indian democracy
Is India a functional democracy? - Against
As stated by late Winston Churchill, “Majority is not always right, it’s just powerful.” Since India’s independence in 1947, the country has seen successive populist governments, each coming to power with hollow promises of socioeconomic welfare. It was soon that the oppressed and poor population of the country discovered that they can vote themselves the largesse of public treasury given in the forms of subsidies, concessions, and other indirect freebies like food packets and hooch before elections. The inevitable result was governance marked by corruption, nepotism, high handed and red-tapism manifested by widespread poverty, unemployment, rampant inflation, the abysmal state of infrastructure, communal disharmony and disorganized foreign policy.
During the past decade it has been seen quite clearly that Democracy in India is struggling to provide the basic necessities to people; 33% Indians live the below poverty line, 56 lakh villages don’t have power connection and drinking water access. Moreover the public education system is in shambles, there is a lack of accountability, lack of internal security and various public schemes fail to reach the beneficiaries. Even worse, our Leaders are so shameless that they are least bothered by frequent exposure of their wrong doings. We accept the idleness and ‘unrestrained corruption’ by “public servants” to be as inevitable as death and taxes.
The situation is exacerbated by the parliamentary system of democracy which demands a close nexus between the executive and the legislative arm; this assures a more responsible but less efficient government. There have been instances when the governments with all right intentions and correct plan of execution wanted to pass development oriented legislation and implement astute policy measures. But the opposition, government allies took the government as hostage and sabotaged the initiatives. Although India has moved on from
As stated by late Winston Churchill, “Majority is not always right, it’s just powerful.” Since India’s independence in 1947, the country has seen successive populist governments, each coming to power with hollow promises of socioeconomic welfare. It was soon that the oppressed and poor population of the country discovered that they can vote themselves the largesse of public treasury given in the forms of subsidies, concessions, and other indirect freebies like food packets and hooch before elections. The inevitable result was governance marked by corruption, nepotism, high handed and red-tapism manifested by widespread poverty, unemployment, rampant inflation, the abysmal state of infrastructure, communal disharmony and disorganized foreign policy.
During the past decade it has been seen quite clearly that Democracy in India is struggling to provide the basic necessities to people; 33% Indians live the below poverty line, 56 lakh villages don’t have power connection and drinking water access. Moreover the public education system is in shambles, there is a lack of accountability, lack of internal security and various public schemes fail to reach the beneficiaries. Even worse, our Leaders are so shameless that they are least bothered by frequent exposure of their wrong doings. We accept the idleness and ‘unrestrained corruption’ by “public servants” to be as inevitable as death and taxes.
The situation is exacerbated by the parliamentary system of democracy which demands a close nexus between the executive and the legislative arm; this assures a more responsible but less efficient government. There have been instances when the governments with all right intentions and correct plan of execution wanted to pass development oriented legislation and implement astute policy measures. But the opposition, government allies took the government as hostage and sabotaged the initiatives. Although India has moved on from