Has Over-Democratization Paralyzed India?

Democracy is the most beautiful thing invented by the modern society. It won’t wrong to say that modern society came into existence because of democracy itself. Democracy becomes more significant in the country like India which has seen centuries of monarchy, then around 1,000 years of rule by The Muslim Invaders, then 200-300 years of British Raj. The very essence of Democratic Set-up of society lies in the structure where the elected representatives of the society takes decisions on behalf of the society. 

Meaning of Over-Democratization

Over-Democratization refers to the state of condition of the society where the mechanism which ensures the proper running of democratic set-up becomes so much burdensome and lengthy in itself that it overshadows all real and main issues which is haunting the society. The democratic mechanism has been designed so as to address the issues in a proper manner, but in the case of Over-Democratized societies, the process of keeping the democracy running leaves every major issue, which might have needed serious and immediate attention, in lynch. 

Has India Over-Democratized

Now this is the main thing to understand that is our nation, which is being considered as the champion of democracy globally, in fact over-democratized? Who is going to decide this and who I’m to say anything like this. You might have serious sanctions with me in this issue but if you look closely, you might agree with my contentions to some extent at least. Just few months ago, nation voted for the Prime Minister in the biggest election of the world. It used to be the time full of election campaign crowd, banners, posters, advertisements in radio, TV etc. Few months passed and we particularly in Delhi are bearing it again. Again high voltage election campaign, rallies, loudspeakers in moving autos, vans which is intentionally designed to disturb you from your work. I’m talking about Delhi Assembly Elections. Only few months ago, we voted for the Delhi assembly pool and again the same thing. Around a week ago, I was in traffic jam which was caused due to an election rally, where Dr. Kumar Vishwas (Leader of Aam Admi Party) was addressing an election rally where he was declaring this Delhi Pools as a War between good and evil, in which he and his party is an army of good forces or white knight and all those MPs, Cabinet Ministers campaigning for BJP and Prime Minister itself as the evil army or black knight. Was it really a case? Aren’t there more serious issues haunting the nation? Aren’t bigger matters remained to discuss about? Delhi is considered to be one of the most educated and professional cities of the world and making it the battle ground for own political interest is hampering the progress of not only Delhi but also the entire nation. OK tell me the last time when you got any information about Arunachal Pradesh or Sikkim or Meghalaya or Tripura or Nagaland from our national news channels? In your free hours, as you turn the TV on to get the news about the country, you won’t get anything beyond this needless political clash where our politicians are satisfying their personal egos at the expense of the country. Delhi is the spotlight of the country and anything happens here becomes the news in the entire country or highjacks the entire nation. Not only it diverts the attention from the core issues of the country but also it hooks the entire nation towards the needless battles of our local level politicians. Particularly this Assemble pools has caused serious setbacks for the nation and messed out everything in the Capital City. Like all the Capital Cities around the world (e.g. Tokyo, Washington DC, Beijing, Berlin, Paris etc), Delhi too was intended to be the center of Education, Art, Culture, Business & Entrepreneurship, Journalism, Tourism and Progress but this election crowds and noises high jacked the real purpose of the existence of Delhi and turned it into a ugly looking political battle-ground. This not only paralyzed Delhi but in turn, thanks to our electronic media, the whole nation, where political victory and defeat became just an ego satisfaction tool having no relation what so ever with the real and extremely serious concerns.

The Way Forward

India is at the verge of becoming a big power in Asia but is it possible when such a kind of mess is there in its heart i.e. Delhi? For the last few months, everything is being put aside because of this assemble election. Question is, Does Delhi really needed a full structure of Government with 70 MLAs, 10-15 Cabinet Ministers, a municipality which has its separate polls electing a Mayor and all these being governed by the Lieutenant Governor. This is a serious issue which our Media and Civil Society must raise and discuss. There are lot of major cities of the world like New York, Washington DC, London, Paris etc. which accommodate more or less same population size and are better in terms of all performance parameters and interesting thing is, there is only one governmental architecture where a Mayor is being appointed to manage the whole city and not like Delhi which has three form governmental architecture. 

Conclusions

There is the immediate need of working towards it and rationalizing the political set-up of Delhi thereby allowing the time of our media, people and other resources to be focused on more serious and worthy issues. It is the duty of the Central Government that not to let the politics to overtake all major concerns and areas needs attention. As far as General Elections are concerned, it might be accepted, but letting the whole nation paralyzed just because of a city assembly election is not only dangerous but also shows our misplaced priority.

Disclaimer: You have every reason to disagree with me. Please make me aware with your feedbacks.

By: CA Saket Ghiria

Originally shared in CAclubindia.com