The Great Indian Democracy - Authors of Indian Constitution (AIC) Were Really Geniuses

Does the title amaze you? Or you think I am being sarcastic, like everyone else. Actually, no, I am not being sarcastic. I truly believe in that the authors of Indian constitution were geniuses and I am trying to build a case for my argument in this blog. Again, this is just a blog and I am not an economist or a sociologist or a statistician or any type of ..logist. I am just an ordinary man, observing things around me and trying to build my observations into a theory. That's what I intend to do in my blog. Topics would vary but I promise you that they'll always be related to one my major pastimes. And my major past times are - Indian politics, international geopolitics, globalization, religion and history. If you happen to share any of these interests as well, you are welcome to join me. Please share your ideas, critique mine through comments or you can even add your own blog to this site. If nothing else, please feel free to drop by once in a while. Happy Reading!

And now, back to my today's topic. This topic flashed in my mind when recently I read a report in 'The Economist' that ranked the democracies in the world on 60 indicators across five broad categories: free elections, civil liberties, functioning government, political participation and political culture. No surprise for guessing, they ranked India pretty low and called it a "Flawed Democracy". I wholeheartedly disagree. Indian democracy is anything but flawed.

You must be thinking, I am either out of my mind or one of those die hard optimists.. "Mera Bharat Mahan"(My India is Great) type. I am neither. I am saying this purely from a rational perspective. Yeah.. yeah, I know you would want to kill me by now.. What about uneducated gunda (mafia) type politicians, corrupt, almost non-functioning government, etc. etc. Well, we have got problems, alright. I am not denying that. But the problems are one, not because of democracy and two; don't prove that the democracy is flawed. Let's examine these issues one by one across these five categories and will also compare them to the most successful democracy in the world- USA. On the side, we'll continue to link that to how and why the authors of Indian constitution are geniuses. First - Gunda type, uneducated filthy politicians or you can say 'Political Culture'. Well, I actually like the fact that a completely uneducated person can rise to be an elected politician in India and hold power over the intelligencia and the machinery of the government that is run by highly educated and intellectual people. Well, what do you expect in a country where 70% of people still live below poverty line and majority of people are illiterate. That's why I believe the AICs were geneiouses. They could have easily added a clause that required a minimum qualification for the candidates. But they knew that in a country like ours, that would have closed the doors of political power for the great majority. At least the people that get elected today do make an attempt to reach out to the masses and at least make promises, however false they are. Well, you do see some gunda types rise to power, but that has nothing to do with the education clause. In fact most gunda politicians are more educated than the ones that don't have a criminal record. And political class does have power and gundas and mafia type do get attracted to power. Even in US where the political class gets so much media scrutiny, there are political leaders with criminal record. Finally think about it people, who do you think better represents Indian masses- Manmohan Singh or Laloo? No, I am not a supporter of Laloo or trying to create a case for him or his antics. But let's accept it, someone like Laloo has to resort to the kind of tactics he uses, in order to show that he belongs, he is one of the masses. That's why he is politically so successful and Manmohan Singh is practically unelectable. The point is , purely from a democracy point of view, we have been successfully electing the kind of people that truly represent majority of Indians.

Yes, you may say, India is the way it is because of the kind of people we get as leaders, which in turn is because of our system, hence the logic of flawed democracy. That brings us to the second category - functioning government. Well, first of all, the problems in India are not entirely because of democracy. Think about what we had before we had democracy. We were a mere colony of British Empire. We weren't even together as a nation. So, these problems existed at the time of Independence, probably in worse shape. Now it it's a different point whether we have achieved enough in 60 years or not. The economic growth or development is dependent on a number of factors and kind of political system you have is only one of them. After all, not all democracies in the world are economically successful.

Well, how does it prove that the authors of Indian constitution were really geniuses. Well, think about it. They took the best from older and successful democracies of the world. They maintained the civil service system from Brits and maintained it, ensuring that the best will always gravitate to these positions. Which in other words means that the people who are running the government are really some of the smartest people we have. Now if that didn't result in faster development, blame it on the type of policies we adopted, Nehru's socialism and all. You can't blame it on uneducated politicians, Nehru you would agree was anything but illiterate.

What next? Let's take political participation. Some of you may think the multi-party system is a joke. The world may make fun of the Hodge podge, multi-party coalition govt we get, but compare that to the most successful democracy in the world- USA. After every election, you get similar set of people elected, as a common citizen, you have very little power. In US, no matter who is in power, they have similar interests- big business, oil lobby, pharmaceutical lobby, healthcare lobby. Whereas, in India, no matter how much money a political party may have, no matter how smart the politicians may be, they know that they can never be at rest, because it is so easy for a competitive party to emerge. It may look like chaos but behind the scene, the system is constantly refining itself. Think about where Congress is today? Were they the same party 30 years back? Or even BJP? Think about the evolution BJP had to go through in order to finally come to power. Compare that to the two major parties in US or even UK, have they undergone any major change in last 50 years? Well, even with even a political party for every Tom, Dick and Harry, the polling percentage is only around 50%. Well, that compares very favorably with major democracies in the world. Most people in the upper echelons of the society never vote in any democracy. They are too busy or think they are too smart to vote. Well, it's a choice they are making. On the other hand, the poorest of the poor does have an opportunity to participate in the political culture and participate...he does! The last two categories are free elections and civil liberties. I am not sure the exact article, but even 'The Economist', wouldn't disagree that we have free elections. On the other hand, we have a little too many of those. Civil liberties, compare that to any country in the world, we are more liberal than any other society. You can practice the religion you like, get up on a stage and ask questions to any political leader. You may argue how hard it is to protect the civil liberties with an overloaded, forever late court system. But the constitution made provision for it, how bad we implemented them, that's a different question.So, let the western world, deride us. Let them call it a flawed democracy. Be proud of it, because time will prove that we have the best democracy in the world. And we need to thank the constitution writers or AICs for it. This is the constitution that has produced, a woman prime minister, a minority, president a complete non-electable intellectual minority candidate as a prime minister. Think about it. US democracy in 200 years hasn't been able to produce a single woman president. As for minorities, forget about it. They should thank themselves that they are not slaves anymore!