Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Epaper

Duty to defend democracy

Published : Monday, 7 December, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 392
Chinmay Prasun Biswas
A mountain is always high in comparison to a hillock. It becomes visible from a long distance but a hillock goes out of sight very shortly. Another birthday (14th November) of Jawaharlal Nehru elapsed. He became more distant. There is no reason to consider Nehru as a superman. He had many defects. Many questions revolve round him. Mountain peak is never spotless. Its whole body has marks of injury but those cannot degrade its glory. Overcoming many shortcomings supremacy people of high altitude shines bright. Specialty of their personality can be recognised at a glance. Life is full of strife. Human consciousness becomes sharper through it. A high mountain peak looks clear on the backdrop of a small hillock. Similarly, if present time is mean then it becomes easier to evaluate great personalities of past. Contemporary politics in India is full of many hillocks. Personalities like Nehru are more respectable now because currently they are barely rare.

The main political aspect of Nehru's character was his democratic behaviour.                                                                                                                             Essential preconditions of that behaviour were tolerance to opposite opinion and active accountability to democratic institutions. Till his last days he practised these conditions. Journey of democracy at the early days of independent India was very tough but the practice was successful. Amid so many deficits and difficulties that success was unique in the world. Behind it mentality to work with others and determination of the first prime minister of India played the most vital role.

Nature of that tough journey may appear obscure after seven decades but                                                                                                                                                                               one thing must be carefully noticed that Nehru was very much conscious of the inherent effectiveness of democracy. He knew that continuous consciousness and promptness are barely necessary to defend democracy. Otherwise, danger is unavoidable. He acquired this sense from contemporary situation. Experience from crisis, destruction of democracy in different countries and evolution of Indian politics helped him to discover the nature of this truth. This experience very rapidly taught him that drawbacks of democracy and democratic attitude were stored inside Indian politics and society. Gradually he stressed importance on the role of democratic institutions and democratic mentality of politicians and administrators. As head of the government he could not uphold this role always properly. Even sometimes he himself became victim of it. For this reason he can be easily criticised but he did not commit any mistake to recognise symptoms of the disease. Before treatment this diagnosis is very essential for any physician.
                                                                                                                                           
On 14th November, 2020 The Anandabazar has reported that now that disease has been spread all over the body. Along with many other countries of the world the name of India is being uttered as a terrible and concerned instance of endangered democracy. Notably, this danger has not arrived from outside. It has been developed from inside and has already infected many institutions. Some of those, which are known as the safety valves of democracy, are weak, either silent spectators of power holders' undemocratic activities or their direct associates. May be situation to be faithless on judiciary has not yet arrived but it can never a big assurance.

London based The Economist Intelligence Unit published a report in January 2014 that last year (1913) of the government of  Manmohan Singh was 26th  in the world with an overall score of 8.9 out of 10. However, in their democracy index report of January 2020 India slipped to 51st position in 2019. Out of 167 countries of the world position of India is given below.

This figure clearly shows the declining democratic character of the world's largest democracy. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit 8+ score stands for full democracy but India is currently below 8. Since 2006 EIU has been publishing this list every year. India's position was never so low from 2006.

Referring to the EIU, The Hindu, an influential Indian national daily, reported on 23rd January, 2020 that the overall democracy index is a combination of 5 conditions. Each has been graded from 1 (worst) to 10 (best). Civil liberties include freedom of press, freedom to protest, unrestricted access to internet, independent judiciary, religious tolerance, equal treatment of all citizens and basic security. Pluralism refers to free and fair elections, universal adult suffrage, equal campaigning opportunities, etc. Political culture refers to popular support for democracy, a strong tradition of separation of religion from state, etc. Political participation contains voter turnout, share of women parliamentarians etc. Governance refers to influence of elected representatives in determining government policy, supremacy of the legislature etc.  

Since independence in 1947 India has been run democratically (except 21 months' infamous emergency from 1975 to 1977). Among developing countries only Costa Rica has such a long democratic tradition since World War II. However, it is to be remembered that Costa Rica is a small country with only 5 million population of almost similar type. Inversely, India's linguistic, cultural, demographic and religious variety is wide.  Developing democracy is very difficult there.

Many people think that even after long 70 years democracy in India is now crumbling. On 11th August, 2020 a report of The Print informs that during last six years Indian democracy has caused widespread concern. The Swedish V-Dem Institute's recent democracy report informs the decline in democracy globally and warns that India "is on the verge of losing its status as a democracy due to the severe shrinking of space for the media, civil society and the opposition." However, the report also suggests that India's democracy is in decline, not collapse.
Liability to defend democracy depends on government, political parties and commitment of political leaders. Quoting the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), BBC Bangla reported on 10th January, 2019 that. Norway was at the top of democracy index scoring 9.8. With a score of 5.58 Bangladesh was in the list of EIU's hybrid regime in 2016. However, position of Bangladesh is above North Korea whose score is only 1.06 and stays at the bottom of the list.
The writer is a former
Commissioner of Taxes





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