Indian democracy
I refer to G.S. Edwin's and D. Prabhakar's letters (Jan. 6 and Jan. 7 respectively) on Indian democracy in response to the articles by Jonathan Power (Dec. 23, 1996) and Arief Budiman (Dec. 31, 1996) quoting the contents of a report compiled by Freedom House. While Edwin's letter brings out how the Indian democracy is genuine and not "partial", Prabhakar deals with how implementation of this democracy has left a lot to be desired. They have referred to subjects that are completely different.
Going by the definition of democracy (at least the part "by the people"), democracy in India qualifies to be considered as 100 percent genuine. The voters cast their ballots freely and secretly after they decide whom to vote for. On that day (and some cynics may say "only on that day"), they are the boss!
Looking at the transition of power -- from Indira Gandhi to Morarjee Desai/Charan Singh back to Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to VP Singh/Chandrashekar to PV Narasimha Rao to the current prime minister Deve Gowda -- sending the ruling party to the opposition benches seems to be the voters' favorite pastime.
If Indian democracy had not been genuine, this would not have happened so routinely. Even in sensitive areas like Punjab and Kashmir, India has successfully conducted free elections.
The maturity of India's democratic system is brought out by the fact that (a) the voter has started thinking more and more independently while voting, which might account for the unpredictability of the results and (b) the loser has always accepted gracefully, without any exception, the people's verdict (the declaration of emergency in 1975 by the late Indira Gandhi was for an unfavorable court order against her. After her election defeat in 1977, she, too, left gracefully).
All the journalists in India and abroad have lauded this fact. In fact, every Indian election has been fairer than the previous one.
As the democracy is a government by the people, the voters must accept the responsibility for the poor work of their representatives. If the representative changes parties for personal gains, it is the voters who should be blamed for electing them again and again.
The results of any democracy (including India's) reflect the quality of its electorate and not the system. Many experts recognize that the democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented. The only thing in its favor is that it forces the government to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate every four (U.S.) to seven (France) years and it gives the electorate the right to give (or refuse) such fresh mandate to it.
Democracy in every country is influenced by lobbies. In fact lobbies are the very essence of it. In all the democracies, lobbies do have clout and do flex their muscles, particularly during the election year.
To call Edwin's letter, which simply tried to bring out the fallacy in the report by Freedom House which called India's genuine democracy a "partial" one, as emotional is far off the mark. He did not try to evaluate Indian democracy on the basis of whether it brought good results or not.
When one reads erroneous reports from organizations like Freedom House about India being "partly" democratic, the only conclusion one would draw is that the learned authors who compiled the report are "partly" aware of the Indian situation.
Shouldn't all the Indians, wherever we are, accept the blame for such lack of enlightenment of a 50-year-old reality? Has India's "lobbying" in the international field been inadequate?
K.B. KALE
Jakarta