Long Live Democracy

Roots of Democracy, a piece written by Abhishek Banerjee and Sumedha Verma Ojha for the Indian Express, suggests about the ancient roots of republic and democracy in India. It is a fact visible across all the diverse literatures of the past. But the real question is not about its identities or the place of origin, instead, the problem lies in generalisation. It's an easy task to generalise an assumption to create a narrative about backwardness or progress, tradition or modernity, and status or contract, etc. Behind every generalisation, there is a case of cognitive or epistemological biasness. Before generalisation one must think about its opposite and try to investigate if opposite is equally true?

In our world of values, there is not a single value exists as truth without  co-relation to its opposites. Likewise, democracy is not an institution or state of being rather an attitude. And every attitude has its opposites simultaneously. One can be democratic at the cost of non-democratic tendencies visible inside him or her. Similarly, no society could be canvassed as one version of truth at the cost of compromising with its opposites. In that sense, Ancient India was an amalgamation of all the diverse attitudes. Democracy and republican values were prevalent there not exclusively, but within a general tendency of autocracy and monarchy. 

India in post-colonial period is not a society transformed by colonial masters who, as claimed, taught or imposed the democratic ethos over Indians. She has its own ancient roots of democracy or republicanism. But can we say all Indians are democratic by their attitude even after getting independence from their colonial past? Answer would be obviously "no". Official works in modern-India demonstrate the working culture of babus, kiranis, or officers. Persons on official positions often enjoy powers so much so that they often forget what are their roles in the office? Obviously, this tendency cannot be generalised. But predominantly this spirit is visible in the offices of post-colonial India.  Someone, who is appointed to serve, makes it reverse and rules over the masses with impunity. And masses are often ignorant about their roles in a democratic set-up remain "ready to be exploited". And literate people are too docile and conditioned that their knowledge of civility becomes useless in a practical world of experience. In such a condition, democracy becomes a symbol instead of attitude, a mark of celebration instead of working culture, a rhetorics of politicians instead of a way of life. Dr. Ambedkar's vision of democracy was social democracy, which is related to the human's attitude to embrace differences instead of making it symbolically true in the name of political democracy. India, in that sense, cannot feel proud of its ancient past unless people are ready to embrace the democratic ethos so as to find a common theme among all the diffrent modes of existence. Glorious past is no guarantee of her beautiful present or hopeful future, unless people are practicing constant vigilance to check the autocratic or anti-democratic tendencies.

Long Live Democracy!!