On Democracy
Democracy is a word with Greek roots. It comes from ‘deme’, the Greek for people, and ‘kratia’, the word for power or strength. Democracy is where people have the power.
India is a representative democracy not a direct democracy. That is, people elect representatives and they make decisions on how to run the country. This is true for most other democracies as well. Countries like US may put up certain measures for popular referendum but making them law is still the function of the representatives. However, if the representatives fail the people, it is understood that they will be voted out. In the interim, protests will let the people’s will be known.
Thus, people’s engagement is the essence of democracy.
This is why it is also commonly understood that a free, non-partisan, and conscientious press is an important pillar of democracy. Because for people to participate in the democracy in an informed way, they need to be informed, and press plays an important role in informing the people.
However, is delivering information—even an unbiased and true to the best of knowledge at the time of transmission one—the only key ingredient that leads to people’s active participation?
No.
For people to participate actively:
They also need to feel safe enough to participate,
Have the time to spare to keep on top of the information available about the government and its actions and to actually participate in both voting, public consultation, and protests, and
Should have a sound base of logical thinking and history and the sciences so that they could assess and make sense of the information they receive.
What does safety mean?
It means each person, no matter their gender, religion, ethnicity, caste, or race, can participate without it threatening their life. Kashmir thus isn’t an active participant in our democracy. It isn’t allowed to. However, this isn’t limited to Kashmir. Or to physical safety.
For people to feel safe participating, they also need to be healthy. If they are ill, they cannot participate easily. Thus, it is not just good press, but safety from majoritarian thinking and accessible and low cost (or free) healthcare, that is also a pillar of democracy.
Why do the people need the time for information gathering and reflection?
For people to participate in an informed way, they need to actually have the time to make informed choices. This is quite impossible in a country where even IT workers—the most privileged of the lot—have to spend 10-12 hours and at times weekends at work. Where do they have the time to read up extensively and deeply on important matters of governance and then reflect up on them? Most people would work, sleep, and spend any precious free time they have with family or taking rest through entertainment or otherwise. Decent labor laws are thus essential to democracy.
With labour laws, the people will also need moderate level of economic dependence. Because if people are too preoccupied with making ends meet, they won’t have the time to spare to reflect on long term betterment of the country and the world. They will likely make short term choices that would make the pain stop. Good social support that mitigates economic risks are thus essential to democracy.
However, can people actively participate for the betterment of the country or globe just because they feel safe enough to vote and have the time to spare to gather information?
No. For informed decision making, we also need a sound base of education. Education that is varied and diverse and that promotes assessment and synthesis of information to make choices rather than assimilation and regurgitation. Otherwise, people defer to experts and that process is easy to be misused. Thus, widely accessible education, which includes a robust public library system for adult education, is also a pillar of democracy.
If people don’t feel safe enough to participate, can’t spare the time to be informed, or cannot assess information in a logical manner no matter the conclusions they draw from that, then the democracy’s effect will be muted, the people’s power will be limited, and the people who benefit from it will be those who would have actually had the time to influence the decisions; that is, those whose life work is the rule—politicians, certain administrators—and those who have the money to pay others to read up and advocate for their benefits—richer corporations and business folks. It won’t be power of the people but power of the corporate then. Or, power of the aristocrats or kleptocrats. A plutarchy, a kleptocracy, or an aristocracy. Not a democracy.
But, aren’t those things—better health care, better labour laws, a good social safety net, and accessible education—the result of democracy? Isn’t democracy a way to achieve the things that will make our life better?
That is the conundrum of democracy. Unless your life has those things, you cannot actively participate in it, and unless you participate, you cannot actually get those things.
That first part is why democracy is a goal not our present condition. You cannot participate effectively unless you have safety, health, social security, and education, and thus, you should always strive for them.
That second part is why democracy is a process not a state. You need to actively engage with it until it listens to you. You cannot walk away and expect it to deliver stuff that will make you participate.
Despair, disengagement, and distance are not an option.
Whenever democracy has remained limited or people have not engaged, regions and countries have fallen to autocracy or plutocracy.
That was the case with Ancient Greece and Rome. Both had forms of democracy, limited to richer people and men in some parts of the process; without access to information and safety for most of the others. Both saw capture by elites who could work to ensure the public was hoodwinked through bread and circuses or could use military power to capture the state’s machinery.
That was the case in post imperial western Europe and pre-Norman England as well. For a while people enjoyed freedom when the power of aristocrats in western Roman Empire waned, but then they lost it because of either elites growing out of them, through outside attacks, or by the efforts of regional aristocrats who clawed their way back into power.
That has been happening around the world in the past decade too: for whatever reason when people disengaged or were misled, rich elites captured the democracy. This resulted in worse policies for people in terms of health, environment, and education (look at the present pandemic).
Thus, the lack of democracy is also a vicious cycle. People can’t remain informed, so they make the wrong choices—for protectionism, out of racism and fear—based on demagoguery; and because of their wrong choices, their safety and ability to participate actively in democracy is taken away.
How can we prevent it?
By participating actively in it. There is no other way.
It would have been great if we had safety, healthcare, and income security but people who fought for democracy to be as expansive as it is (or was) in many places didn’t have those things. The English working class for example, who regularly protested, used to stay through the night teaching themselves alphabets. The women suffragettes too had to campaign hard for their right to vote. Peasants who revolted in the 13th century that resulted in Magna Carta—a charter and treaty between the ruler and its people, had to work to make the ruler listen to them. (That last was violent and not the best means (and open to misuse, fracture, and eventual capture) and was needed because of monarchy—lack of access to non-violent and safe protests.)
They also had allies. There were people with some means who supported liberal thinking and campaigned for it both among the poor and the rich.
If we want our life to be better, no matter where we are, we need a democracy (preferably at the global level, but for now, at the country level). If we want to make our life better, we should make a democracy. For both to actually happen, we need to participate in the process of democracy.
Democracy is the process. The means. And the end.
Think on it.
Notes:
Tom Holland, Rubicon: The Last Years of Roman Republic.
Mary Beard, SQPR: The History of Ancient Rome.
Herodotus, The Histories.
Rebecca Fraser, A People’s History of Britain.
Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Peasants and Politics’, Journal of Peasant Studies, pp. 3-21.
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class.
The Pandemic and Democracy ; yes, it is about US, but the information is applicable for any democracy.