JOIN USIs our democracy safe?
There was a time, not so long ago, when India was universally acclaimed as the largest democracy in the world. Over the last few years, this enviable position has been gravely compromised. Multiple reports and indices evolved by reputed global organisations and evaluators seem to have come to the same conclusion – that democracy is waning in the country. Consider the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Democracy Index 2017. The index evaluated 165 countries on the basis of 60 indicators grouped under five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. India has slipped 10 ranks in the 2017 index, from 32 to the 42nd rank, sliding further down the ranks of ‘flawed democracies’, as it is seen to be coming under the grip of the Hindutva ideology and majoritarianism.
The acts of cow vigilantism and the violence against minorities and Dalits didn’t go unnoticed by the world. Nor has the atmosphere of stifling of dissent, be it of students or other aggrieved groups. That freedom of speech and expression has come under threat of mob violence and summary bans to cater to a particular ideological view of history, or that media freedom has been steadily curtailed have been evident, too, to the whole world.
The term ‘flawed democracy’ is somewhat puzzling. Is our democratic system inherently defective? The context of the phrase, however, tells us another story -- the rise of the religious right in an otherwise secular society. Secularism is the normal in India, Hindutva an aberration. But over the past four years, the BJP-led central government has been seen to pay lip service to formal conventions, while actually giving tacit consent to a rabid majoritarian project.
The list of atrocities heaped on vulnerable sections of our own people is a long one. It extends from brutal public killings of Muslims by mobs to the denial of representation in Parliament. This is not entirely unexpected. The leadership of the BJP, which cut its political teeth in the shakas of the RSS, has always pushed for a nation stripped of any religion except Hinduism. The current leadership faithfully follows the script. It has no imagination, no comprehension of the value of pluralism, and no desire to protect vulnerable minorities.
What does occasion disbelief and worry is how rapidly public opinion has swung in favour of a mindless majoritarianism, and against secularism and the legitimate rights of minorities. Today, we witness the descent of Indian society into rank incivility and lack of solidarity for our fellow citizens. We bear witness to the targeted assassination of persons who have advocated rational and humanistic perspectives. For the Hindutva brigade, nothing has changed since Gandhi was killed by one of their own.
Recollect the murders of Gauri Lankesh, Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi. But Indians are silent, and smug about the right of the majority to ride roughshod.
This is odd, because in the past, we have protested vociferously whenever democracy seemed under threat. Today, secularism and pluralism is brazenly breached, and no one objects. For secularism is represented as an alien concept, and inappropriate for the country. This understanding rules politics. No one reminds people that in India, secularism was not connected to secularisation or the privatisation of religion as in the West. It was adopted as a companion concept of democracy amidst serious religious polarisation.
In 1928, against the backdrop of communal riots, the leadership of the Indian National Congress authored the Motilal Nehru Constitutional Draft. The draft sought to neutralise minority anxieties and stamp out majoritarianism. It was affirmed that no religion would be given the status of a state religion. Nor would the state directly or indirectly endow any religion, extend preferential treatment to any group, or impose any disability on account of religious beliefs and status. No person would, by reason of religion, caste or creed, be prejudiced in any way with regard to public employment, office of power, honours and the exercise of any trade and calling. The minorities were granted the right to their religion and culture. This commitment was reiterated in the years that followed.
Though Congress leaders used the term ‘secularism’ in the pre-Independence period often enough, the concept was never spelt out or elaborated as a principle of state policy, not even in the Constituent Assembly. It was in 1961 that Jawaharlal Nehru clarified the notion in the preface he wrote for a work on secularism, Dharam Nirpeksh Raj by Raghunath Singh. We, Nehru said, call our state a secular state. There is no good Hindi word for secular. Some people think it means opposed to religion. But this is not the correct notion of secularism. It means a state that honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; that as a state it does not allow itself to be attached to one faith or religion, which then becomes the state religion.
Notably, we do not need secularism to proclaim religious freedom. Our liberties are protected by Article 19, and by Article 25 that explicitly grants freedom of religion. Nor do we need secularism to mandate equality, for equality is granted by Article 14. The principle of secularism specifically extends the principle of equality, or even the weaker notion of non-discrimination, to religious groups. This can only be effected if the state is not aligned to one religion. No group has the right to special privileges just because it is in a majority. No group shall be disadvantaged merely because it is in a minority. Democracy and secularism are companion concepts.
Today, the integral connection between secularism and democracy has been deliberately waylaid, even by the Congress party which once proclaimed a copyright on secularism. Forgetting its antecedents, the Congress seeks to become a paler version of an aggressive, Hindutva-touting BJP. But the BJP is hardly a worthy prototype, as the party’s governments at the Centre and in several states show us daily. Despite the promise of justice, equality of all before the state and law, and individual liberties enshrined in the Constitution, our democracy is indeed flawed. But is it also in danger?
(The writer is a former professor of political science, University of Delhi)