Pavan K. Varma | Six Dangers Democracies Must Be Cautious About

 Elections in Bihar and Jharkhand are due later this year, and Assam, West Bengal, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, will go to polls by May 2026. Critics argue that we have an election surfeit, but I believe that democracy is one of our greatest strengths. China and Pakistan don’t have it. Nor did the former Soviet Union. Inelastically brittle totalitarian regimes are too unstable. As a diplomat posted in Moscow, I personally witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. China too, I believe, is sitting on a time-bomb. By contrast, democracies are more supple. They have that key safety valve to give suppressed discontent an avenue.

Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others tried before. True, but constant vigilance is required to ensure that in the functioning of democracy, its spirit prevails over just the form. There are six dangers democracies must guard against. The first is authoritarianism in the garb of democracy. If a democratic government is intolerant or hostile to dissent and criticism, the dialogue so essential to keep a democracy alive, dies. The enactment and misuse of draconian laws to ensure conformity, or acts like bulldozer justice without due procedure, are anathema to the democratic sprit. A free media that can interrogate the government, rather than merely becoming its mouthpiece, is an essential pillar of democracy. As Aristotle said: “The basis of a democracy is liberty.”

The second danger is the rampant growth of dynasticism. Most of our political parties are family fiefdoms, reminiscent of medieval feudalism, not democracy. Dynasties, in their internal functioning, are anything but democratic. The ordained leader, chosen on the basis of lineage, stifles democratic meritocracy, encourages sycophancy, and treats anyone within the party who does not compulsorily toe the line as a traitor. There is something transparently hollow when dynastic leaders critique encroachments on democracy nationally, and run personal kingdoms internally.

The third danger — which all political parties find irresistible — is to adopt the wrong means to somehow win elections. Religion, caste, hyper-nationalism, whipping up parochial and regional issues, unaccountable money and muscle power are the routine culprits. When political power becomes the ultimate goal, the end will invariably finesse the means. Cynical caste permutations, the use of religion to create minority or majority vote banks and the allurement of money or loaves of office to break parties or bring down governments have become the norm. India must be the only democracy where the phrase “resort politics” exists, and busloads of MLAs are confined in hotels or resorts to prevent being poached upon.

The fourth danger is the abuse of legislative majorities, where a party, either in the states or at the Centre, pushes through its will on the basis of numerical strength rather than constructive debate. The Emergency of 1975 is illustrative. More recently, a glaring example is the manner in which the farm laws were passed in the Rajya Sabha, even though the Opposition, completely outnumbered in the Lok Sabha, kept pleading for more discussion. Similarly, we have had cases where governments, purely on the basis of their legislative dominance, have overruled even the majesty of the Supreme Court on a constitutional issue by passing an overruling ordinance. Dr Ambedkar, while presenting the Constitution, explicitly warned against such undemocratic developments. It is “quite possible” he said, while presenting the Constitution for approval in the Constituent Assembly, that “in a country like India… there is a danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship… If there is a landslide victory, the danger of (this) possibility becoming actuality is much greater”.

The fifth danger is the temptation to destabilise or distort the delicate balance in the Constitution in Centre-state relations. Strong governments at the Centre have cynically misinterpreted the very provisions of the Constitution, including the misuse of powers of governors, to browbeat and derail the administrative functioning of Opposition-ruled state governments. In fact, the phrase, “double- engine sarkar”, itself is proof that “single engine” governments, that do not have the cooperation of the Centre, are at a disadvantage. Such an approach demolishes democratic federalism.

Finally — and perhaps most importantly — democracy is in danger when elected governments do not fulfil the promises they have made to the people and treat political power as a license only for personal aggrandisement. Kalidasa defined rajdharma as pravartatam rakritivitihitaya — working for the welfare of the people. Chanakya was categorical: “The king must devote all his energy for the welfare of the people. In the happiness of his subjects lies the king’s happiness.” The Mahabharata explicitly sanctions revolt against a king who fails in this duty.

But do democratically elected governments — the new rulers — follow our ancient precepts and Constitutional obligations? In Bihar, for instance, where for 30 years Lalu-Nitish have ruled in the name of social justice, with the Congress and the BJP as accessories, the state is exactly where it was 30 years ago, the poorest and most backward in the country. As per the government’s own figures, half of its 13 crore people live in unacceptable poverty, and one-third below the poverty line. The state has India’s lowest per capita income, a health and education system near collapse, pervasive corruption and the highest unemployment rate, especially among the youth, leading to massive and heartrending out-migration, where in village after village millions of women do not see their son, husband or brother except possibly once a year, because the men have no other option but to eke out an income in more prosperous states, where they mostly live in the most miserable and humiliating circumstances. A total of 42.9 per cent of children under the age of five in Bihar suffer from child stunting; 63.5 per cent of its women in the age group of 15 to 49 years are anaemic; and the state is at the bottom of the list in the Global Hunger Index (2023).

In such a situation, a heavy responsibility lies with voters. They have the power to challenge the threats to democracy and use the ballot box to throw out governments that don’t act democratically or in their interests. If they don’t, they deserve what they get.