Democracy and governance

My house is located alongside an almost blind 80’ ft road about 50m from the main road. All houses/buildings on this 80’ road have basement parking. As is the practice in Bangalore (and possibly elsewhere) the spaces on kerb side in-between gates are used for parking by visitors to the shopping places on the main road. The lazy ones just turn into my road (80’ road) and park haphazardly at the entrance itself, from the main road. When I question such parkers they nonchalantly ask me,  ‘eh tera baap ka road he kya?’ I have exaggerated the language a bit to bring home a point that to an average Indian (majority) the meaning of freedom is contained in that sentence. And on equality it is, ‘if you can drive your car on a road I can as well park on it’; it is his road too!!! Isn’t it? In such a situation my choices are as follows.

1. I quietly retreat, go home and have a drink. I did and did not feel any better.

2. I go to the authorities. I did. The police of course politely told me that they do not have enough personnel to implement these parking rules. I understand the police are an over-stretched organisation. I went to the corporator. He asked me for a complaint in writing. I did not give that because it was not a personnel matter but a public transgression. You see, armed with my ‘complaint’ the corporator will make me the fall guy to garner votes! – good old divide and rule stuff. So, dead end there.

3. With my entire boxing experience, throw an upper cut straight into the solar plexus of the offender. I would not do that because I could not be sure of the implications as there generally are more than ten odd vehicles parked there at any given time. These are all ‘educated’ guys mind you. One on one I could take them on, I feel. But one against ten was not the right odds.

 The inherent flaw is in the way we flaunted our new found ‘freedom’ in the last sixty odd years. In the exuberance we just let things be and forgot that there is a country to be governed. In the process, our political system threw up a strange phenomenon much like going to the temple and forgetting GOD. A picture was presented that the end all of democracy is elections – the universal suffrage. Thus governance never figured in the scheme of things for our elected leaders. To the bliss of the bureaucrats governance was left to them. On the other hand people are under the impression that giving your vote is quid pro quo for exercising ‘freedom’. Freedom to do anything any way!

Democracy is strange. The word itself is of Greek origin which vaguely means ‘rule of the people’. Some city states of ancient Greece followed this system which afforded equality and freedom to the people. In the Indian system of democracy there is none of the former and too much of the latter.

 I think ‘rule of the people’ (democracy) is conflicting in itself, a sort of an oxymoron. Here is a system where everybody is a ruler as well as the ruled. Does that mean democracy is an impossible system? Of course not; it is not impossible but difficult to sustain. The two basic factors for democracy to succeed are sadly missing in our system. They are 1. Self discipline.  2. A pan India Nationalism (instead we have a rampant pursuit of parochialism - a controversial topic in itself).

In passing…..

Shri Ramesh Chandra Majhi is a Minister, State (Independent) for IT and Science and Technology in the Orissa Government. What is the big deal?, you may ask. The news report is that he is appearing in the Cl XII state board exams this year as finally it has dawned on him that in the discharge of his day to day duties some relevant knowledge will be handy. Speaks volumes for competency of the executive and legislature