On Democracy

Democracy is a living and ever evolving process. Best defense and promotion of democracy require its harsh criticism. It is built-in within the democratic society to respond to its criticism from within and outside. Absence of healthy debates and lack of openness in thinking are signs of failing democracy. At no point of time, any society can proclaim that it has achieved complete democratization and no further efforts are necessary to deepen democratic values. Particularly, a country like India is far away from any such position where it can proclaim satisfaction and happiness about its democratic practices. There are few issues which require brief discussion herein:

1. Political parties are important agencies that politicize the people. Percentage of participation in elections depends on extent of people's politicization. If a substantial section of population keeps away from electoral process, it is hardly their fault but a shortcoming of the agencies like the political organizations. Blaming the people or suspecting their credentials for non-participation in electoral process is a case of shooting the messengers. These people are merely showing their disbelief in political processes that are carried out by political parties due to established perceptions. It is up to the political actors to undo or rebuild perceptions about themselves. Why do political parties have not succeeded in wining over such people is the cause of concern rather than crying foul about these people's non-participating in electoral processes.
2. Form of democratic governments has always been a matter of debate within political community. Presidential system or West ministerial system, first past the post or proportional representation or preferential voting, one party system or multi-party system etc have been different combinations of democratic systems existing in different countries. Complete rejection of one format of a democratic system does not necessarily mean summary rejection of the idea of democracy, but it could be an intermediate stage wherein a society moves forward to other format of democratic government or develops its own unique format.
3. Democracy as a value has been deeply established all over the world. Many dictators do rule in the name of strengthening of democracy or oppose democratic procedures, like multi-party elections, only on the pretext that his populace is not matured enough to adopt it and with passage of time they will embrace the democracy. Thus, like truth and happiness, democracy has a widest possible acceptability in the world.
4. Some of the countries have had the sufficient experience of elite revolutionaries ruling the population with the belief that they would usher the society into true format of democracy. However, all of such experiments, in the name of people's democracy and socialism, have doomed even beyond imagination of staunchest of their opponents. This implies, democracy as a form, process and procedure can never be a single idea or ideology. It has to be, and always, contests of ideas.
5. In India, and almost everywhere, poor and socially marginalized people demonstrate greater faith in electoral process. This is mainly because the state has been playing some sort of supportive role for them that enables to bear their burdens, even though the state does not lift them completely out of their situation. The state reaches out to these masses through the political parties, hence the people have trust and dependency on political parties. On the contrary, the class least depending on the direct favors from the state remains apathetic towards the political process.