By: Ravi Aravelli
r_aravelli@yahoo.com
January 26, 2004

This is in response to the article ‘Raam Anad Aam Rajya: India’s Next Contribution to World Civilization’ by Rasik S Sanghvi. It is true that historically there are fewer examples of vibrant and successful democracies. Interestingly all the ism’s that the author of the article proposed, democracy is the only institution perhaps was not tested to its full capacity to conclude that it indeed has failed leaving us with no choice but to invent new system. The reason is, there exists no yardstick to measure effectiveness of a democracy. Each leading and contemporary democracies of the world, while claiming vociferously, that they have the role model system of governance, sadly failed to substantiate that claim time and again. However, all other systems except democracy have inherent danger of degrading into autocracy or even worse - chaotic. In order to install sound and lasting democracy where majority of its citizens are content with the way they are governed and their standards of living, a country needs right kind of people (the rulers and the ruled). So, apart from honest, selfless and visionary administrators, a country needs law-abiding citizens too. Having said that, it might look rather cynical to ask for an idealistic set up.

Plato’s ‘Republica’ makes interesting references to the system of democracy. Before assuming to the public office, a person was subjected to extended and rather rigorous selection procedures. This includes imparting education to the person on all aspects of the society for several years, test his (I believe there were no women representatives holding public offices during Greco-roman era) administrative astuteness, inclination to public service and decision-making capabilities, then promote him to the next level of education, test his abilities again and elevate to the next level and so on. So at the end of it all, this system could churn out some of the best people of the society to assume the public office. Once in office, these elected and trained professionals governed the state ably and consciously in accordance with the law of the land. Chances of such a system failing, when it’s in the hands of the crème-de-la-crème of the social talent pool are far lesser compared to any contemporary democratic institutions. While we can always go back and say that people during the Greco-Roman era were not as happy and content as one would assume them to be, democracy is the only institution, even after several millennia of it’s invention has evolved to attain its current status and is respected by majority of the human race.

Several critical ingredients of the democracy were lost along the way to its current state – ‘lack of able, sane and selfless individuals at the helm of affairs’ being the topper. Can one imagine having a selection procedure to file his/her nomination papers to contest for a public office in India? And going through a rigorous training after being elected - with expulsion and forfeiting his/her chances of ‘neta-giri’ always looming large on his/her head? Forget about the selection procedures, we failed to prevent candidates with outrageous criminal backgrounds from contesting and capturing the office. When casting our vote, we rarely think about the consequences of our approval of a candidate – a malicious genetic inheritance that breeds chaotic democratic institutions.

Thus, one has to acknowledge that the proliferation of chaotic democracies around the globe (India included) is a result of mandate given by the people. We can point at several abnormalities like corruption, nepotism, red-tape, illiteracy, population and so on but at the end of the day, we are looking at a classic chicken-and-egg paradigm; is it good leaders or good citizens that come first to form a worthy system of governance. Indeed we need right people at the helm of affairs, at the right time, taking right decisions. Nevertheless, right-minded citizens can only elect right people by a sound electoral process. But, even after electing right rulers by right people following right electoral process, we fail, and then we should turn to inventions.

Ravi Aravelli