The question of Democracy

Plato in the Republic says that a good constitution is only possible when the ruler does not want to rule; where men contend for power, where they have not learnt to distinguish between the art of getting hold of the helm of state and the art of steering, which alone is statesmanship, true politics is impossible.

The minute I read these lines, two images appeared in my mind – Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Notwithstanding the countless failures that people attribute to Nehru during his tenure as prime minister of India, I believe he had a vision to “steer India”. Indira Gandhi, on the other hand, apparently strove for “holding the helm of affairs” – both in the Congress party and India. Nehru then according to Plato would be a statesman – Agreed. But then what can be said of Indira Gandhi? Deductively she was not a true politician.

But was she bad because she understood concept of democracy well, but not “managed” democracy? I have always been intrigued by this word – democracy. Still haven’t found a good definition for it (Help!!!). Democracy for me (as of now) means a way of accounting for society’s idea on how it wants to govern itself. It can then take a form of being representative (parliament /presidential) or direct. The underlying assumption (at least in representative form) seems to be that political power aspirants accept the decisions of the society to choose them as their representatives or not.

Did Indira Gandhi do this? It seems so. She came to the seat of power through democratic means. Whatever she did inside the Congress party needs to be separated from this analysis. Congress party became a registered national political party after independence – why should they be still considered the torch-bearers for the high idealism of nationalist agenda (except for emotional and moral reasons)? She imposed Emergency as the Prime Minister – a power vested by the supreme law of Indian land, the constitution. The society did not like her, threw her out of office, and she accepted. She came to office again winning democratically on agendas which won the imagination of people (unless of course we assume that elections are mostly bogus voting in India). She maybe not a “true politician” in the eyes of Plato but in my eyes she was a true politician of democracy.

However, the problem seems to be that she failed as a student of “managed” democracy. I qualify democracy with “managed” because it seems like democracy as a concept (if it is defined as above) is very weak in itself. It has to be guided by other (and probably stronger) tacit as well as explicit principles or ideologies. In Indian case, the explicit (in the constitution) basic principles to guide democracy are secularism and socialism. But more importantly, politicians in democracy are expected (tacit principle) to have high moral standards – as if they are guided by some “invisible hand” of ethics. But why this expectation when they are supposedly the “servants” of the society and motivated by power?...[to be continued]