Daily Times

“You can not oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maime people for 200 years and than celebrate the fact that they are democratic at the end of it.” (Shashi Tharoor)

A new report from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy claims that people around the world are collectively losing faith in democratic systems. The noteworthy finding is the fall in democratic satisfaction among countries that are stable, high income developed democracies.

Democracy is associated with an Athenian leader Cleisthenes in 507 BC. He introduced a system of political reforms and called it, Demokratia, demo is the people and kratos is power so it was expected to empower the people. It rested on three governance pillars, Ekklesia or Assembly, was the soveriegn governing body. Any adult male citizen was welcome to attend its meetings and decisions were made by simple majority vote. Second pillar was Boule or Council of Five Hundred, which comprised of 50 men from each of ten Athenian tribes. Like modern bureaucracy they were responsible for the hands-on work of governance. The positions on the Boule were chosen by a random lottery and not election. Third institution was Judiciary or Dikasteria. Aristotle considered Dikasteria as the real strength of democracy. The jurors were chosen on daily basis by lot from a pool of male citizens older than 30.

But Athenian Democracy evolved into a kind of Aristocracy under Pericles. He was a brilliant general, orator, patron of art and politician. His tenure is considered as a golden age of Athenian culture.

Samuel Huntington in his article “The Change to Change” states that any radical change is viewed as a temporary deviation in, or extraordinary malfunctioning of, the political system. America which has always presented itself as a model democracy finds a similar trend with majority of Americans (polls show 55%) pessimistic with their system of government. Voices against Democracy are getting louder each day.

Democracy gets sold as the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Question arises, does it empower them, are people getting better and speedy justice if not than who is reaping benefits of this form of governance

It is important to analyse this new trend of dissatisfaction toward Democracy in post colonial subcontinent as well. What has south Asia done to democracy and what has democracy done to south Asia?

The British colonial rule promoted post independence democracies, though many of these countries had a long history of authoritarian governments. The Britain fostered post-colonial democracy by altering the political institutions or the culture of its territories in ways that increased demand for democracy. They installed bureaucratic structures that maintained order through the rule of law and not on the whim of the Soveriegn. These administrative institutions gradually became indigenous and colonial subjects gained experience with law-based governance.

British encouraged democratic preparation prior to granting independence and tailored the timing of independence to individual colonies democratic development. The decolonization strategy demanded transferring complete power to colonies on a precondition of a democratically elected government that represented the national will. But such tutelary democracies failed to erase grip of historically embedded ruling trends among these colonies.

Therefore, most of the British colonies did tend to experience sharp democratic reversals after independence. The obvious reason for this shift is in the pre-colonial characteristics of these territories. It appears that they gradually grew disenchanted with their democratic systems and opted for an ancient governance models i.e caste, race, authoritarian or monarchial systems.

As a result, we observe a growing trend where voters are willingly choosing extremist politicians who glamorizes identity politics. The world largest democracy, India’s ruling party espouses Hindu nationalism sometimes at the expense of countries Muslim minority. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a public rally in Jharkhand claimed that “those who are protesting against amendments to the Citizenship Act can be identified by their clothes.” In the new democratic India of Modi dressing is reflective of an outsider element which needs to be checked and controlled.

Sadly, he forgot, sherwani clad Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad with Dars e Nizami background, who all his life advocated Indian Nationalism and sided with the secular Congress. In comparison, Mohammad Ali Jinnah who wore Savile Row suits and was a prodigy of an English education system sponsored the idea of a new country in the name of Islam.

As post-colonial states, Pakistan and India adopted British legacy constitutional framework and introduced the parliamentary democracy. But these democratic years are fraught with incessant cycle of corruption, dynastic politics, nepotism, money laundering. These contributed ultimately to bad governance and public disenchantment toward democratic system.

Democracy gets sold as the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Question arises, does it empower them, are people getting better and speedy justice if not than who is reaping benefits of this form of governance.

Democracy has become a paradox for most who vote and participate in election expecting a turn of fate. As put in Eduardo Galeano’s lines, “one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the Nobodies summon it”

The story of Democracy on both sides of the border is fraught with lack of accountability, transparency and trust in public institutions, corruption have erroded masses faith in democracy. Political parties are distrusted because their exist an eternal autocracy within them. They are run by families, feudal or capitalist mafias who usurp political control to achieve personal gains.

Hence it proves that though an outside imperialist can create democratic institutions in otherwise unpromising contexts, the effect of these interventions may decline over time. The facade of Democracy established in the South Asia in previous decades is in fast retreat.

Thomas Piketty a French Economist writes, “Every human society must justify its inequalities…you have to find reasons for them without which all political and social edifice is threatened to collapse. Thus each era produces a set of discourses and contradictory ideologies that point to legitimize inequality.” Democracy has gradually become an Elixir for the Elites to perpetuate their hegemonic control over masses. The concentration of wealth among the 1% is a failure of the promise of democracy to create a system of equal opportunities for all.

What South Asian political arena awaits now is some new hope or an ideology in the form of a WhiteManifesto which can generate some confidence amongst 99% majority that suffer inequalities of the system.

The writer is Special Advisor (Pakistan Institute of Management, Lahore operated under Federal Ministry of Industries and Production, Islamabad) and Foreign Research Associate (Centre of Excellence, China Pakistan Economic Corridor, Islamabad)