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Friday, April 12, 2019

Democracy and India

The question is easy but the answer is something many will not like. Democracy, as it exists in India, is slightly chaotic and the result is that the country from outside does not look cohesive. Matters are compounded by Pandit Nehru's creation of states on linguist basis sowing seeds of separatism.
Now look at our ancient history, India unlike the Greek states had no tradition of democracy. The king ruled by divine right and one can say people were Happy.  The empires of Kanishka and Chandragupta are a testimony to this.
It was followed by 900 years of Muslim rule and 200 years of British rule. The majority of the population( Hindus) had no rights and there was no democracy. A modicum of democracy was only introduced by the Raj in 1935. With no tradition of democracy and only used to autocracy and rule by the powerful, India as a whole is really unsuited for democracy. The result is we have a massive insurrection ongoing in entire Central India and fissiparous fights in East and North- Kashmir. Even Sikhs outside India are talking a lot of nonsense of a Sikh state. So I really feel India should have gone in for a presidential system and not a democracy like in the UK.
England had a long history of limiting the power of the king. They had the Magna Carta while in India it was autocracy all the way. It was not bad but then this is a fact. In fact, come to think of it the 200 years of the Raj were the most tranquil in the history of India. This was the period when the Hindus were given their rights and after 900 years got rid of the obnoxious effects of Muslim rule like Jizzia and conversion. So maybe democracy like in the UK is unsuited to India but now the clock cannot be put back.

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