T3-NCERT-IX-Democratic Politics

Chapter 1

Democracy in the Contemporary World

• The next big push towards democracy came after 1980, as democracy was revived in several countries of Latin America. The disintegration of the Soviet Union accelerated this process. From the story of Poland we know that the then Soviet Union controlled many of its neighbouring communist countries in Eastern Europe. Poland and several other countries became free from the control of the Soviet Union during 1989-90. They chose to become democracies. Finally the Soviet Union itself broke down in 1991. The Soviet Union comprised 15 Republics. All the constituent Republics emerged as independent countries. Most of them became democracies.
  

Abraham Lin- coln to us: “Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people” 

the word democracy comes from a Greek word ‘Demokratia’. In Greek ‘demos’ means people and ‘kratia’ means rule. So de- mocracy is rule by the people. 

democracy is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people. 

There should be sufficient room for normal political activity, including political opposition, in the period before elections. This requires that the state should respect some basic rights of the citizen. They should be free to think, to have opinions, to express these in public, to form associations, to protest and take other political actions. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of law. These rights must be protected by an independent 

judiciary whose orders are obeyed by everyone. 

Arguments against democracy
This conversation has most of the arguments that we routinely hear against democracy. Let us go over some of these arguments: 

•   Leaders keep changing in a
  democracy. This leads to instability.
  
•   Democracy is all about political competition and power play. There
  is no scope for morality.
  So many people have to be
  consulted in a democracy that it
  leads to delays.
  
•   Elected leaders do not know the
  best interest of the people. It leads
  to bad decisions.
  
•   Democracy leads to corruption for
  it is based on electoral competition.
  
•   Ordinary people don’t know what is good for them; they should not
  decide anything.
  
• Clearly, democracy is not a magical solution for all the problems. It has not ended poverty in our country and in other parts of the world.
  
• Democracy as a form of government only ensures that people take their own decisions. This does not guarantee that their decisions will be good. People can make mistakes. Involving the people in these decisions does lead to delays in decision making. It is also true that democracy leads to frequent changes in leadership. Sometimes this can set back big decisions and affect the government’s efficiency.
  

Arguments for democracy 

China’s famine of 1958-1961 was the worst recorded famine in world history. Nearly three crore people died in this famine.

The existence of democracy in India made the Indian government respond to food scarcity in a way that the Chinese government did not. They point out that no large-scale famine has ever taken place in an independent and democratic country. If China too had multiparty elections, an opposition party and a press free to criticise the government, then so many people may not have died in the famine. 

This example brings out one of the reasons why democracy is considered the best form of government. Democracy is better than any other form of government in responding to the needs of the people. 

Democracy provides a method to deal with differences and conflicts. 

Even if they managed to trust each other, what was the guarantee that this trust will not be broken in future? 

The only way to build and maintain trust in such a situation is to write down some rules of the game that everyone would abide by. These rules lay down how the rulers are to be chosen in future. These rules also determine what the elected governments are empowered to do and what they cannot do. Finally these rules decide the rights of the citizen. These rules will work only if the winner cannot change them very easily. This is what the South Africans did. They agreed on some basic rules. They also agreed that these rules will be supreme, that no government will be able to ignore these. This set of basic rules is called a constitution. 

Constitution making is not unique to South Africa. Every country has diverse groups of people. Their relationship may not have been as bad as that between the whites and the blacks in South Africa. But all over the world people have differences of opinion and interests. 

After the War of Independence against Great Britain, the Americans gave themselves a constitution. After the Revolution, the French people approved a democratic constitution. Since then it has become a practice in all democracies to have a written constitution. 

Reserved Constituencies 

So, the makers of our Constitution thought of a special system of reserved constituencies for the weaker sections. Some constituencies are reserved for people who belong to the Scheduled Castes [SC] and Scheduled Tribes [ST]. In a SC reserved constituency only someone who belongs to the Scheduled Castes can stand for election. Similarly only those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes can contest an election from a constituency reserved for ST. Currently, in the Lok Sabha, 84 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 47 for the Scheduled Tribes (as on 1 September 2012). This number is in proportion to their share in the total population. Thus the reserved seats for SC and ST do not take away the legitimate share of any other social group. 

Political and Permanent Executive

In a democratic country, two categories make up the executive. One that is elected by the people for a specific period, is called the political executive. Political leaders who take the big decisions fall in this category. In the second category, people are appointed on a long-term basis. This is called the permanent executive or civil services. Persons working in civil services are called civil servants. They remain in office even when the ruling party changes. These officers work under political executive and assist them in carrying out the day-to-day administration. 

The Presidential System 

The President of the United States of America is the most well known example of this kind of President. The US President is directly elected by the people. He personally chooses and appoints all Ministers. The law making is still done by the legislature (called the Congress in the US), but the president can veto any law. Most impor- tantly, the president does not need the support of the majority of members in the Congress and neither is he answerable to them. He has a fixed tenure of four years and completes it even if his party does not have a majority in the Congress. 

This model is followed in most of the coun- tries of Latin America and many of the ex-Soviet Union countries. Given the centrality of the Presi- dent, this system of government is called the Presidential form of government. In countries like ours that follow the British model, the parliament is supreme. Therefore our system is called the parliamentary system of government. 

It means the Supreme Court controls the judicial administration in the country. Its decisions are binding on all other courts of the country. It can take up any dispute 

• Between citizens of the country;
   Between citizens and government;
   Between two or more state
  governments; and
  Between governments at the union
  and state level.
  It is the highest court of appeal in civil and criminal cases. It can hear appeals against the decisions of the High Courts.
  
• Independence of the judiciary means that it is not under the control of the legislature or the executive. The judges do not act on the direction of the government or according to the wishes of the party in power. That is why all modern democracies have courts that are independent of the legislature and the executive. India has achieved this.
  

A judge can be removed only by an impeachment motion passed separately by two- thirds members of the two Houses of the Parliament. It has never happened in the history of Indian democracy. 

determine the Constitutional validity of any legislation or action of the executive in the country, when it is challenged before them. This is known as the judicial review. 

Any one can approach the courts if public interest is hurt by the actions of government. This is called public interest litigation. The courts intervene to prevent the misuse of the government’s power to make decisions. They check malpractices on the part of public officials. That is why the judiciary enjoys a high level of confidence among the people. 

Office Memorandum: A communication issued by an appropriate authority stating the policy or decision of the government. 

State: Political association occupying a definite territory, having an organised government and possessing power to make domestic and foreign policies. Governments may change, but the state continues. In common speech, the terms country, nation and state are used as synonyms. 

Prison in Guantanamo Bay 

The US army arrested them, interrogated them and decided whether to keep them there or not. There was no trial before any magistrate in the US. Nor could these prisoners approach courts in their own country. 

Amnesty International, an international human rights organisation, collected information on the condition of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and reported that the prisoners were being tortured in ways that violated the US laws. 

The UN Secretary General said the prison in Guantanamo Bay should be closed down. The US government refused to accept these pleas. 

Citizens’ Rights in Saudi Arabia
The case of Guantanamo Bay looks like an exception, for it involves the government of one country denying rights to citizens of another country. Let us therefore look at the case of Saudi Arabia and the position of the citizens with regard to their government. Consider these facts: 

• The country is ruled by a
  hereditary king and the people have no role in electing or changing their rulers. 
• The king selects the legislature as well as the executive. He appoints the judges and can change any of their decisions. 
• Citizens cannot form political par- ties or any political organisations. Media cannot report anything that the monarch does not like.
  There is no freedom of religion. Every citizen is required to be Muslim. Non-Muslim residents can follow their religion in private, but not in public.
  Women are subjected to many public restrictions. The testimony of one man is considered equal to that of two women.
  This is true not just of Saudi Arabia. There are many countries in the world where several of these conditions exist.
  

Ethnic massacre in Kosovo 

This was a province of Yugoslavia before its split. In this province the population was overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian. But in the entire country, Serbs were in majority. A narrow minded Serb nationalist Milosevic (pronounced Miloshevich) had won the election. His government was very hostile to the Kosovo Albanians. He wanted the Serbs to dominate the country. Many Serb leaders thought that Ethnic minorities like Albanians should either leave the country or accept the dominance of the Serbs. 

She was standing on the street in the rain with no house, no husband, no possessions but the clothes she was wearing. 

This news report was typical of what happened to thousands of Albanians in that period. 

Remember that this massacre was being carried out by the army of their own country, working under the direction of a leader who came to power through democratic elections. This was one of the worst instances of killings based on ethnic prejudices in recent times. Finally several other countries intervened to stop this massacre. Milosevic lost power and was tried by the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity. 

You would perhaps desire a system where security, dignity and fair play are assured to everyone. You might want, for example, that no one should be arrested without proper reason and information. And if someone is arrested, he or she should have a fair chance to defend themselves 

In other words, you might want a system where at least a minimum is guaranteed to everyone – powerful or weak, rich or poor, majority or minority. This is the spirit behind thinking about rights. 

What are rights? 

Rights are reasonable claims of persons recognised by society and sanctioned by law. 

Government of India has provided reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. Various governments have different schemes for giving preference to women, poor or physically handicapped in some kinds of jobs. Are these reservations against the right to equality? They are not. For equality does not mean giving everyone the same treatment, no matter what they need. Equality means giving everyone an equal opportunity to achieve whatever one is capable of. Sometimes it is necessary to give special treatment to someone in order to ensure equal opportunity. This is what job reservations do. Just to clarify this, the Constitution says that reservations of this kind are not a violation of the Right to Equality. 

Any citizen of India can write a letter to this address to complain against the violation of human rights: National Human Rights Commission, Faridkot House, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110001. There is no fee or any formal procedure to approach the NHRC. Like NHRC, there are State Human Rights Commissions in 23 states of the country (as on 1 September 2013). 

Covenant: Promise made by individuals, groups or countries to uphold a rule or principle. It is legally binding on the signatories to the agreement or statement.
Dalit: A person who belongs to the castes which were considered low and not touchable by others. Dalits are also known by other names such as the Scheduled Castes, Depressed Classes etc. 

Ethnic group: An ethnic group is a human population whose members usually identify with each other on the basis of a common ancestry. People of an ethnic group are united by cultural practices, religious beliefs and historical memories. 

Traffic: Selling and buying of men, women or children for immoral purposes.
Summon: An order issued by a court asking a person to appear before it. Writ: A formal document containing an order of the court to the government issued only by High Court or the Supreme Court.