You are right. It is about the largest democracy in the world, nevertheless not the greatest. The largest democracy is mockingly different from the established norms of democracy. The essence of democracy lies in the collective responsibility of majority. There are two important questions facing us. 1. Are we ruled by majority? 2. Do the elected representatives truly represent the people who have elected them?
While the answers are obvious to readers, at the cost of redundancy, let me touch upon it and dwell more into why of it? While in most of the elections, voter turnout is anywhere between 55% to 65% and any party getting just 35% of votes, comes to power. In case of a triangular contest, even 28 or 30% of vote share is just sufficient for any party to grab power, defying the essence of democracy. Once a person comes to power, it is his or her wish which is imposed on the people, which may not truly reflect the wishes of masses, defeating the spirit of representation.
This article is aimed at the root cause, than mere lamentation. The whole problem stems from a lack of understanding of our ethos. During the long spell of British rule, many of our earlier value systems, eroded and alien values and cultures imposed on us. When India became independent, democracy was an alien philosophy to us. Instead of improvising the democratic principles for our needs, in a hurry our leaders just copied many of the erstwhile British system. There was a clear division between literates and illiterates. The literates imbibed what was taught by their British masters, and were a confused lot having assimilated the good and bad together. This confused lot started educating all the people in India about democracy and introduced universal adult franchise, pawning their wisdom. Universal adult franchise is introduced, only after a democracy is sufficiently matured. Whereas we were a nascent democracy, without sufficient maturity for universal adult franchise. In haste, to prove it to the world about our maturity, we have made a mockery of democracy.
With the result, we have alienated a majority of right thinking people from the polling booths, who are confined to their arm chairs amidst a plethora of books, condemning all and sundry for the misdeeds and miseries, without raising a finger. A finger with indelible ink mark, once in five years.
