An IIM-B student tells us why India is not a democracy, it's inherently a dictatorship

The recent phenomenon of Brexit where Britain decided through a referendum to leave European Union has brought the debate on perils of a democracy back to the fore. Back home the episode of the release of Udta Punjab and the tale of ‘death’ of the writer Perumal Murugan are some of the instances which have put a question mark over the idea of democracy. Although the judiciary came out with landmark judgments on both the issues, but it certainly has initiated the debate that “too much of democracy” can lead to its own undoing. This takes me back to one of the discussions, which I happened to be a part of, on advantages of a benevolent dictator in a country like India against a struggling democracy. While this can be a good exercise to understand the perspective of people in favour of democracy or those opposing it, it is important to clearly identify the issues hurting the idea of Indian democracy today.

There exists no single model or concept which can clearly define a democracy and provide us with a benchmark to analyse India’s democratic performance so far. Instead it has been an amalgamation of theories and ideas which have evolved into our current understanding of a democracy. This underscores the complication associated with the process and makes it difficult to compare Indian way of democracy with other countries. There have been efforts to quantify the performance at a global level. One example is the recent initiative (2006) of Economic Intelligence Unit to compile a Democracy Index. The Democracy Index measures the state of democracy in 167 participating countries based on five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of the government, political participation and political culture. The 2015 ranking is headed by Norway with an aggregate score of 9.93 on a scale of 10. The US is placed at 20th position and India, the largest democracy in the world, is ranked 35th. While the parameters of assessment can be debated on the fact that it does not take into account India’s long struggle for independence and quick democratic turnaround, but more importantly another critical non-political dimension missing in the index is the people and the society which is an essential constituent of a healthy democracy. And this is where the Indian democracy struggles the most. There is a Global Democracy Ranking published by the Democracy Ranking Association in Austria which factors in the dimension of ‘Quality of Society’ and India is ranked 68th in it, well below the likes of Tunisia, Namibia and Senegal. A closer look at the dimension of ‘Quality of Society’, which comprises parameters like socio-economic and gender inequality, knowledge based information society, research and education, health status, environment etc., clearly demonstrates shortcomings of Indian democracy.

One very important factor which has had significant impact on the democratic functioning of our country is knowledge-based critical thinking. India has struggled to establish a society based on scientific temper and rational thinking. Section V of our Constitution, Article 51A on ‘Fundamental Duties’ states that “it shall be the duty of every citizen of India.. To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. Even our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had evoked scientific temper and critical thinking as “a way of life, a process of thinking, a method of acting and associating with our fellowmen”. Unfortunately, the current education system has not been conducive to promoting reasoning, original ideas, opinions and innovations. The incentives are misaligned right from the students, teachers and administration to all the way to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in charge of the education policies of the country. The obsession with the quantification of performance in form of marks, revenue or the number of premiere institutes in the country have completely ruined the ecosystem of rational thinking and this is what is hurting the democracy the most. The episode of Bihar Board toppers is a case in point. The ability to logically think through any reasoning and then make an informed choice is what lies at the core of a successful democracy and currently it is not happening in our country. A society driven by rational thinkers has the potential to convert all the violent clashes and conflicts to a healthy debate of ideas and ideologies within a democratic framework. Imagine the impact it can have on all the issues of the country ranging from militant insurgencies to ideological extremism. This will also have a direct impact the performance of political community and the general ‘political culture’ of India. There will be less of rhetoric and more of quality discussion on public policies. The onus of changing demo-crack-tic India to a functional democratic India is both on the policy makers as well as on us.

The criticism of Indian democracy should not be directed towards the inherent nature of its processes and institutions rather more towards the lack of support from its constituents in form of critical thinking and scientific temper. Note that India today stands at a very precarious position with its demography and any form of conformism without reasoning can result in a system which would be superficially democratic but inherently a dictatorship.. benevolent or not !!

(The article has been authored by an IIM Bangalore student - Rishabh Raj, and all the views expressed above are that of the author.)