As the second most populated country, India has more than 800 million voters. We take pride in calling our country as the “world’s largest democracy, however, with such glorifying title the underlying issues that plague India’s democracy is often overlooked. The success of India’s democracy cannot be measured alone by its voter participation.
Such standards of evaluation may be sufficient for countries which are still struggling for independence and democracy but proves to be an insufficient measurement to account for the success of how far our country has come since its independence and how much further it must go to truly stand by the ideals of democracy.
The efficacy of India’s democracy is doubted by candidates bribing voters, using religion as a tool to gain votes, using threat or force to sway the voters. Thus, a large group of voters especially religious fanatics fail to use their intellect to choose a correct leader for them. The loss of faith in elected representatives to respond to the wishes of the electorate, and the public perception that politicians are corrupt has further weakened the Parliament and the ideology of democracy.
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The political institutions- the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government play a key role in exercising democracy and protecting its founding principles of liberty, equality and justice. All the three branches work and balance each other’s powers. Institutions such as the Parliament of India, where majority rule is required to form an alliance or pass any law, are balanced by institutions such as the judiciary, that ensures that the rights of the minorities are preserved.
The executive institution responsible for executing the dictates of Parliament, while also enforcing laws that protect minorities. If the efficacy of these political institutions is used as a measurement to account for India’s success as a democratic nation, the results are distressing. The Parliament, for example, has largely lost the faith of its electorate.
The election of underqualified MP’s, the current Members of Parliament having pended criminal charges against them do not befit them to a role of leadership. The notion of Parliament as an institution where issues faced by the nation are discussed and resolved, is failing because of the conduct of Parliamentarians who employ feuds, foul language to derail the proceedings if the Parliament, is nothing more than an entertaining soap opera.
The judiciary, on the other hand, has a plethora of pending court cases which makes serving justice as a galling task. The considerable number of criminal cases pending against Members of Parliament proves the court’s inability to keep timely and strict watch over misuse of power by MP’s which further plagues the condition of democracy in India.
Though organizations like the Reserve Bank of India, that works as an executive constitution, is supposed to be politically unaligned, but still, the government in power can exert pressure to make them work according to their whims. Modi’s implementation of demonetization without due consultation with the Reserve Bank of India is one such example. The adulteration of India’s political institutions further hinders the economic growth of the nation.
In addition to the courts, an educated and well-informed society helps protect the rights of minorities in a democracy. Opposition parties in Parliament, a free and a vibrant media, challenges the misuse of power by the ruling government. Fixing the country’s political institutions and ensuring that India has the most qualified, visionary and most importantly selfless national leaders is an imperative change, otherwise, the slope of failure that India has started to step on will only get further steeper and slipperier.
