A ‘New’ democracy?

The Hindu     2nd September 2020     Save    

Context: A systemic transformation of democracy is taking place from within its very opposite.

General features of democracy

  • Free and fair elections
  • Multi-party system
  • Fixed-term elections based on universal adult franchise

The structural flaw in democracy:

  • Flawed Majority:
    • The ‘majority of votes’ actually boils down to the majority of seats in the legislature.
    • 99 % of the time, the legislature is formed by minority voters.
    • Rarely a government formed backed by a majority of votes won in a free and fair election.
  • For, E.g. Rajiv Gandhi’s formidable; the highest-ever majority in Lok Sabha in 1984 was still short of a majority of votes by about 2%.

Positive Aspects of Democracy:

  • Universal adult franchise
  • Guaranteed individual rights and freedoms
    • Equality of all citizens
    • Free market economy
    • Freedom of life and property.
  • Created space for a change of governments: even as they guaranteed security against challenge to the regime:
    • For, E. Most ‘revolutions’ could not escape the dragnet of ‘democracy’, their existential as well as conceptual adversary.

Concerns

  • Rising Inequality: is threatening free market, not from its adversary but from its own internal dynamics.
    • For, E.g. Unprecedented concentration of wealth at the top 1% around the world knocks the bottom out of competition in the market.
  • Hollowing of the principles while retaining the form: For E.g.
  • In the Electoral Process: Distortions injected through control and misuse of the institutions:
  • Restricted and Manipulated Choices: for the citizens – For, E.g. -
  • De legitimisation of dissent or protest:
  • Circumscribing the dispensation of fair justice using the sentiment of patriotism 
  • Control of the flow of information through the ‘independent’ media
  • Creating and propagating fake news.
  • Creating and promoting hatred between communities by patronising identity politics to mobilise voters.
  • Harshest treatment to the most prominent dissenting voices.
  • Global Presence:
    • Misuse of constitutions: Constitutions around the world give rulers enough space for misuse for achieving those goals and yet making the misuse palatable to voters through media and mobilisation. 
    • Unaffected voters: Rising voting percentages shows that the voters are not tired of this misuse anywhere.
    • Difficulty in inferring the cause: Since the hollowing of democratic principles is seen at a global scale, its cause cannot be restricted to personalities or diktats like Hitler in the past.

Conclusion: We are witnessing the transformation of the regime of democracy from the promise of liberty, equality and fraternity- social, political and economic to its opposite, i.e. concentration of economic, political and social powers in few hands.