QUESTION : 

Indian citizens are about to exercise their franchise: does not democracy demand the application of reason in this exercise? In what way is rationality involved in democracy? Is thoughtlessness posing a danger to democracy?

Joyson George

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

Political governance of any country does not today represent the will of citizens in most cases. The democratic form of government is considered far better than any yet invented by mankind. Even in a country like India, which has a parliamentary system of government elected through the democratic process, the party that gets absolute majority may have polled only just above one-third of the total votes.

Those who rule the country through a democratic process do not often have the mandate of more than 60% of the entire population. And therefore, those who secure the majority of seats in a parliamentary election do not really represent the will of the majority of the people of a country. This is very true of our country, India, too. The vote share of the Bhartiya Janata Party in the 2019 elections was only 37.4%, but it holds the reins of power in this large country and takes policy decisions that have far-reaching consequences for the future of the country and executes them without any regard for opinions expressed by opposition parties and organizations against them and their execution. A free and fair election is the only opportunity available to those who oppose the policies of the party in power to elect another party or group of parties that have a different ideology that would respect and promote the diversity of the country and celebrate it.

Democracy demands the Right Use of Reason

The most important principles of democracy are freedom and equality of human persons and their inalienable right to personal dignity. Each person is responsible for the life s/he lives in the society. In the final analysis, the process of electing some people to govern a country is a way of entering into a contract in which the voters give the mandate to their representatives to govern for their welfare. It is obvious that if the voters elect the right people they get good governance and if they elect the wrong people they get bad governance. Therefore, it is important that the voters discern the quality of the candidates and policies of the parties they represent and vote accordingly. One must use one’s reason in this process of discernment. If one is carried away by the propaganda of political parties or tempted by some personal gains in voting for a particular candidate or political party, that is a clear indication that one is not using one’s right reason.

A responsible citizen needs to weigh the advantages and disadvantages that would accrue to the entire society and the nation if a particular political party or a certain group of people come to power. For this, a voter needs to be well informed and be critical and reasonable in his or her assessment of the socio-economic and political situation of the country. A critical assessment of the proposed programmes and policies as expressed in the manifestoes of political parties and their stand on national issues and their general view on the welfare of humans and so on, requires that one has at least basic education. Of course, we can find some uneducated people who are able to use their reason to make correct assessment of political parties and the candidates who stand for election. But they are not many. Only in a country, where people get the right education, democracy can properly function.

Emotions Cloud Reason in Elections

All political parties use their propaganda machinery to the maximum possible to appeal to people’s reason. Most of the arguments they put forward to attract the voters are based on a few truths, many half-truths, and mostly blatant lies. Repeatedly told lies gain some degree of credence as some people will be inclined to consider them at least as a possibility. The politicians who present lies as truths believe that the end justifies the means. Use whatever means available, the end is to secure power, is their motto. Some politicians take recourse to emotional-blackmailing. They play the role of the victim of some real or imaginary injustice done to them, or the death of their father or mother who was a political heavyweight. Some criminals who are in the fray— as in every party there are some criminals who stand as candidates for election—threaten the voters with dire consequences if they do not vote for them. Some people who have received certain benefits through the intervention of political leaders whether at local, state, or national level would blindly vote for any candidate of that party without paying the least attention to the candidate’s character, capacity for governance, educational qualification, interest in the welfare of people etc. It is a known fact that many political parties in India entice people with money and materials to vote for their candidates. They also appeal to the emotion of the people than to their capacity for making a reasonable judgment in the choice of the candidate they would vote for.

Evoking religious emotions for the purpose of winning elections is the worst form of coercion and blackmailing. Those who do so are a threat to democracy. Using or misusing religious symbols, inciting religious conflicts, using false propaganda to exaggerate perceived threat of one religion to the other, immoral use of audio-visual, print and social media to spread lies and calumnies, hate-speeches of politicians in spite of the elections commission’s prohibition of them, creating communal violence to polarize the people of different religions and so on are a real threat to democracy and to the conducting of free and fair elections in India.

If the people are not educated to think critically and cannot make a proper assessment of the ideologies, policies and programmes of political parties and the character of the candidates, they will get swayed by emotions in exercising their choice. Reason will have hardly any role in it. How else can we account for a large number of law breakers and criminals sitting as members in the parliament, the so-called temple of democracy, as law-makers? Though there are some laws framed to prevent such people from contesting an election, they are hardly used to disqualify them thanks to technical loopholes in the application of laws. No political party would sincerely support any move to enact stringent laws to prevent criminals from standing for any election. All political parties use money and muscle power of criminals, though they stoutly deny taking any support from them. People who voted for the candidate of a particular party feel cheated when they see that he or she defects to another party through horse-trading. In the 2024 elections, the Bhartiya Janata Party has given seats to 116 defectors from other parties, of whom 37 are from the Congress party. Political morality and loyalty to the people who reposed their hope in them do not affect these defectors in their decision to defect to other parties. Their opportunistic attitudes overtake their principles so much that they easily deviate from the ideology they were earlier wedded to. Selfish interests are placed above their commitment to the welfare of their people. Democracy, in its real sense, is not practised in India. What we have is only a semblance of democracy.

Eternal Vigilance, the Price of Democracy

Growing religious fundamentalism, polarization of people in the name of religion, caste, ethnicity, and the devaluation of role of the pillars of democracy, namely, legislature, executive and judiciary for the sake of a cultural nationalism are gradually destroying the democratic fabric of India. The media, which is the fourth estate in a democracy, is forced to be the mouthpiece of the ruling dispensation. When politicians who hold fundamentalist religious ideology and use religious polarization for winning elections, they only do lip-service to the Constitution of India. They hate it, because it champions the cause of human rights, equality, liberty, fraternity, social justice and secularism etc. They are waiting for an opportunity even to re-write the Constitution, if possible, according to their obscurantist and backward-looking ideology. As long as it is there in the psyche of the common people as an inherited devotion to kings, oppressive feudal and hierarchical caste system of society, patriarchal mind-set, they can be cajoled, enthused and evoked to support those who are able to bring back the same situation to the present context of our country. When political leaders proclaim from house tops that the country will achieve great heights in economic development, they disregard the evolution of the human mind, holding it tethered to the so called glorious past, which is nothing but oppressive by today’s standards. The attempt to re-create a past, which would be considered discriminating and dehumanizing in our day and age, is an illusion.

It is said that eternal vigilance is the price of democracy. Therefore, those who are aware of the dangers Indian democracy faces from those who are bent on setting up a fascist regime in the country, need to be vigilant about their God-given freedom. They must do all they can to prevent the tampering of the Constitution of India by vested interests. One should beware of the promises of wolves in sheep’s clothing – that warning of Jesus to his disciples is relevant here: “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:16-18). God has gifted human beings with intelligence and the power of reason to discern who or what would help them to live their lives in freedom, peace and harmony. It is up to them to use these gifts rightly to choose leaders who would govern them, upholding the values of the Indian Constitution and the democratic traditions of our country.