On Democracy By Justice Katju

These days a lot of hue and cry is being raised by opposition parties, mediapersons, and so called ‘intellectuals’ over the alleged ‘murder of democracy’ by the Election Commission of India, hand in glove with the BJP Govt, particularly in view of the coming Bihar state assembly polls.The assumption of such persons is that democracy is a good thing, and so anything which harms it is bad.

But is this assumption correct ?

Former US President Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

If that is the meaning of democracy, I am not in its favour. 

Government should certainly be for the people, meaning that it should work for the welfare of the people.

 But to be of the people and by the people ( the two expressions really mean the same thing ) requires a highly educated, modern minded population, for how can people with backward minds rule themselves ? They are like small children, who do not know what is good for them, and must be controlled by their parents and other elders.

In India 90% people ( even the so called ‘educated’ class ) are casteist and/or communal. Casteism and communalism are feudal, backward, forces, and people who are casteist and communal have feudal, not modern scientific, mindsets. Are they fit to rule themselves ? Surely not.

Everyone knows that in India democracy largely runs on the basis of caste and communal vote banks. When most voters go to vote, they do not see the merit of the candidate, whether he is a good man or bad, educated or uneducated, criminal or not. They also do not consider that prices of essential commodities like food have skyrocketed, and unemployment has reached record levels. They do not keep in mind that every second child in India is malnourished ( see Global Hunger Index on google ) nor that 57% Indian women are anaemic, nor that there is almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses.

All that the voter considers when casting his/her vote is the caste or religion of the candidate ( or the caste/religion his party claims to represent ). That is why out of the 543 MPs elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections 47% reportedly have criminal backgrounds.

Do such people deserve the right to vote ? That is the question I posed in my recent interview with journalist Neelu Vyas regarding rigging of the voters list.

I refuse to go down to the low mental level of the Indian masses, which I must if I wish to support democracy in India. Rather, I wish to raise them to my level.

But that cannot be done by democratic means. Compulsion is necessary.

For instance, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk modernized Turkey in the 1920s by forcibly abolishing burqa, sharia and madarsas, and suppressing the Muslim clergy. He did not ask the consent of the Turkish people for doing this. The Turkish people at that time were overwhelmingly backward and highly religious, and under the grip of the reactionary mullahs, and if so if the people were asked for their opinion they would have supported burqa, sharia, and madarsas, and strongly opposed their abolition. So Mustafa Kemal acted against the wishes of the overwhelmingly feudal and backward Turkish people. And he could do that because he was an army general, having the gun. He told the Turkish people ” You must give up burqa, sharia and madarsas, and send your daughters to school, or I will shoot you ”.

Similarly, in India we need a handful of modern minded, patriotic leaders who will lead a mighty people’s struggle culminating in a historical people’s revolution which sets up a political and social order under which the country rapidly industrializes, and the standard of living of the people steadily rises.

This cannot be done democratically. No doubt the people will be involved in the people’s struggle, but they must not be allowed to be its leaders as they are unfit to be that.

As I have explained, democracy is not an end in itself. It can only be a means to an end, and that end must be raising the standard of living of the people. If democracy helps in attaining that end, it is a good thing, but not otherwise

https://justicekatju.com/democracy-is-not-a-holy-cow-cdc5941478b5

https://justicekatju.com/the-inanity-and-superficiality-of-c5efe4dfcb4b

https://www.facebook.com/justicekatju/videos/markandey-katju-statement-on-vote-chori-democracy/1411919309917430

Democracy in India is a bad thing for India as it strengthens and further entrenches casteism and communalism ( as it runs largely on their basis ), and casteism and communalism are the main stumbling blocks to our progress. So people should stop regarding democracy as a holy cow

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