An undisguised call to end democracy

Amit Shah has laid down the path to dictatorship

It may not be accidental that Union Home Minister Amit Shah has come out with one idea after another which question the accepted system of governance in India and the arrangements it has put in place. Soon after the advocacy of Hindi as the national language to ‘unify’ the nation, he has raised questions about the uses and efficacy of the country’s multi-party system. Though he has clarified that he did not consider other languages less important, after the comment met with opposition from non-Hindi states, it has not stilled all doubts. In fact, ideas cannot be completely withdrawn, and they continue to linger and work in the minds even after clarifications and withdrawals. The intention behind proposing them in the first place is to seed the people’s minds with them, giving them hints of future plans, and keeping them there. The aim is often to act on the proposal at a later date, after reducing its first impact.

Shah’s criticism of the multi-party system is more fundamental and dangerous than any move to give primacy to Hindi and enhance its status. It questions the very idea of democracy which is built on the existence of a plurality of political parties. At a convention on “New India, Great India,’’ Shah wondered “whether the multi-party democratic system had failed to fulfil the people’s aspirations.’’ He also said there was a question in the minds of people “whether the vision of the founding fathers had been realised.’’ He is being gracious now to the founding fathers because blaming and condemning all of them would be counter-productive, at least at this stage. It was the founding fathers who had decided that a multi-party system is best suited for a country of such diversity as India, and none of the flaws of the system that Shah lists, like corruption, security problems, policy paralysis or lack of vision, or all of them together, flow inevitably from that decision, or make it a bad choice.

Democracy has many flaws. Yet, it is the best form of government not because it is the most efficient system but because it is most representative and accommodating. The alternative is a one-party system where all these flaws would still be there, bigger and more magnified. The government in a one-party system will be inevitably authoritarian and dictatorial, and would perpetuate itself, giving the people no right and chance to change it. This is the ideal of the Sangh Parivar and Shah has given a clear expression to it. With this formulation, he has also gone beyond the slogan of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ to an ‘Opposition-mukt Bharat’. That is a recommendation for an India without democracy.