Indian Democracy - Is it a successful one?

                                              Boby Thomas - 16 - 04 -2009

  India, world's largest democracy, is having the biggest political exercise ever in the world till date. 714 million people are eligible to vote means that poll arrangements will be done for all 714 million people. Election is so well coordinated that no single person needs to travel more than 2KMs to cast their vote. There are polling booths meant only for few 10s of people showing that we respect the opinion of each and every individual in this country. We are running this democracy successfully for more than sixty years now. Wonderful achievement, isn't it?

    Yes, as a democratic system, it is indeed a great achievement. But if I look around and see the election issues this time, I wonder whether we are in right track. For most of the people, the main issues are

• Which is the cast of the candidate?

• Is the candidate belonging to the party, which stand by your religion?

• Is he belongs to your regions party?

Instead of thinking

• Is the candidate a capable person?

• Has he got a vision for the country's development?

• Is he corrupt?

• What is his track record? How well he has carried out his responsibilities before?

• can he tackle terorism?

• Can he take india out of recession?

• can he create jobs for all indians?

     During the royal dynasty in Kerala (Travancore kings), the king always had a vision for future. They planned everything keeping long-term goals in mind. Thiruvanadapuram, then trivandrum, was considered a modern city 100 years back ahead of many other cities of that time. Mughal emperors had planned cities keeping the needs for 100s of years in future. They took care of water, sewage, roads and other public infrastructure, not just to show results in 1-2 years. Do we need leaders like that who has a vision for India not for next 3-5 years but for next few decades or even centuries?

    Democratic system in India in my opinion was successful. But we the people failed to do what we are supposed to do. Instead of looking at capability, vision, past records etc we looked at cast, religion, region etc. Instead of keeping India's future in mind, we kept a narrow mind and thought only about my religion, my cast, my region etc. Is it doing any good for us? Are we being served by the so called our cast or religion or regional supporters? I think we need to change. We need to vote and we need to vote the right goverment in. We need to change the way we think. We need to change the way we vote so that the future generations say; yes India had a very successful democracy in all respect.