Rethinking Democracy

2) We need a new theory of democracy that can comprehend the incapacity of existing
institutional and ideological models, identify the reasons for this incapacity in a fast-changing
global historical setting and provide a framework of active interventions at different levels of
world reality to deal with an altogether new human agenda.
Cope up with the new consciousness of the rights and dignities of diverse populations that has
emerged around the world, particularly the third world.
We need a democratic theory that accepts the great diversity of human situations and yet
provides coherence to them through an active political process, and opens up new and creative
spaces within the framework of civil society while simultaneously restructuring the state to
realize these ends.
3) science and industry – the presumed agents of human liberation – have been transformed from
being the means to self-realization, to being ends in themselves.
Because science flourished in a culture (viz. of the west) that looked upon it as an instrument of
power and domination rather than as a liberator of the human spirit – knowledge as perceived by
the ancient Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks – it soon became an instrument of technology.
Not content with overcoming hardships and fulfilling basic needs, technology was used for
continuous expansion, competition and domination. It became an instrument of monopoly and
inequality with the fruits of technology diffused widely within some societies at the expense of
many others.
The need to rethink the general principles of both the liberal state and democratic polity through
which it functions, is now widely recognized.
4) two faces of democracy: the classes and the masses
Growing uncertainty – a transnationalised world with technology rather than economy or politics
functioning as the dominant currency. The use of the formal apparatus of democracy as a vehicle
of modernization worked smoothly so long as it was controlled by an alliance of feudal and
bourgeois elements.
The transformation of the state’s role in the postcolonial world, from being an instrument of
liberation of the masses to being a source of their oppression.
People are more important than the state.
5) the role of the state as an agent of democratic transformation has deteriorated.
The rise of technocratic mode of capitalism is responsible for the existing state of affairs. The
state has degenerated into a technocratic machine serving a small group that is kept in power by
heavy security at the top and a regime of repression and terror at the bottom.
Democratic institutions, the rule of law, and the accountability of the government and other
institutions have been eroded.
6) parliamentary politics have failed to reflect public opinion or decisively respond to conditions
of growing agony and agitation. The manner in which party and electoral funds have been
collected, has led to a consolidation of entrenched interests and the growing exploitation of the
doctrines of the state for private ends.
The accommodative and reconstructive aspects, together with the moral impact of an elite
committed to the new doctrine of sevadharma, provided a powerful cultural thrust legitimizing
the new institutional order.
In India, now, caste and communal groupings are assuming aggressive postures, and collisions
between communities have acquired communal overtones, with local party leaders and mafia
elements taking advantage of it all.
Two goals in building an alternative system – to build a viable state structure, and to ground such
a structure in a political process that operates at multiple levels.
The concept of democracy cannot be limited to the political arena but must extend to the socio-
economic process, it is equally true that the only manner in which democratic forces can be
stabilized and strengthened is by operating through the institutional structures of a viable state.
7) the great relevance of tradition and culture for providing depth and resilience to a democratic
polity. Most threats to democracy in India originate from the modern sector and its pursuit of
state power. It is only because of the great appeal of the idea of democracy for the large masses
of people, steeped in tradition, that the country continues to be democratic.
In short, while India may suffer, reverses, widespread civic strife and an authoritarian backlash,
its future as a democracy is assured.
The essential identity of India has been cultural, not political. To be sure, there always was a
secular component in India’s culture, and it was through the constant interplay between the
secular and the spiritual that the system was able to adapt itself to the changing situation.
The Indian model of development is based less on coercing individuals and groups in new
directions and more on permitting them to pursue their own growth, albeit within a framework
enacted from above. It is characterized by the politicization of a fragmented social structure,
through a wide dispersal and permeation of political forms, values and ideologies.
Against the background of an essentially apolitical society.
The Indian National Congress represents a case study in transitional or interim consensus. It
lacked the comprehensiveness of a more plural order but nonetheless provided a firm base in
terms of legitimacy and authority of the regime; it also proved highly effective in propagating the
norms and procedures of democratic political system.
New turmoil among the masses and the new forms of protest and struggle waged by a new set of
actors as part of the continuing commitment to democracy, indeed to its deepening and
broadening.
8) the concept of participation in liberal theory following the rise of populist politics. Politics of
this kind have been conducted in the name of people’s participation, especially the poor and
deprived sections of society, but in effect they have led to a process of depoliticization, seriously
affecting the participation of those very sections which were demanding a share in power and
resources.
The crisis of participation has deepened since the decline of the pluralistic model of the Congress
system that had provided a broadly democratic framework of governance – at the centre, in the
states and also in diverse local units through coalitions of various factions – and the continuing
lack of a viable democratic alternative to the congress. A highly fragmented and often divisive
system of wielding power emerged, without providing for an all-India, macro-framework of
power and institution.
There was a shift from the Agenda-for-India initiative to the formulation of the non-party
political process.
The state began to be perceived as an agent of technological growth with a view to catch up with
the developed world, with little regard paid to the pressing needs and demands of the people at
large.
Such a world scenario leads to a sense of desperation at both ends of the power structure, global
and national, in turn leading to an erosion of the democratic polity.
We need to know about the micro-macro dualism we live in to be able to say that there are no
global solutions to global problems. “Global problems, local solutions”
The macro and the micro are not polar opposites in a pyramidal structure; rather they are
coexisting contexts for variation and diversity, each autonomous and all interrelated.
9) democracy is more a dream residing in the minds of philosophers and visionaries, not so much
practiced by those in charge of the affairs of the society. It is at best pursued by theoreticians
seeking the deeper stirrings of nations and states.
It is a paradox that democracy has become important in providing legitimacy to regimes (even
dictators commit themselves to restoring the prerequisites of democracy in seeking legitimacy)
and yet, democracies are observed to be continuous arenas of strife exhibiting erosion of basic
values with respect to satisfying people’s aspirations and promoting goals like peace and justice.
While democracy is unable to defeat the aggressive logic of capitalism it continues to remain a
living myth – in which large masses of the people have come to believe and in which national
and international intelligentsia have placed their faith.
Democracy tends to be extremely fragile, often unstable, and open to unpredictable fluctuations.
While democratic claims are becoming vital and necessary for achieving legitimacy, each
democracy is found to encounter, at different phases in its evolution, some kind of crisis.
While there seems to have taken place a phenomenal increase in both inequity and
apartheidization, there is also a resurgence in democratic faith among the poor and the hitherto
victimized.
We have had a process of historical evolution that is in itself rather interesting: there has been
movement from direct democracy provided by assemblies of small republics that prevailed in
ancient systems of governance (for example, ancient Greece and ancient India) to systems of
representation encompassing large territories.
The trend is to decentralize, to move towards greater autonomy and self-rule, striving once again
towards people ruling themselves in more rather than less direct forms of democracy. Democracy
is secured not by great leaders but by competent, responsible citizens.
10) Democracy seems better equipped to impart legitimacy to elected regimes than to fulfil the
basic aspirations of the people.
Emancipation needs to be conceived in holistic terms, reaching out from each individual
(including individuals in the established social strata), to wider and wider circles of classes and
communities. Emancipation should be a deeply rooted process of change, mobilization and
transformation. There can be no genuine emancipation without a just and egalitarian state of
existence.
There is a need to delve deeper into the dialectic of certainty and uncertainty.
As a system democracy has not been realized in practice. But the aspiration is very much alive ,
both in the conscientious sections of the educated and thinking class and, in fact even more, in
the deprived and dispossessed sections of the population.
11) the marketized model of globalization and dominance, and the fundamentalist model of a
communal type are converging to form a new framework of democracy.
Integrating Indian economy into the world market necessarily means leaving behind large
sections of the society, excluding them from the purview of economic development and
perceiving them as dispensable.
Countries like India are in the thrall of the phenomenon of globalization despite the criticism
levelled against it. As a consequence, the media pays greater attention to trade, investments,
balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves rather than to poverty and unemployment.
The decentralization works contrary to globalization; decentralization in terms of self-rule, with
citizens in control of institutions of governance. It is expected to usher less corruption, less
exploitation, less discrimination and so on.
We should pursue a simultaneous model of transformation, at both the macro-level and micro-
level, both the national and international levels, first within individual nations and civil societies,
and then move towards globalized species.
Human emancipation should be perceived in broad and comprehensive terms. The means,
permeated by emancipatory goals, should be at once intellectual and activist. The arenas of
emancipation should range from social change in institutional and ideological terrains to the
more fundamental areas of ethics philosophy.