Indias Stable Democracy Puzzle - Essay Example

India’s Stable Democracy Puzzle According to the trends observed in the world from time in history, only those poor countries that have able and authoritarian leaders attain democracy. On the other hand, rich countries have been known to maintain democratic regimes that have been associated with their tremendous economic success. Being a country where poverty, as well as illiteracy, are widespread, it can only be a puzzle as to why the country has been able to maintain it democratic regime. For democracy to be achieved, a country needs to have some level of social welfare as well as economic development. The ability for a person to understand what democracy is and practice it heavily lies on their literacy levels. India, which is one of the most populous nations in the world, has most of its population as illiterate. Secondly, it is only in the past few years that India has achieved considerable economic development. Its overwhelmingly large population, however, has continued to present a problem in achieving an equitable distribution of wealth, which is another prerequisite for a stable democracy. Another puzzling factor that would make one wonder how the country has maintained a stable democracy is the countrys history of political, religious as well as ethnic-based violence. Even more ironical, the perpetrators of these acts of political violence have remained in the dark yet there is no single time in history that the country conscious democracy has been shaken. From a personal point of view, this stable democracy can be alluded to the history of able leaders that has served the country. An example of these able leaders is Mahatma Gandhi, who was able to unite the country and in turn achieving democratic stability. This paper aims at exploring the puzzling democratic regime that has been present in India for so long now. The puzzle is based on the fact that many poor or middle economic countries lack a stable democratic regime. According to Varshney, the assumption that Indians bear the ability to hold a dual identity is a weak explanation to the countrys stable democracy. Scholars who hold this school of thought explain that this ability to hold dual identity, as seen in other countries like Belgium and Canada, enables the citizens to adopt the concept of state-nation. The reverse of this idea that is the nation-state concept encompasses a state where the citizens of a country are divided on the basis of religion, economic welfare as well as political views. On the contrary, the state-nation concept incorporates people of different languages, religions, creed into a united and coherent society that leads to democracy. According to Varshney, this school of thought is not so convincing for a number of reasons. To begin with, the ability to hold this duality of identity heavily relies on the level of literacy in the country. Unlike the cases of Belgium and Canada where most of the population is educated, hence can adopt duality in identity, most of Indias population is illiterate and poor which makes it inappropriate to assume that this is a contributor to the country puzzling stable democracy. Indias democracy, however, faces a grave challenge due to the countrys substantial association with governance and religion as well as cultural practices. Unlike most countries in world such as the USA and other western countries, India has incorporated religious values in the formulation of its constitution used to rule. Up to date, religious symbols are used in public places to depict the countrys deep roots in religion. For instance, the countrys armed forces have pictures of their favorite gods imprinted on their vehicles (Varshney, 1998). There are places of worship that are considered holy and consequently call for respect for every person regardless of what they believe. These include shrines where one has to bow whenever they pass them. The countrys justice system is also based on religious and cultural values but not a democratically accepted constitution. As such, people, especially women in the country have received callous judgment from the judicial system. This comprises the situation of a woman in Mumbai who presented grievances of been subjected to domestic violence by her husband only for the judge to decide that she should return to her husband! All these amounts to a significant threat to the democracy which the country has strived to maintain over the years. Given the broad ethnic and religious diversity in the country, it is extremely difficult to base the countrys justice or constitution on one religion as it is. It is for this reason that there has led to the prevalence of political and or ethnic crashes in the country, which are a real threat to its democracy (Varshney, 1998). Basing some of the judicial practices of cultural values can only worsen Indias democracy. A lot of controversies exist to date concerning the origin of Indias democracy. Most people hold the view that democracy was introduced to the country by the British colonialists. From my view, it is the British who influenced the democracy in its colonies after their independence. The Queen of England at the time India became a colony, promised the Indians that their cultural and religious beliefs would not be interfered with following the tremendous resistance that the colonialists faced in an attempt to introduce their own. This was a major building block for the country democracy which was furthered by able leaders after independence. On the other hand, other scholars think that democracy was still present even before colonization. According to them, the East India Company that ruled the country before the British invasion had introduced democracy in the country (Varshney, 1998). References Varshney, A. (1998). Why Democracy Survives. Journal of Democracy, 9.3, 36-50. Read More