The Fallacy of the Democracy

At the very outset, I would like to ask this question; can we justifiably expect justice from the kind of democracy we have in India today which is heavily controlled by few powerful at a time when a sizeable portion of India’s population is still illiterates? How can we expect true democratic justice from those political leaders who supply TV, cloth, cycle, even rice for Rs 1/kg to their voters on the eve of election? How can we expect true democratic justice from such leaders who replace their posts of Chief Minister, Minister, MP etc when they get sentenced by Judiciary for crimes they committed while they were in power with their wives or wards? Of course, I am not posturing that Indian democracy is full of vices and evils with no elements of virtues. For instance, certain legislations passed by current government like RTI Act, Land Acquisition Act etc are remarkable piece of legislations as far as Indian democracy is concerned. It is worth mentioning here that the oldest democracy of the world, USA, took centuries since its independence in the year 1776 to pass a legislation called Freedom Information Act in the year 1961 similar to our RTI Act whereas we took just 60 years to achieve such a milestone in our democracy. However, there are certain grey areas that politics will be wary of dealing with for the betterment of the society. The best example is the field of education in general and higher education in particular. How can we expect the political system infested with aforesaid forces of evils to empower the minds and bodies of the ordinary citizens by creating an environment in which they can get educated to the highest extent possible? Aren’t such evil political forces smart enough to realize the simple fact that if people at large are educated leading to improvement in their political and civic consciousness which will ultimately wash away the vote banks of such political parties? Obviously, that is why they, instead of concentrating on such fundamental issues like education even at a time when majority of Indians today are young waiting to be trained and coaxed for a better socio-economic life through quality education, these politicians concentrate on distributing cycle, TV or rice for Rs 1/kg which is finally served to buffalos reared by such households to make use of plenty of rice available at throw-away price. What makes us suspicious is the complacency noticed on the part of the same govt which passed historic legislations as pointed out above to push through some important educational bills pending before parliament as a result of the strategic stalling of parliament by the opposition to change the face of Indian higher education. Of course, govt would attempt to pull their head out excusing the recalcitrant attitude of the opposition parties who believe, in Indian democracy irrespective of parties, that their only duty is to remain as road-blocks.  However, this excuse will have to be applied with a pinch of salt as the same govt did everything to ensure that Telenagana bill is passed amid total chaos and pandemonium in the parliament by opposition before the election as they are smart enough to realize that it will help to reap its political dividends during election. The question posed here is why this govt did not evince same interest and alacrity to get educational bills such as Innovation University bill which has been pending before parliament for years passed as it did in the case of Telenagan bill? The answer is obvious; first, educational bill lacks the charm to appeal to the sizeable illiterate Indian voters. Similarly, politicians are aware of the fact that it will boomerang though not at present, but in the future. How young India can afford such a knee-jerk policy at this historical juncture. Today’s young India, if adequately trained and educated, will be an asset of tomorrow or today’s shunted and blunted young India will be a liability of tomorrow.

The emergence of AAP in Delhi is the manifestation of the aforesaid boomerang that has struck at the very face of those who initiated the moves that enabled the people of Delhi to respond in a fitting manner. The AAP is a city based educated working middle class phenomenon. Who created them? Obviously, they were the creation of the very Manmohan Singh as a result of the economic prosperity that India witnessed, at least in its cities, after the liberalization and globalization of 1990s. These educated middle class also got politically conscious and sensitive creating an impulse to question the anarchy going on around them in the form of the rampant corruption which is also a  by-product of both gloablisation characterized by technological innovation (2G) and mutilated or truncated  Indian democracy  characterized by the dominance of  regional parties which often clips the wings of the main  national parties to achieve a pan-Indian perspective rather than misusing the available political wind-fall opportunities for either personal or regional benefits, as often did by these regional parties. Thus, the point I am making is that a phenomenon like AAP is essentially the creation of the recent institutional and structural reforms like liberalization and globalisation that India has witnessed as the very champions of these reforms failed to recognize the possible long term socio and political impact of these reforms as a result of their overly preoccupation with possible economic impact of such reforms with an eye on vote bank politics. This act also otherwise blunts the view of certain critics of the AAP saying India has had seen similar political outfits emerging time and again in the past and all of them also got eclipsed as the country moved forward and therefore, AAP’s destiny will, in no way, be different from its so called predecessors. This view is highly shallow in the sense that AAP, unlike its so called predecessors as I described above, is the corollary of the structural and institutional reforms that India was subjected to after 1990. Of course, I am afraid that I will be countered showing the example of the so called socialist revolution North India witnessed during 1970s under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan  However, it is quite unfair to draw parallel between AAP and Jayaprakash Narayan’s revolution because 1970s upsurge was not an outcome of any sort of structural or institutional changes in India except the fact that it was mainly an upsurge of people’s anger against the  draconian attitude of the then existed India’s political establishment. Thus, if someone argue that a phenomenon like AAP will be sustaining as indirectly indicated by the Time Magazine’s recent survey probably held among educated city based people that only Aravind Kejriwal is fit to become the prime minister of India compared to other major candidates, we cannot completely disregard their view.

Therefore, what I am advocating is not that India will remain to be a land of illiterates forever. Instead, given the nature of current politics, we will be lagging behind especially in the case of education. After having said all these, I also did not subscribe to the view that it is only the professional politicians who are our potential policy makers responsible for the pathetic state of the affair in Indian higher education. Instead, it is an outcome of a tacit unsavory collusion between the formal professional politicians outside the educational system and the informal amateur politicians inside the educational system. Therefore, our higher education, like anywhere else, can be saved only if we break this unholy alliance between formal and informal politicians in the scene of higher education in India implying that Indian higher education is eagerly waiting for the emergence of another Aravind Kejriwal as nowhere in the world change or transformation or revolution did not take place until and unless it imposed forcefully and peacefully on the status-quo.