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Friday, January 10, 2014

The Indian Democratic Experiment: On the Brink of Failure


In the recent years, let’s face it – Dr. Manmohan Singh has pulled down the standards.  As a result of which scores of people, both ordinary citizenry with extraordinary belief in self, and extraordinary members of industry with ordinary acumen otherwise have begun their evening stroll in the garden of Indian democracy. This is a dangerous signal for the health of democracy, and I intend to discuss the pros and cons of it in this article.

Firstly, it is remarkable to appreciate the active involvement of the citizenry – given their will and necessity, stemming from ever increasing inflation, and lack of employment opportunities. They represent the ill-informed, but passionate countrymen, filled with energy and are seeking a change, to sell their faith and loyalties to. On the other side, we have (wo)men of repute in their particular industries/lines of work – with stagnant career progression curves and negligible connect with ground realities otherwise sensing an opportunity to take the plunge, as a natural next step. There is an eminent danger that the former set of population fall prey to the latter set because of their overt packaging of selves. Ultimately, due to lack of innovation in terms of governance – considering the latter set is devoid of such intellectual faculties, except for transitioning into a new role on their career progression graphs; old set of policy measures and governance methods are bound to continue.

Given the limited acumen but bloated egos of the latter, national development that has sustained considerable damage in the recent past, will broaden creating a great divide – pushing the country towards civil war. International funds and investors (referred to in this articles as funders) will re-align their priorities to tackle this broader divide, as reflected in the 2008 - 2012 FDI Drain, pushing the economy further down.

It must be remembered in that connection that equality and democracy are not synonymous in spite of the fact that these two terms are frequently confounded in "democracies" with an aristocratic-liberal historical background. Numerical majorities are not necessarily keen to preserve equality in a democracy; considering the demand for equality (and related privileges in terms of treatment and subsidies) always arose from select minorities – leading to appeasement schemes.  Genuinely "democratic" societies can be brutally cruel to those who dare to be "different" in an unconventional way.


Our evaluation and adaptation methodology needs to be updated to reflect more systematically the broader inclusion, rather than pursuing a change of leadership – at least without adequate political training.  Enterprising in Public life has become the new trend, and is exceeding enterprising innovation in private sector. This will create continued pressure on treasury, with ill-informed choices and decisions – putting the economy at further risk. This will culminate in failure of the Indian democracy experiment.

- Abhijith Jayanthi