Ersatz Democracy

DR. M. V. PATWARDHAN, M.B.B.S., B.Sc.
Poona

When the Congress Government declares, every now and again, that Socialistic Democracy is to be the model for the future Indian society, it is taken for granted that the existing democracy which prevails in the U.S.A., U.K., France and other western democratic countries is the ideal pattern on which it is to be built up. In these western countries the evolution of democracy has been gradually taking place during the last few centuries. But in India the question is quite different. Here the existing non-egalarian Hindu society is to be completely levelled up and western democracy is to be transplanted in its place. In these circumstances, it is necessary to have a rational analysis of this new transplant for its real democratic contents before adopting it for the Indian social construction.

Lincoln’s definition of democracy as “Government by the people, for the people, with the consent of the people” is very concise yet appropriate. Since the American War of Independence, and the French Revolution, its basic principles are (1) All men are equal; (2) Sovereignty of the people; (3) Liberty; (4) Equality; (5) Fraternity. If western democracy is rationally analysed against the ground of these criteria the results are strange, startling and illuminating.

ALL MEN ARE EQUAL: “That all men are equal, is a preposition to which at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent” says Aldous Huxley in his essay on the Idea of Equality. Bryce is in agreement with him and writes in his book. Modern Democracies, “Natural inequality has been and must continue to be one of the most patent and effective factors in human society.” Western democrats cannot prove how great men like Einstein, President Kennedy, Pandit Nehru and Queen Elisabeth are equal to each other and how all these can be equated with any Tom, Dick and Mary on the street. Yet this is a dogma in which every democrat has a blind faith which he cannot rationally substantiate. In order to get over this difficulty, it is argued that no doubt men are unequal, but democracy provides all of them equal opportunity in the competition for their individual social uplift. But this is injustice and hypocrisy, pure and simple, because opportunity can never be equal for unequal persons. In boxing and wrestling, unequal persons are divided into different categories according to their weights before they are allowed to contest with each other. In billiards, an handicap is imposed on talented persons. Unless this is done, the declaration of equal opportunity for all, is a downright fraud on the people. Western democracy, therefore, completely fails on the basic criterion that “All men are equal.” In every society all human beings are not equal. And therefore, equal opportunity for all does not operate in any of the present democracies of the world.

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE: “The sovereignty of the people is the basis and the watchword of democracy. It is a faith and a dogma to which in our times, every frame of goverment has to conform and by the conformity to which every institution is tested….Vox Populi Vox Dei…The divine right of the king has become the overriding majesty of the people” says Bryce in his book on Modern Democracies. This shows that sovereignty of the people is considered in its collective aspect only. All adult people of the nation are regarded to be sovereign in the political sense. By universal franchise, this sovereignty of the people is exercised and transferred by means of votes to the elected representatives. The elected representatives then form an assembly and they in turn hand over their sovereign power to a small body of persons who govern the whole nation in the name of the people with the consent of the members of the assembly. During the term of office of three or four years of this elected assembly the general population is completely enslaved and is at the mercy of the governing body. According to Pitirim Sorokhin, “a citizen declared free and sovereign in democracies, in fact, plays in politics, the role of a zero rather than that of a sovereign. He does not have any influence on the election of men who rule in his name and with his authority.” This clearly indicates that an individual in a democratic form of government loses his sovereignty completely during the tenure of the elected assembly. The only difference between monarchy and democracy is that in the former type of government, persons were never allowed to enjoy the sovereignty of the people, while in the democratic form they exercise their sovereign power for one minute, every three or four years, the time necessary for putting the vote in the ballot box. Moreover, this sovereignty is in the political aspect only. In the civil, economic, social, religious, and other aspects, the sovereignty of the people is conspicuous by its absence. Can this, by any stretch of imagination, be ever called sovereignty of the people?

But there, is another very debatable side to this question of sovereignty of the people. Can a person possibly surrender his sovereignty to a representative if he himself does not wield sovereign authority? How can he give up a thing which he himself does not possess and which exists in his imagination only? Legal transfer of ownership can be effected only by the owner of a thing. And can a government which comes into existence on this impossible corollary contain the smallest iota of sovereignty? If individual sovereignty is absent, collective sovereignty has only an imaginary existence. The so-called modern democratic government is, therefore, nothing but a disguised bureaucracy. To call it a democratic government is not only hypocrisy but a downright fraud on the ignorant population. Western democracy has not the remotest right to call itself a democracy unless it makes provision for making every adult individual of the realm a sovereign person and this seems to be an impossible achievement for it at present.

LIBERTY: The conception of Liberty has varied from time to time. Before the Second World War, four kinds of liberty were recognized–civil, political, religious and individual. But “the idea of liberty is now so restricted that it contains only two distinct ingredients–freedom to satisfy elementary and common human desires like the desire for food, and freedom, to take significant decisions, and that welfare cannot be discussed outside the content of liberty, or liberty outside the content of welfare, or either without reference to the particular circumstances of the people and communities under discussion.” Capitalistic democracies take great pride in the observance of the principle of liberty. But its emptiness is quite obvious as even in advanced countries like the U.S.A., the Negroes had recently to fight for it.

EQUALITY: “Men are born and continue to be equal in respect of their rights.” The Declaration of Rights of the National Assembly of France begins with this sentence. The doctrine of equality is, therefore, the very basis of western democracy. Yet in the observance of this fundamental principle again it has been a complete failure. Bryce distinguishes five different kinds of Equality–civil, political, social, natural and economic. All these types of equality except the civil and political, are on paper only and exist in imagination. After the Second World War, equality has now come to mean only equality in the distribution of the necessities of life. Lately in the Welfare State, a sort of equality is brought about by giving every member of the society, irrespective of his income, freedom from want, disease, squalor and idleness. But these are the tenets of a Welfare State and not of democracy and this Welfare Equality can be brought about even in a Totalitarian State.

FRATERNITY: The doctrine of Fraternity in democracy is conspicuous by its absence. Bryce remarks “What then has democracy failed to accomplish?…Liberty and Equality have not been followed by Fraternity. Not even far of do we see her coming shine.” The U. N. O. is trying its best to inculcate a sense of brotherhood in the different nations of the world, but the results are very disappointing.

Modern western democracy, therefore, does not satisfy, even rudimentally, any of the five basic concepts of an ideal democracy. How can we, even remotely, expect that the graft of this Ersatz democracy which we are going to transplant in India, will ever grew into a vigorous ideal type? Is it really worthwhile and wholesome to replace the old but familiar Indian society by this worthless stuff? The remedy is likely to prove to be worse than the disease.

Creation of an ideal democracy may prove to be an impossible achievement to a western mind, but our Vedic Scriptures have the necessary potential to accomplish this great and essential task.