Let us admit it, quite a lot of us are not good at Math. And for most of us "yesterday's kids", our fathers weren't exactly swimming in dough; and in all probability they thought it was infra dig if their kid went to college on a 'bought' seat. To boot, they never believed in running their households like a Karate master ran his Dojo--kids were by and large left to their devices. Otherwise (horrors!) quite a few of us would have ended up as engineers or doctors, the only careers worth pursuing --at whatever cost-- according to Gen X's parents. That meant we the lazy-bums could spend a number of years blissfully at college pursuing the liberal arts when you were free from pursuits of other more interesting kinds. The result? A lot of accumulated sins that finally overtook most of us by the end of 2010 in the shape of figures and sums.
Whoa! I can't imagine the nights of trepidation I spent grappling with figures with so many zeroes that it appeared as if they were being spewed out by a Gatling gun. Came February and the only figures I was willing to think of were less than fifty; more in the vicinity of 35--36 and about 24 or roughly thereabouts. But March, right from the Roman Era, ("...beware the Ides of March...") was a month of trouble and tribulation, though they hadn't yet invented that annual exercise in skulduggery called the Budget, not at least in Rome. My fears came true as I scanned the following...and figures once again started bombarding my enervated mind.
"...We do not have a democracy ... Any country where only half of the eligible voters are registered and where only half of those who are registered vote and where only half of those who vote like their choice, is NOT a democracy. Any country that isn’t ruled by its government, that is ruled instead by the (corporates), isn’t a democracy ... any world government that is ruled by trans-national corporations isn’t a democracy. Yet such is the state of our national and global governments..."
(Edits and emphases mine, done in order to make the statement more direct and general. I urge you to read the original essay It’s Healing Time on Earth at < http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/brower_92.html > . Though the context is different, its relevance to the average, caring citizen is very high indeed. It is a sad commentary on the interests and focus of today's parents and youth that most of them would not have heard of its author David Brower or have an idea why his thoughts are highly relevant in our times.
Mr Brower has been a leading figure in the environmental movement and an articulate spokesman for a sustainable society for many years. He is the founder of 'Friends of the Earth' and the 'League of Conservation Voters'. In 1982 Brower founded Earth Island Institute and the Brower Fund, and he initiated the biennial "Hope of the Earth" conferences on peace and environmental and social justice. Brower has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. His is a voice of sanity in today's world that jives to the cacophony of 'development' and 'growth'.
The great man's words sound uncannily familiar because they echo the subliminal thinking of the average Indian, especially in these times. Was he by any chance speaking of the Indian situation? No. His reference was, of course, to the US --though it is applicable to anywhere in this world where such a situation prevails. With Dr Brower's permission I would like to re-phrase his words a bit to reflect the "Indian Reality", with which I am sure he may not have been on intimate terms. It could go something like this:
"We DO NOT have a DEMOCRACY...in our country where only half the eligible voters are registered, and where only half or less than half of the registered voters "exercise their franchise", and less than half of those voters are lucky to cast their votes for a candidate they like, (the others are forced, especially in the era of the EVM, --the electronic voting machine-- to cast their votes for one of the undesirables who have got into the machine like a ghost that cannot be exorcised; oh, bring back the paper ballot, where with a flourish of your fingers, you could indicate "none of the above" and side with that great favourite of the masses, Mr Invalid! Or, better still, give us a button for him on the EVM!) and where after the elections, the 'winners' would need to cobble together at least half a dozen parties forming a "coalition of interests" and stake their claim for forming the government...”
Let us look at the 'rule of the corporates' part of Dr Brower's statement separately, though that is another reality that has come to stay in the Indian polity, if current signs are any indicators.
Democracy is government by majority. That means out of a hundred, you must have at least 51 with you, to swing the majority in your favour. Really? Is that the case now in our governments, Central and State? I can't let my head overheat and self-destruct by trying to compute the final numbers based on the above proportions and divisions. I leave it to the Math-savvy amongst my readers to arrive at the approximate figures and enlighten us.
It doesn't, however, take a degree in astrophysics to arrive at the shocking reality that stares us in the face -- the democratic "mandate" works out to less than 10 in 100.
And what is this "mandate" stuff? T/read carefully...; it is:
"...the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election".
Whew! The good thing is that it applies only to the winning candidate! It surely is not applicable to those few who have never contested an election in their life and yet come to sit in the "gaddi" and go about with a thick skin and a sanctimonious air and act as if they have had all the mandates in this world. It IS a laugh...
The operative phrase when you consider the mandate is "...wins an election". In the days before bought college seats and paid media news, while in school you could not pass ('win') from one grade to the next if you didn't have a minimum, measly "pass percentage". And according to the great and the best tenets of democracy (by which ALL our "leaders" swear, whether they are to the right or the left of right or the real left that is really to the right, or in groups of varying permutations and combinations of the above) the "pass percentage" is 51%. Only that gives you a "democratic” mandate.
The mandate that you assume by/for yourself in a coalition situation is in accordance with what you term the "coalition dharma" and what the rest of the world terms the "coalition adharma". Dharma is a very curious word that beats translation into English. The closest you could come is perhaps by saying that it is, literally, "...a decree or custom, as per the eternal laws of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things...". So don't you see that "coalition dharma" is "cosmic" in its roots... something like the "Divine Right" claimed by the ruling class of pre-Democratic, pre-Socialist, pre-Revolutionary days, though ‘CD’ has thankfully a faint echo of the ethos of India's past, yet is fine-tuned to the banking and other needs of the modern era.
This then is the Arithmetic of Democracy. And it took one Brower to shout that the arithmetic indicated that the Emperor was in truth walking about starkers, his "modesty" revealed in all its glory (?!) without the cover of the garb of democracy! How long has this democratic 'tamasha' been going on? Doubtlessly for quite a long while. It is an expensive tamasha when you look at the trouble and the expense the Election Commission goes to in order to conduct this charade of 'democratic' elections. Only the concept and the procedure is democratic; the arithmetic is not because figures usually do not lie. Why go through this five-yearly exercise in futility? I can already hear the strident protests of the politicians as they rally to the defense of the “democratic rights of the citizen”. The elections are as good a rubber stamp as any to give any coalition of scoundrels and others who traditionally have taken refuge in politics, the legitimacy of a democratic mandate.
What Mr Brower has said of the US is more than true when it comes to the situation in India too. After all, according to the self-styled guardian of democracy globally, the US and its 'partner' India are the world's two greatest democracies, maybe in 'quality' and size, respectively. With a 'healthy' emulation of all things American, and a parroting of their rhetoric, the Indian system has of late become a Xerox copy of the politician-corporate nexus perfected in the best Yankee fashion of governance. As Mr Obama and Mr SIngh thump each other's back in mutual congratulation about an undying commitment to democracy, if you listen closely you could hear the sound of so many corporate axes being ground in the background. Perhaps the one major difference in India is that, post-elections, the axe-grinding is the loudest sound that marks the "functioning" of the circus called government.
Let us call a stop to this inane game and save a pretty packet too. We will come to some sort of an agreement so that a "musical chair" kind of arrangement could be worked out with "equal opportunities" for politicians of all possible colours. Think of the savings, not only in election expenses, but all the JPC bills, and the savings effected by downsizing the CBI and CVC and other such Constitutional bodies, to speak nothing of the grand saving made in the time and effort of the Honourable Justices of the Supreme Court, the only beacon of hope left for the "aam aadmi" in this land. Let us have some sort of a 'civilized' arrangement for government, rather than all the "horse trading" ( somebody tells me the horses might file an objection to the use of the term!) and other embarrassing uncertainties just prior to "staking" a 'majority' claim, which in reality is perhaps the slimmest 'minority', if there is such a usage.
But, on second thought, I doubt whether such saner counsels will prevail in this great democratic sub-continent of ours. I can imagine the screaming headlines: "Democracy butchered", "The Darkest hour of Indian Democracy", and more. If you are honest, dear, gentle reader, at least to yourself, you could see without making an effort that democracy had already been butchered, made into mincemeat and was being cooked and eaten with savour for the past many decades in this land of Gandhian 'ahimsa' and vegetarianism, and also that Indian democracy hadn't made much real progress from the dark midnight hour in which it was conceived back in 1947.
What makes me so sure of that? If we had cared for democracy in a serious way, we would have had legislation to limit the total number of parties to two, to specify that you needed to have some minimum education before you could get into the bodies of governance and legislation, to insist that nobody other than a duly elected person shall have the right to occupy any such position and, most important of all, to make it mandatory that a clear majority in polled votes as against the registered votes is absolutely essential before the 'mandate' could be exercised. If no one was able to score that essential "minimum pass-mark", or if the public had indicated that their choice was "none of the above", then the President and his Gubernatorial minions could very well run the country--until such time as a clear and popular alternative emerged.
Surely running a country of law-abiding, democratic citizenry who are happy that their will has prevailed is not likely to tax the abilities of the Supreme Commander of the Nation’s Forces and his able lieutenants.
By the way, where are those bells? We shall with alacrity bell these fandangle* felines.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* fandangle: a useless and/or purely ornamental thing
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Whoa! I can't imagine the nights of trepidation I spent grappling with figures with so many zeroes that it appeared as if they were being spewed out by a Gatling gun. Came February and the only figures I was willing to think of were less than fifty; more in the vicinity of 35--36 and about 24 or roughly thereabouts. But March, right from the Roman Era, ("...beware the Ides of March...") was a month of trouble and tribulation, though they hadn't yet invented that annual exercise in skulduggery called the Budget, not at least in Rome. My fears came true as I scanned the following...and figures once again started bombarding my enervated mind.
"...We do not have a democracy ... Any country where only half of the eligible voters are registered and where only half of those who are registered vote and where only half of those who vote like their choice, is NOT a democracy. Any country that isn’t ruled by its government, that is ruled instead by the (corporates), isn’t a democracy ... any world government that is ruled by trans-national corporations isn’t a democracy. Yet such is the state of our national and global governments..."
(Edits and emphases mine, done in order to make the statement more direct and general. I urge you to read the original essay It’s Healing Time on Earth at < http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/brower_92.html > . Though the context is different, its relevance to the average, caring citizen is very high indeed. It is a sad commentary on the interests and focus of today's parents and youth that most of them would not have heard of its author David Brower or have an idea why his thoughts are highly relevant in our times.
Mr Brower has been a leading figure in the environmental movement and an articulate spokesman for a sustainable society for many years. He is the founder of 'Friends of the Earth' and the 'League of Conservation Voters'. In 1982 Brower founded Earth Island Institute and the Brower Fund, and he initiated the biennial "Hope of the Earth" conferences on peace and environmental and social justice. Brower has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. His is a voice of sanity in today's world that jives to the cacophony of 'development' and 'growth'.
The great man's words sound uncannily familiar because they echo the subliminal thinking of the average Indian, especially in these times. Was he by any chance speaking of the Indian situation? No. His reference was, of course, to the US --though it is applicable to anywhere in this world where such a situation prevails. With Dr Brower's permission I would like to re-phrase his words a bit to reflect the "Indian Reality", with which I am sure he may not have been on intimate terms. It could go something like this:
"We DO NOT have a DEMOCRACY...in our country where only half the eligible voters are registered, and where only half or less than half of the registered voters "exercise their franchise", and less than half of those voters are lucky to cast their votes for a candidate they like, (the others are forced, especially in the era of the EVM, --the electronic voting machine-- to cast their votes for one of the undesirables who have got into the machine like a ghost that cannot be exorcised; oh, bring back the paper ballot, where with a flourish of your fingers, you could indicate "none of the above" and side with that great favourite of the masses, Mr Invalid! Or, better still, give us a button for him on the EVM!) and where after the elections, the 'winners' would need to cobble together at least half a dozen parties forming a "coalition of interests" and stake their claim for forming the government...”
Let us look at the 'rule of the corporates' part of Dr Brower's statement separately, though that is another reality that has come to stay in the Indian polity, if current signs are any indicators.
Democracy is government by majority. That means out of a hundred, you must have at least 51 with you, to swing the majority in your favour. Really? Is that the case now in our governments, Central and State? I can't let my head overheat and self-destruct by trying to compute the final numbers based on the above proportions and divisions. I leave it to the Math-savvy amongst my readers to arrive at the approximate figures and enlighten us.
It doesn't, however, take a degree in astrophysics to arrive at the shocking reality that stares us in the face -- the democratic "mandate" works out to less than 10 in 100.
And what is this "mandate" stuff? T/read carefully...; it is:
"...the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election".
Whew! The good thing is that it applies only to the winning candidate! It surely is not applicable to those few who have never contested an election in their life and yet come to sit in the "gaddi" and go about with a thick skin and a sanctimonious air and act as if they have had all the mandates in this world. It IS a laugh...
The operative phrase when you consider the mandate is "...wins an election". In the days before bought college seats and paid media news, while in school you could not pass ('win') from one grade to the next if you didn't have a minimum, measly "pass percentage". And according to the great and the best tenets of democracy (by which ALL our "leaders" swear, whether they are to the right or the left of right or the real left that is really to the right, or in groups of varying permutations and combinations of the above) the "pass percentage" is 51%. Only that gives you a "democratic” mandate.
The mandate that you assume by/for yourself in a coalition situation is in accordance with what you term the "coalition dharma" and what the rest of the world terms the "coalition adharma". Dharma is a very curious word that beats translation into English. The closest you could come is perhaps by saying that it is, literally, "...a decree or custom, as per the eternal laws of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things...". So don't you see that "coalition dharma" is "cosmic" in its roots... something like the "Divine Right" claimed by the ruling class of pre-Democratic, pre-Socialist, pre-Revolutionary days, though ‘CD’ has thankfully a faint echo of the ethos of India's past, yet is fine-tuned to the banking and other needs of the modern era.
This then is the Arithmetic of Democracy. And it took one Brower to shout that the arithmetic indicated that the Emperor was in truth walking about starkers, his "modesty" revealed in all its glory (?!) without the cover of the garb of democracy! How long has this democratic 'tamasha' been going on? Doubtlessly for quite a long while. It is an expensive tamasha when you look at the trouble and the expense the Election Commission goes to in order to conduct this charade of 'democratic' elections. Only the concept and the procedure is democratic; the arithmetic is not because figures usually do not lie. Why go through this five-yearly exercise in futility? I can already hear the strident protests of the politicians as they rally to the defense of the “democratic rights of the citizen”. The elections are as good a rubber stamp as any to give any coalition of scoundrels and others who traditionally have taken refuge in politics, the legitimacy of a democratic mandate.
What Mr Brower has said of the US is more than true when it comes to the situation in India too. After all, according to the self-styled guardian of democracy globally, the US and its 'partner' India are the world's two greatest democracies, maybe in 'quality' and size, respectively. With a 'healthy' emulation of all things American, and a parroting of their rhetoric, the Indian system has of late become a Xerox copy of the politician-corporate nexus perfected in the best Yankee fashion of governance. As Mr Obama and Mr SIngh thump each other's back in mutual congratulation about an undying commitment to democracy, if you listen closely you could hear the sound of so many corporate axes being ground in the background. Perhaps the one major difference in India is that, post-elections, the axe-grinding is the loudest sound that marks the "functioning" of the circus called government.
Let us call a stop to this inane game and save a pretty packet too. We will come to some sort of an agreement so that a "musical chair" kind of arrangement could be worked out with "equal opportunities" for politicians of all possible colours. Think of the savings, not only in election expenses, but all the JPC bills, and the savings effected by downsizing the CBI and CVC and other such Constitutional bodies, to speak nothing of the grand saving made in the time and effort of the Honourable Justices of the Supreme Court, the only beacon of hope left for the "aam aadmi" in this land. Let us have some sort of a 'civilized' arrangement for government, rather than all the "horse trading" ( somebody tells me the horses might file an objection to the use of the term!) and other embarrassing uncertainties just prior to "staking" a 'majority' claim, which in reality is perhaps the slimmest 'minority', if there is such a usage.
But, on second thought, I doubt whether such saner counsels will prevail in this great democratic sub-continent of ours. I can imagine the screaming headlines: "Democracy butchered", "The Darkest hour of Indian Democracy", and more. If you are honest, dear, gentle reader, at least to yourself, you could see without making an effort that democracy had already been butchered, made into mincemeat and was being cooked and eaten with savour for the past many decades in this land of Gandhian 'ahimsa' and vegetarianism, and also that Indian democracy hadn't made much real progress from the dark midnight hour in which it was conceived back in 1947.
What makes me so sure of that? If we had cared for democracy in a serious way, we would have had legislation to limit the total number of parties to two, to specify that you needed to have some minimum education before you could get into the bodies of governance and legislation, to insist that nobody other than a duly elected person shall have the right to occupy any such position and, most important of all, to make it mandatory that a clear majority in polled votes as against the registered votes is absolutely essential before the 'mandate' could be exercised. If no one was able to score that essential "minimum pass-mark", or if the public had indicated that their choice was "none of the above", then the President and his Gubernatorial minions could very well run the country--until such time as a clear and popular alternative emerged.
Surely running a country of law-abiding, democratic citizenry who are happy that their will has prevailed is not likely to tax the abilities of the Supreme Commander of the Nation’s Forces and his able lieutenants.
By the way, where are those bells? We shall with alacrity bell these fandangle* felines.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* fandangle: a useless and/or purely ornamental thing
* * * * * * * * * * * *
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