Mediaboss Marketing

In 1967, the Times of London carried a series of articles titled Indias Disintegrating Democracy written by their Delhi correspondent Neville Maxwell. This is how he describes the mood of the country: the administration is strained and universally believed to be corrupt, the government and the governing party have lost public confidence and belief in themselves as well...[there is] a deep sense of defeat, an alarmed awareness that the future is not only dark but profoundly uncertain. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

These words may well be used to describe the current mood of the country.

However, Maxwell got one crucial detail wrong. He concluded that, while Indians would soon vote in the fourth and surely last general election, the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed.

India remains an outlier amongst the democracies of the world- an unlikely candidate for the persistence of democracy. We continue to have large levels of illiteracy and poverty, the integrity of most of our government institutions has been compromised by successive governments (with the notable exception of Election Commission), corruption and populism is the norm in our public life and our society continues to struggle with divisions along the lines of religion, caste, language and gender.

The democratic promise of compensating inequality of resources with equality of voice has remained largely unfulfilled as successive generations of politicians have taken the public for a ride. To borrow a phrase from Joseph Stiglitz, the principle of one person-one vote has been replaced by one rupee-one vote.

The odds of history was certainly against us and the decision to trust a largely illiterate and poor population with universal adult franchise in 1947 was, as Ramchandra Guha calls it, an act of faith on part of the framers of our constitution. These fears have been repeatedly expressed since our independence- that an unstable and hierarchical society with large levels of poverty and illiteracy is not suited for the flourishing of democracy. Take for example Indonesia, another developing country that is going into national elections simultaneously with India. Although it received independence in 1945, it became a democracy only 16 years ago with the fall of Suhartos dictatorship.

Our electorate has repeatedly proven these naysayers wrong by coming out to vote in large numbers. The record turnouts in the third phase of the current elections, which happened in some of the most backward regions of the country, have yet again vindicated the wisdom of our forefathers. Orissa saw 67% voting (which was more than Delhi) and Jharkhand had a 58% turnout, an increase of 3% and 8% respectively.

Even the disturbed regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh and Assam had a healthy turnout and relatively peaceful voting. In Bastar, a Maoist stronghold, more than 1 out of 2 registered voters came out to reaffirm their belief in democracy. In Jammu and Kashmir, disregarding a boycott call by separatists, 66% of the electorate turned up to vote in the third phase, an increase of almost 20% from the general elections in 2009.

Mukulika Banerjee notes in her article Elections as Communitas that the most enthusiastic voters in Indian elections are not the well-educated urban middle classes but those who are the poorest, most discriminated against, and least educated, mainly living in villages and small towns. Paradoxically, the biggest defenders of democracy have been those whom it has failed in the most spectacular way. However, they choose to respond with the ballot instead of the bullet.

Banerjee offers several explanations for the puzzle of democracys success in India- a visionary constitution that acts as a bulwark against authoritarianism, the inclusive social policies of successive governments that have tried to integrate the disadvantaged sections of society, levelling impact of election campaigns where the high and mighty are forced to step down and plead with the voters, the festive atmosphere on election day that makes voting a sacrosanct and an egalitarian experience where people across caste, class and religion stand in one line waiting for their chance to vote, the civic pride of being able to flaunt the black ink on your finger once you have voted and so on.

Read the original here:
Lok Sabha elections: Proof that democracy persists in India

File photo of Sonia Gandhi addressing an election rally

"BJP is leaving no stone unturned in crossing every boundary and limit to capture the Prime Minister's chair. This is dangerous for democracy," she said while addressing a rally in Surguja Lok Sabha constituency of Chhattisgarh.

Politics is meant for development but some people yearn only for power and their hunger for the same can make them to go to any extent. This was happening in the country now, Mrs Gandhi said.

"I know only that the democracy of any country is not safe in the hands of only one person and therefore this time you have to take the decision carefully," she said, without naming BJP's prime ministerial candidate, around whom the saffron party's campaign is centred.

Asking the electorate not to be swayed by "falsehoods" parroted by BJP, she said they need to think which way the country should take.

"Election comes and goes. Somebody wins and somebody loses. But doing anything for winning, branding falsehoods as true....Will this sustain our democracy? You have to think about it," Mrs Gandhi said.

The Congress president alleged that despite the BJP government in Chhattisgarh receiving huge central aid for various schemes, nothing has changed on the ground for the tribals.

"Chhattisgarh government has failed to secure the rights of the tribals. It has openly looted iron and coal of the state to give them away to a few persons. Even rivers were given to mafias. I feel really sad for this," she said.

The Congress' Ram Dev Ram is pitted against BJP's Kamalbhan Singh Marawi in this constituency which is reserved for the scheduled tribes.

Story First Published: April 18, 2014 17:32 IST

Read more:
Democracy not safe in the hands of one person, says Sonia Gandhi

WASHINGTON In a 2006 interview, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said the Constitution is "basically about" one word "democracy" that appears in neither that document nor the Declaration of Independence. Democracy is America's way of allocating political power. The Constitution, however, was adopted to confine that power in order to "secure the blessings of" that which simultaneously justifies and limits democratic government natural liberty.

The fundamental division in American politics is between those who take their bearings from the individual's right to a capacious, indeed indefinite, realm of freedom, and those whose fundamental value is the right of the majority to have its way in making rules about which specified liberties shall be respected.

Now, the nation no longer lacks what it has long needed, a slender book that lucidly explains the intensity of conservatism's disagreements with progressivism. For the many Americans who are puzzled and dismayed by the heatedness of political argument today, the message of Timothy Sandefur's "The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty" is this: The temperature of today's politics is commensurate to the stakes of today's argument.

The argument is between conservatives who say American politics is basically about a condition, liberty, and progressives who say it is about a process, democracy. Progressives, who consider democracy thesource of liberty, reverse the Founders' premise, which was: Liberty pre-exists governments, which, the Declaration says, are legitimate when "instituted" to "secure" natural rights.

Progressives consider, for example, the rights to property and free speech as, in Sandefur's formulation, "spaces of privacy" that government chooses "to carve out and protect" to the extent that these rights serve democracy. Conservatives believe that liberty, understood as a general absence of interference, and individual rights, which cannot be exhaustively listed, are natural and that governmental restrictions on them must be as few as possible and rigorously justified. Merely invoking the right of a majority to have its way is an insufficient justification.

With the Declaration, Americans ceased claiming the rights of aggrieved Englishmen and began asserting rights that are universal because they are natural, meaning necessary for the flourishing of human nature. "In Europe," wrote James Madison, "charters of liberty have been granted by power," but America has "charters of power granted by liberty."

Sandefur, principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, notes that since the 1864 admission of Nevada to statehood, every state's admission has been conditioned on adoption of a constitution consistent with the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration. The Constitution is the nation's fundamental law but is not the first law. The Declaration is, appearing on Page 1 of Volume 1 of the U.S. Statutes at Large and at the beginning of the U.S. Code. Hence the Declaration "sets the framework" for reading the Constitution not as "basically about" democratic government majorities granting rights but about natural rights defining the limits of even democratic government.

The perennial conflict in American politics, Sandefur says, concerns "which takes precedence: the individual's right to freedom, or the power of the majority to govern." The purpose of the post-Civil War's 14th Amendment protection of Americans' "privileges or immunities" protections vitiated by an absurdly narrow Supreme Court reading of that clause in 1873 was to assert, on behalf of emancipated blacks, national rights of citizens. National citizenship grounded on natural rights would thwart Southern states then asserting their power to acknowledge only such rights as they chose to dispense.

Government, the Framers said, is instituted to improve upon the state of nature, in which the individual is at the mercy of the strong. But when democracy, meaning the process of majority rule, is the supreme value when it is elevated to the status of what the Constitution is "basically about" the individual is again at the mercy of the strong, the strength of mere numbers.

Many conservatives should be discomfited by Sandefur's analysis, which entails this conclusion: Their indiscriminate denunciations of "judicial activism" inadvertently serve progressivism. The protection of rights, those constitutionally enumerated and others, requires a judiciary actively engaged in enforcing what the Constitution is "basically about," which is making majority power respect individuals' rights.

More here:
Democracy proceeds from liberty

PTI Apr 18, 2014, 05.15PM IST

(Politics is meant for development)

RAIPUR: Without naming Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today said the democracy cannot be safe in the hands of a single person, and BJP was crossing all limits in its quest for the power.

Addressing a rally at Bhatgaon in Surguja Lok Sabha constituency of Chhattisgarh, Gandhi said, "BJP is leaving no stone unturned in crossing every boundary and limit to capture the Prime Minister's chair. This is dangerous for the democracy.

"Election comes and goes. Somebody wins and somebody loses. But doing anything for winning, branding false as true....Will this sustain our democracy? You have to think about it," Gandhi said.

Politics is meant for development but some people yearn only for the power and their hunger for the same can make them to go to any extent. This was happening in the country now, Gandhi said.

"I know only that the democracy of any country is not safe in the hands of only one person and therefore this time you have to take the decision carefully," she said, without naming BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, around whom the saffron party's campaign is centred.

The Congress president alleged that despite the BJP government in Chhattisgarh receiving huge central aid for various schemes, nothing had changed on the ground.

"We never discriminated between the state governments of Congress and those of other parties. We always extended our full cooperation to Chhattisgarh. We gave a huge amount of funds for employment, health, power, roads and many other development works....Centre also supported the state in maintaining law and order....But now you will decide whether the ruling BJP government has done anything for the people ....I am sure the answer will be no," she said.

Read the rest here:
Democracy can't be safe in the hands of one man: Sonia Gandhi

Stepping up her offensive against Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi today said democracy cannot be safe in the hands of one person and accused BJP of crossing all limits by spreading "falsehoods" to come to power.

"BJP is leaving no stone unturned in crossing every boundary and limit to capture the Prime Minister's chair. This is dangerous for democracy," she said while addressing a rally in Surguja Lok Sabha constituency of Chhattisgarh.

Politics is meant for development but some people yearn only for power and their hunger for the same can make them to go to any extent. This was happening in the country now, Gandhi said.

"I know only that the democracy of any country is not safe in the hands of only one person and therefore this time you have to take the decision carefully," she said, without naming BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, around whom the saffron party's campaign is centred.

Asking the electorate not to be swayed by "falsehoods" parroted by BJP, she said they need to think which way the country should take.

"Election comes and goes. Somebody wins and somebody loses. But doing anything for winning, branding falsehoods as true. Will this sustain our democracy? You have to think about it," Gandhi said.

The Congress president alleged that despite the BJP government in Chhattisgarh receiving huge central aid for various schemes, nothing has changed on the ground for the tribals.

"Chhattisgarh government has failed to secure the rights of the tribals. It has openly looted iron and coal of the state to give them away to few persons. Even rivers were given to mafias. I feel really sad for this," she said.

Congress's Ram Dev Ram is pitted against BJP's Kamalbhan Singh Marawi in this constituency which is reserved for the scheduled tribes.

Emerging story. Watch this space for updates as more details come in

See more here:
Democracy Won't Be Safe in the Hands of One Man: Sonia