Andhra Pradesh (AP, India) by-poll results have shown the apparent weakness in the institution of Democracy. It has shown that the Democracy can easily be compromised and incessantly abused for electoral politics and personal gains by corrupt few by manipulating a few hundred thousand (applicable in a multi-party electoral system) of MOB-VOTERS, who are ignorant, foolish and short sighted citizens lacking long term vision and empathy for their future generations. Unfortunately, these mob-voters, through wrong use of their voting rights, are paving a path for apparently corrupt and shady leaders to get elected to vital power centers, thus perilously compromising the social and economic security rights of majority of their fellow citizens. This is akin to handing over the security keys of defense arsenal and public treasury to dacoits.
Democratic system in its noblest form represents equality, freedom and security for every citizen of a nation. However, the system had been shoddily abused in the last few decades by a few self centered politicos for power and material gains, in some of the following methods.
1. Henry Louis Mencken quoted a century earlier that “Democracy is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses”. A few individuals and couple of political families have diligently converted Democracy in to a form of worship of individuals and their dynasties, thus weakening the democratic system, institutions and its processes.
2. Pluto quoted a few centuries earlier that “Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike”. Unfortunately, some of the politicians have created social chaos and unfathomable divide in the Indian society by advocating unjust social and religious reservations and quotas, which have eroded the unity and ethics in the Indian public. These apart from other short sighted social and policy measures stalled the country’s economic and social progress.
3. An anonymous quote says “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not”. Precisely, this was proven in the past in some other countries. All political parties, irrespective of their political and economic ideologies had never tried to get to the crux of the social and economic inequalities. Instead, they pursued the short sighted electoral politics by relying too heavily on non-revenue expenditure to appease the masses, which has in fact made the socially and economic weaker sections more dependent on the government rather than being self-dependent, which may ultimately lead to a massive social unrest, which is detrimental to the country’s future.
4. Another anonymous quote says “Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated”. Successive governments have never made genuine efforts to thrust upon vital aspects of compulsory education and population control on both the socially and economically backward masses and the elected representatives, which otherwise could have narrowed down the social and economic divide thus strengthening the Democratic systems and institutions.
5. Apparently in the last decade, with the advent of coalition politics, political games played by some politicos are resulting in numerous elections and by-elections, which are significantly held at great cost to the state. Repeated electoral processes involve considerable deployment of human and financial resources to non-developmental activities, thus decelerating the social and economic growth of the state as well as the nation. This unfortunate development has ensured that Andhra Pradesh, which was one of the most progressive states a decade earlier, has been lagging behind the other states, in the last few years.
It is high time for both mob-voters and rogue politicos to realize that Democracy is much more than just two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
The beauty of Democracy is that the country’s DESTINY is always commensurate with its’ voters’ wisdom and democratic values.
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