Pseudo Democracy in India

India is going for another election and as always Indian politicians and journalists would remind the Indians and the rest of the world about the strength and deep roots of democracy. It is true that in the 60 years of history of local rule (I would not say independent), democracy was never really threatened unlike several other countries of about same or lesser age.

Aristotle thought that in a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
In India it is still true but in a bit convoluted manner. In India the majority of the poor votes can be easily purchased but the power of money or shear strength. So even when Aristotle is still right, in India, still the rich have the power. Yet another paradox in a truly Incredible country.

In a democratic process, all individuals are given a single and equal vote. For the success of democracy it is important that each voter realizes the worth of its own vote and the candidates who are seeking the public mandate respect the idea of individual vote and do not demean the vote by offering some monetary or personal favor in return.

In India, whether we accept it or not there none of the above holds on average. A randomly chosen citizen (irrespective of a his/her education or geographical location) would not be able to explain you the worth of his vote in an election comprising of several million voters. An average voter who can never understand the meaning of his one vote among the other several million votes is very likely to sell off his/her vote for small benefits. A large fraction of politicians exploit this ignorance and offer monetary or other kinds of benefits in return of a single vote.

In a slightly remote village (where most of the votes reside), the early birds get the worms i.e. the candidate who is the first to send some money and means of transport to take the votes to the polling station, is more likely to get the votes of that group of people. On top of this physically or economically strong candidates are more likely to get the votes, irrespective their agenda. To put it in other words, in India a candidate without money to buy votes or gain favor of a political party is unlikely to win in any election, no matter how strong development agenda that person has? It is not a hidden knowledge but it appears that as a country India accepts these non-democratic practices as a part of democracy.

So even after India has seen some 15 or so general elections and numerous by-elections, voters dont understand the worth of their vote and anyone can purchase votes and in turn the public mandate. Given this situation can we say that there exists democracy in India?

So long as individual voters do not understand the meaning of their vote, we cannot say that democracy is successful and is flourishing in India. Indian system of governance may be based on democracy but it is a very degenerated kind of democracy that they practice in India.

Should we blame the average voter for his/her ignorance about his vote? I do not think so. As country India has completely failed to educate its votes about the process of democracy and thus, there is no mutual respect between voter and vote and between candidates contesting in the election and the voters.

How do we educate a poor voter that his vote is worth more than some money or a small favor the politician has promised him? I dont know if there is an easy solution but unless that happens we cannot say that Indian rules are determined by a process of democracy. At best it is a pseudo-democracy.

Disclaimer: On a personal level I do not agree with the idea of democracy, because it gives equal vote to all the citizen. When citizens are not equal in their knowledge and understanding, they all should not have equal vote. More on this later...

Attacks on SriLanka Cricket Players-- Please Dont Isolate Pakistan

The attacks on the Sri Lanka cricket player while they were on their way to resume the third day of a test match is really unfortunate and is very rightly drawing a lot of international attention in condemning this act of terror.

I am pretty sure that no one in this world (except for the terrorists themselves) would have expected that there could be a terror strike on the cricket players, even in Pakistan; because in Pakistan and in the sub-continent cricket is like a parallel religion and cricket player, irrespective of their nationality are treated like demi-gods.

So if cricket and cricketers are not safe in Pakistan then who is...

The cricket world is all but scared and future cricket-tours to Pakistan have been cancelled. Pakistan as a joint host of the 2011 world cup is very doubtful. It unlikely that any team can be convinced to tour Pakistan in near future. This is so unfortunate as with this tour of Sri-lankan team cricket barely resumed and this act of shame happened.

A lot of words have been and will be written about the yet another lapse in security and why not even after such an attack the gunmen managed to escape, making a full mockery of the security in Pakistan. It is obvious that given the circumstances, Sri-Lankan team should have been given a top-class security. Note that Sri-lankans traveled to Pakistan, despite the advice of not traveling to Pakistan. Sri-lankans showed their solidarity by traveling what did they get in return... Former cricketer Imran Khan noted that some irrelevant ministers have better security than the Sri-Lankan team.

The effects of this particular terror strike certainly will go beyond cricket for instance the stock-exchanges in Pakistan crashed fearing that all investments will dry up. The economy which is already in shambles will completely crash.

After this particular strike the opinion is converging to isolate Pakistan and declare is a terrorist state. My biggest fear is that once Pakistan might even be quarantined.

I dont know who planned and executed the terror strike (and it doesnt really matter), but I am sure they are not stupid that they cannot predict that the attack on visiting cricketers would result in a complete isolation of Pakistan on the international stage. If they still went ahead and executed the strikes, indicates that terror outfits want Pakistan to be isolated from outside influence. Perhaps an isolated Pakistan would be easier to tame into the fundamentalistic mentality of the terrorists outfits.

Pakistan is a country full of brave and talented people with a great deal of knowledge about the latest technology of all sorts. Leaving such a pool of knowledge and talented population in hands of the terrorists would only strengthen the terrorists and they will pose challenges of bigger surprise factor and magnitude would become more frequent.

After the shameful terror strikes if the we would leave Pakistan alone, then we will commit a crime of bigger magnitude. This is a time when Pakistan needs genuine support.

This support should not be in the form of money to the government but it should be provided in the form of intelligence and logistics support. When a country cannot provide proper security to a visiting cricket team, it means that basic concept of security is somehow messed up in the system. So the world should come forward to provide necessary training and equipments to the security personnel in Pakistan.

At the same time there should be more pressure on the so called democratic government to enforce the law from the United Nations, US or other countries including India. The government in Pakistan should evaluate the fear of the fundamentalist forces more seriously and rise above the short-term gains of retaining power and protect the freedom and honor of Pakistan.

My sincere hope is that Pakistan government will take this one instance of terror strikes seriously and the rest of the world will behave in a more responsible way and support Pakistan in controlling the terrorists organizations and we will see among other things, cricket resuming in the country.