuries BC. People had the power to elect the kings and their governing councils. But later with the consecutive invasions of the Greeks, Shakas and Huns, the system collapsed and before Islamic invaders came to rule, various indigenous dynasties like Mauryas, Guptas, Cholas, Chalukyas, Shatvahanas ruled at various stages in Bharat.
When Bharat got independence from the British, it was a vivisected country; Pakistan was created to suit the designs of the Britishers. Both the countries, Bharat as well as Pakistan became democracies but we have become the largest democracy of the world whereas Pakistan remained under military rule most of the time and whenever civilian elected government came to power, it was not allowed by the army to last its full term. What is the reason? Though, both the countries have same ancient culture, Pakistan followed Islamic tenet of keeping Satta (Power) over Samaj ( Society) whereas we continued Sanatan tradition of keeping Samaj over Satta which is the first and foremost condition for any democracy to flourish.
Though remaining proud of our robust democracy, Bhartiya samaj has to do lot of brainstorming to fine tune it further and visualise it according to our own needs and not to view it from the westerner prism.
In recently held Lok Sabha elections, though the incumbent NDA regime had performed excellently on all fronts like economic, defence and foreign policy; one noteworthy achievement was, no scam was reported during the entire tenure, yet the main party BJP could not secure majority on its own. It leaves lot to be pondered over.
It has come to light that the ruling party could not communicate with the people about its achievements and opposition parties, both national as well as of state level, were successful in creating false narratives which influenced the voters. Normally from Panchayat to the parliament level, we have four tiers of elections in our country. All four legislatures have their scope of work properly demarcated. For example, Panchayyats administer rural areas and decide about developmental work and accordingly spend funds allocated to them by the state governments. Local bodies like municipal corporations have their jurisdiction on urban requirements like roads, water supply, health, education, public parks and regulation of construction work. State governments regulate law and order, allocate budgets to municipalities and rural bodies, build state level road infrastructure and irrigation plans, supervise education boards, create and maintain cultural bodies and facilitate implementation of central government schemes in the state.
Central government majorly takes care of national defence, foreign policy, fiscal policies and plans, communications, currency, science and technology, space programmes, culture, law, taxation and internal security.
Elections are held periodically for all the tiers, from Panchayat to the Loksabha. In absence of proper information and knowledge, it has been observed that the electorate mostly discusses municipal issues even during state assembly and Loksabha elections. Rightfully the issues which should come to the public domain for discussion with respective candidates should be pertinent to the specific elections. For example, in the recently held Loksabha elections in Bharat, hardly the subjects like foreign relations and defence were discussed in media as well as in the campaigns run by the candidates and by the opposition parties.
On the contrary, Congress party and the other regional political outfits created many of the issues which were false and misleading. Unfortunately, incumbent NDA alliance led by the BJP could not effectively counter the same. For example, when INDI alliance led by the Congress party announced cash transfers of Rs 8,500 to women if it wins the elections, was not effectively countered by the ruling party. The implementation of the scheme requires Lakhs of crore rupees and the unsuspecting electorate was not enlightened where the money is going to come from? In simplistic terms the whole central budget will be washed away if such schemes are implemented; and at cost of what? Infrastructure development, defence, health sector would have been biggest sufferers. Samajwadi party leader Akhilesh promised 30 lakh jobs if elected to power. Obviously he was talking about government jobs. Nobody discussed in media that the exercise demands again Lakhs of crores of rupees. In a country of 140 crores where youth constitute more than 65 percent of population, what effect 30 lakh jobs would have created?
Instead, if same amount is spent on education and skill training programmes for the youth, crores of them could have been beneficiaries.
Foreign powers who want Bharat to tow their line in the international diplomacy, resort to arm-twisting actions when the latter declines to do the needful. George Soros, an American
billionaire and controller of many NGOs which influence elections on foreign lands, had publicly announced that he wanted to see the exit of Narendra Modi government. Obviously, he was acting on behest of powers who were not comfortable with independent policy decisions of Bharat. Unfortunately, the agenda of detractors coincided with that of opposition parties of Bharat. There is no denying the fact that in democracies opposition parties use all the tactics to oust the incumbent governments; however, they should remain in the ambit of national interests only. Electorate should be vigilant about such agendas.
Ultimately, ball remains in the court of the electorate. It needs to understand real issues which determine the trajectory of the development and are instrumental in making Bharat so strong that none of the world powers can dictate terms to it. The political parties which have been fighting elections on caste lines for decades now have not done any deed of welfare for their voters; most of them have prospered their dynasties only. Media increasingly has the duty of bringing real and vital issues in the public domain. Bharat has to demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is not only the largest democracy of the world, it is mature one also.
