Failing Democracy

Democracy as we are all aware of (at least hopefully if we haven’t already been so far driven as to forget the power of the word) simply means the rule of the people or majority rule. It is paradoxical and highly ironical to say in the least that theoretically the country, which is ‘the world’s largest democracy’, is also a place where the very term ‘democracy’ has become redundant, and the true spirit of the word seems to have been forgotten as the government so easily and condescendingly ignores the opinion of the majority. And what is the justification that they provide for violating people’s democratic rights? - It’s a clichéd term that goes something like “for the greater/general good”. If we stop to think over it we will realize that this term simply invokes the memory of dictatorial and autocratic regimes, all of whom used the same argument for oppression of the masses.

    There is a gradual failure of democracy at every step of the way. It failed when the largest majority seen in quite a while matched steps with Anna Hazare, with the largest group protests, collective fasts, and yet no outcome whatsoever, except maybe disillusionment, specially for those who had placed their faith in the government. It failed yet again with its censorship policies. Just as the country was beginning to appreciate the relaxing of censorship so that people themselves could be the judge of what to, and what not to view, they went ahead and blocked over two hundred websites, with plans and discussions to block further more, including crucial networking sites such as facebook, and twitter. Here we again witness a paradox, when censorship is lax enough to allow vulgarity in the film industry, and yet paranoid enough to block communication of lifelong friends living across countries. I feel we are moving towards the very system, which we once strongly opposed, and setting up barriers to cut us off from the rest of the world in this era of globalization. The biggest blow yet to come though, was the limiting of SMSs to five a day. You might turn the tables around and say these are inconsequential concerns of the youth given to technology, but again you would fail to realize the power and importance of this simple means of communication, blocking which, as many of the media sources have verified, caused more harm than help.  As if all this is not enough, we have so many other bans, maybe not national yet outrageous enough on their own right. How many of us are aware that there is a ban for females wearing jeans in Ranchi? This is nothing but mindless fundamentalism. If telling people what to wear is possible in a democracy then I seriously believe that the word needs to be redefined.

    Yet this isn’t the largest failure of the democracy. The biggest blow to it comes when people forget its true spirit, its meaning. When people forget the power they hold, their responsibility in a democracy, and allow themselves to be shackled to a normative way of life, is when a democracy truly fails. Undoubtedly the lack of action on the part of the government even with such popular unrests leads to a sense of deep rooted disillusionment, however this doesn't mean that we give up, because then we don not deserve to live in a democracy, and we violate the term just by being a non participating citizen. Jeans are banned?- every girl should wear them every single day. Websites and SMSs blocked, we petition, we protest. We speak till we are heard; we raise our voices till there is nothing else but its resonance. Our democracy is failing indeed, but it will not have failed till all our voices are dead!