With the lives of people awash in blood and sweat,
a sparkling freedom was won.
Only to be lost to the worst in humanity.
With a structure built on reason,dignity and vision giving way to a
structure built on desperation, stolen blood and sweat,
and with the words of truth being cloaked in layers of falsehood to keep minds
in a prison of ignorance and distrust,
a mysterious cloud of darkness has spread over to blind the people
in the democracy for Kings and Queens.
"The idea of democracy rests on enlightened citizenship." -Immanuel Kant
" The national idea, with the flag as totem, is today an aggrandizer of the nursery ego, not the annihilator of the infantile situation. Its parody-rituals of the parade ground serve the ends of Hold-fast, the tyrant dragon, not the God in whom self-interest is annihilate. And the numerous saints of this anti-cult-namely the patriots whose ubiquitous photographs, draped with flags, serve as official icons are precisely the local threshold guardians whom it is the first problem of the hero to surpass.
Nor can the great world religions as at present understood, meet the requirement. For they have become associated with the causes of the factions, as instruments of propaganda and self-congratulation. The universal triumph of the secular state has thrown all religious organizations into such a definitely secondary and finally ineffectual, position that religious pantomime is hardly more today than a sanctimonious exercise for Sunday morning, where as business ethics and patriotism stand for the reminder of the week. Such a monkey-holiness is not what the world needs; rather, a transmutation of the whole social order is necessary, so that through every detail and act of secular life the vitalizing image of the universal god-man who is actually immanent and effective in all of us may be somehow made known to consciousness. "
- The Hero With A Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
" Every one of us shares the supreme ordeal- carries the cross of the redeemer- not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silences of his/her personal despair"
- The Hero With A Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
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| The Hero With A Thousand Faces-Book Cover |
Nationalism that reinforces specific identities is not unique to
mono-ethnic monarchies,oligarchies and communist states, but also to the world's largest multi-ethnic democracies. While it may not be right to put the blame on these figures on flags and maps as this has been the way of things for a long time now, it is certainly right to question ourselves regarding the rightness and meaning of these practices we see all around us. Intentions regardless of its nature don't translate into actions and events outside the social context in democracies, which itself is determined by the combination of political power and the psyche of its people, each with their ambitions, values and ethos,
Such things make us wonder if a true democracy where every one's voice is heard is even possible and whether we are limited by our own nature in realizing such a noble ideal. Or even if this tendency to reinforce specific identities is a response to the widening divide in the fragmented rest of the world?
Several countries started this remarkable experiment of democratic governance at different time points in the history of the world. It is an experiment/experience with millions of participants driving it with their choices with in a frame work of certain ideas that form the governing principles. Each country despite adopting this broadly similar framework has evolved its own practice of democracy given its socio-cultural and historical context. The way people conduct democracy or even participate in that process seems to be determined by a host of factors like value systems, ethos, psycho dynamics of its people and so on.
| Modi's Image On Saffronized India |
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| Bush's image draped in National Flag |
The Effect of Ethos On The Practice Of Democracy:
While people in one of the large and oldest democracy (US) are pursuing legal cases for millions of dollars against corporations for accidental contamination of food with other substances, people in the largest democracy (India) eat from the floor as a ritual seeking blessings for their elected leader. It is really hard to imagine Americans eating pizza from the floor for their Presidents or Governors. This at least points out a healthy respect or lack of it among American people for its leaders.
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| People in South India eating from floor as a ritual seeking blessings for their leader |
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| President Obama joking about his presidency in a popular talk show |
While people are open to criticize and engage in debate with their leader in one, the leaders are generally deified and made into demigods who sort of hold an unquestionable authority over their decisions. People criticize such authorities ,even in respectful tones, only at a huge risk to their careers and life.
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| A leader is shown in deity image bestowing riches to the people who vote for the party |
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| Another leader shown in a famous movie character image as envisioned by his followers |
While US has been conducting democracy for more than 300 years and has had a lot of time to mature (questionably so) in its practice, while India's foray into democracy began relatively recent (67 years old).Given the fact that people are still debating and struggling to improve the practice of democracy in both the countries should remind us that it is something that is to be improved consciously and diligently.
One of the important characteristic of the way people conduct society and democratic practices is the historical imprint on the psyche of its people. People in India have historically lived under monarchs for several millenia, with only some monarchs espousing democratic ideals. Only after they freed themselves from the British who ruled again for around 300 years, did they start this experiment in democracy. It was a bold step forward for a people who were largely under the rule of small monarchies for several thousand years. The words used even today in popular media are suggestive of this past, where the word 'rule' is used instead of governance. Some Indian words used to describe Governments are the same as Kings/Queens (Arasu/Raj). People are expected to obey them blindly and wall posters of their leaders are decorated with flowers and people do religious rituals with them. Even now some ministers sing paeans in praise of their leaders in parliaments in some Indian states, while it is certainly rare in other democracies.
All these reflect the different trajectories democracies take depending on the specific cultural context. The democratic ideals were conceived by a band of brilliant visionaries who had the courage to step in to such an experiment just like the visionaries who framed the constitution of USA. Were people prepared for such responsibilities in a democracy and are they prepared now? Is it a case of en-thrusting responsibility on its people when they were unprepared for it?
The Tides In Democracies:
People did start such an experiment and it has been going on for a handful of generations now. Given that, millions of people did take up the responsibility and have prepared themselves for democracy in a big way. However, a huge fraction of people are still under the psychic structure of monarchy. It is this huge fraction of people who facilitate the installation of leaders with monarchic ideals in a democracy. In contrast to the servile fraction, some have taken this newly found freedom to the other extreme and indulge in hooliganism with an utter disrespect to any principle of justice that holds together any democratic state.
While this scenario attests to the adaptability of a huge fraction of the population, it is also a grim pointer to the challenges ahead. Will people forfeit democracy itself and change their system? while it is highly unlikely that people will change the system of governance in a dramatic way within a small time, the road is bumpy and unpredictable with regards to the nature of democratic practice as attested by the constant shift in the forces in defining people's identity.
When India started this grand noble experiment in democracy, it started in a secular framework respecting and honoring all of its thousand years of history. It was a statement that accepted the grand history of a world in which ambitious monarchs and empires invaded one another over several hundreds of years and influenced each other in good and bad ways. It was also a statement that declared the start of a new way of life with a relatively new system of governance in which it is not only important to espouse democratic ideals, but also to live peacefully with other people differentiated by several criteria.
The nature of the political forces trying to define an identity for billions of people do shift often and millions of people along with these noble ideals are still taken for a ride putting them in anxiety and a phase of distrust and tension regarding national identities if it can be defined at all. People in democracies all over the world are constantly undertaking this debate to define a dynamic identity. While democracies like US are still debating about including immigrants from some countries, even though they have opened up to people from several nationalities, there are seldom movements to reverse events that happened several hundreds of years back and extend this debate to an already integrated population of millions.
These events point to the fact that the tides in democracies are not restricted just to changes in policies regarding economic development or other developmental policies, but sometimes has to do with the broad framework of democratic structures itself.
To be continued.... with the following ideas:
Corruption of Choices In Democracies, Truth And Freedom in Democracies, Selective Forces in Democracies, Breaking Away From the Democracy For Kings And Queens
