- Vincent Kundukulam
The political observers, both inside and outside the country, think that democracy is backsliding in India. But the book entitled, “The 2019 Parliamentary Elections in India: democracy at the Crossroads?” by Subrata K. Mithra and others argue a different point of view. According to these authors, the electoral process in India is efficient in keeping the country in the path of democracy even while the political culture is in transition all over the globe. They highlight a few arguments in order to substantiate their hypothesis.
Firstly, they show that the vitality and resilience of Indian democracy is still amazing due to the involvement of the masses in the elections to the parliament as well as to the legislative assemblies. On these occasions, a sense of popular sovereignty triumphs over the Indian minds as they are able to express their concerns through myriad social forces. The dedicated effort the political parties make to woo the voters push the privileged classes as well as the marginal groups to bargain for their causes. When the candidates come to the villages for the electoral campaigns, the people remind them how much they failed in fulfilling the promises they made during the last elections. When their voices are not heard, they put up rebel candidates. All these exercises make the voters true stakeholders of power.
Secondly, the Indian democracy is strengthened thanks to the hundreds of regional and local political parties which, on behalf of their particular cultural and social identities, trigger the competitive spirit between the major political alliances led by BJP and Congress. Although one alliance fails successively, it does not get totally destroyed because of the regional parties, which change their alliance in view of the political atmosphere in the country. For instance, the Congress led alliance called UPA came to power in 2004 defeating BJP led alliance known as NDA which had remained in power for a record period of eight years. Then in 2014, the NDA defeated UPA which was in power for a period of ten years. At present, the parliamentary elections are on, and the chance is high that the Congress led alliance INDIA capture the power after ten years.
Thirdly, media play a major role in keeping the democratic spirit alive in the consciousness of people. Although a certain number of the newspapers and periodicals are hijacked by the mega corporates, who support the ruling party, with the influx of social media channels the opposition parties succeed to unveil the real picture of the country and to divert the political discussions towards the important subjects touching the life of people. The shifts taking place during the 2024 election to the parliament is an ample proof for the same. Although NDA had set the agenda of political discussion around the subjects like the constructed Ayodhya temple, image of developing nation and progress India make in science and technology, the electronic media has succeeded to bring into public discussion the real issues of unemployment, violence against women, attack on minorities and weakening of secular institutions.
Having said this, we don’t mean that Indian democracy is one of the best in the world. The democratic institutions are getting more and more weak because of the undue involvement of the political parties and influence of ‘black money’ in the electoral process. Similarly, almost all the parties still organize themselves in an undemocratic way by functioning under a person or a bunch of leaders without giving much care for their constitutive bodies and statutory laws.
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