The right to vote is often described as a salient feature of a thriving democracy wherein the constituent body gets to manifest its chosen destiny by choosing a competent ruling body that represents its ideology and acts on behalf of its values. I will lay out why this is under threat and has been in this great nation of ours for a while.
Components of a Thriving Democracy
A typically high-functioning democracy seemingly has the following characteristics: a. An educated electorate capable of critical thinking b. A media body that adheres to the truest mission of reporting politically relevant events objectively as they unfold. Of course, the various other pillars of democracy provide other critical functional support, but I’d like to focus on the aforementioned components and dissect their importance as they pertain to the democratic illusion management that I’m about to lay out.
Illusion Management
It is probably too cynical to suggest a malicious conspiracy as Hanlon’s razor suggests “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, but when societal outcomes are measured (rising inflation, falling currency value, low HDI, poor infrastructure, communal disharmony, etc), it is pretty baffling to notice the continuing level of dysfunction plaguing society that’s curiously ignored and that which could only be explained by malicious intent. Therefore I present to you an alternate explanation in the form of a carefully managed illusion of democracy and it goes as follows: a political party’s core mission is to promote the interests of its constituents, but what if it is interested in holding on to power because of the various obvious benefits unfettered political power begets? The only legal low resistance path is to win elections, but a well-informed literate electorate would be a liability to any political party with these nefarious intentions, so it turns towards a less informed less literate electorate that is easily swayed by the promises of freebies, and where else could it find the treasure of freebies to distribute - you the middle-class cash cow! Notice that I curiously omitted the upper-income class and lower-income classes as generators of this treasure, because the former is too busy hiding its wealth from the government and the latter is too poor, unorganized, and invisible to the system to contribute anything of value. This phenomenon has played out for so long, it is almost accepted as the inescapable paradigm of Indian politics.
So where does the buck stop? It doesn’t stop anywhere, the middle class contributing the most, getting the least in return is too afraid and busy to take the time to break the chain of injustice, all while continuing to feed the machine in hopes of electing a different political party with better scruples that would look out for its interests. If the buck were to stop somewhere, it would be a combination of the middle-class fomenting its political enlightenment, with the explicitly stated goal of recapturing its agency aided by the judicial arm along with the support of a capable law enforcement body (a.k.a police kinetic force), except none of these components are in any working condition currently! The middle class is perpetually stuck in a combination of a hedonistic treadmill, keeping up with steep inflation rates and perpetual debt servitude to cast its gaze upon anything remotely resembling enlightenment. On the other hand, the judicial arm is seeming as ineffectual and corrupt as any other arm of the democratic machinery, and the police force is perpetually abused by the political elite to safeguard its interests as a primary goal.
I’m indeed sorry to portray all of these phenomena as plausible explanations for dysfunction in our dear country. But there seems to be one silver bullet that could solve this malaise quite efficiently - it’s a critical thinking middle-class. Still, it baffles me to no end that we’re far too susceptible to being easily distracted. We (the middle class) love a good controversy, and what do we love more than one good controversy? Another controversy to daisy-chain the previous one! The entire establishment that keeps all of these components in perpetual homeostasis is well-fed, complicit in the machinations of the political elite, and adept at raking up the next controversy.
Ultimately this is a well oiled machinery which has functioned all along but now the Modi government has asked the Election commission to formulate a law for political parties to be accountable to the freebies they promise before the election, we have to see how far this works
Fair point. It would be interesting to see how rigorously a law like that is crafted and implemented. It seems to me that we have had examples like the Loka Ayuktha in the past, only to be rendered toothless by the same government that ostensibly instituted it in the first place.
Ultimately this is a well oiled machinery which has functioned all along but now the Modi government has asked the Election commission to formulate a law for political parties to be accountable to the freebies they promise before the election, we have to see how far this works
Fair point. It would be interesting to see how rigorously a law like that is crafted and implemented. It seems to me that we have had examples like the Loka Ayuktha in the past, only to be rendered toothless by the same government that ostensibly instituted it in the first place.