“The concept of democracy requires acceptance of egalitarianism, which is incongruent with a vertical hierarchical social, religious and political order followed to this date in the Subcontinent.”
The Indian Subcontinent has mastered the tricks of the statecraft to win staged elections and, thereafter, blatantly abuse, misuse and exploit democracy through elected dictatorships and relentless suppression of ground reality.
Pakistan’s recent general election exposes the Subcontinent’s sham democracies and exemplifies a classic power tussle in the Subcontinent between the minority privileged elites and the majority underprivileged and unprivileged people — the everyday battlers. In an ideal world, the latter should win such ‘democratically held’ elections but we don’t live in an ideal world, it is a ‘dog eats dog’ world where money and muscle talk.
It is deplorable to see Imran Khan, who is serving a long jail sentence as a reprehensible political vendetta by the establishment, could not form the government despite highest following amongst the people of Pakistan and winning the highest number of votes (including the votes won by the independents supporting his disbanded party) in the recent general election in Pakistan.
The outcome of the election was seemingly preordained. It is not surprising that two opposing political parties, both tainted by numerous charges of blatant corruption, have come together to forge the new government in Pakistan.
Similarly, a few months ago, the Opposition in Bangladesh boycotted their General Election. Sri Lanka too has been in news.
Elections are stolen from people by hook or by crook in authoritarian, watermelon democracies, where wealth talks unashamedly and wolves operate in sheep’s clothing.
In India, the forthcoming May 2024 General Election is expected to forever change its identity. As the origins of the terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’ are rooted in the river Indus, which does not flow through the mainland India, it will be of interest to see how soon after the election, India declares itself as a Hindu Republic, with a new saffron coloured flag and a new constitution, or if it regresses into archaic Hindu monarchy?
Notably, Mahatma Gandhi, revered all over the world, is challenged by the present-day far right Hindus who construe ‘nonviolence’ as ‘cowardice’. Ostensibly, India’s first Prime Minister, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, is blamed for every current issue and wrongdoing in the country.
An unchartered territory, therefore, lies ahead for India.
A recent verdict by the Supreme Court of India on mysterious Electoral Bonds (since 2017) casts a dark shadow on India’s claim that it is the ‘mother’ of democracy. If at all, it represents mimicry, mockery and manipulation of democracy. Extremely disproportionate assets of the BJP make it virtually invincible. In relative terms, meagre wealth of India’s Congress Party is understandable, but questions arise about the wealthy BJP and what did it offer in return to its ‘hidden’ political donors?
After the fall of all vital institutions of democracy in the past ten years, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the Indian tax agencies have just frozen the bank accounts of the Congress Party, leaving the BJP untouched. This latest master stroke by the government has erased all cash assets that the Congress Party was left with after an earlier 2016 demonetisation master stroke by this government.
Political horse trading continues in India, thanks to BJP’s unaccounted vast wealth and a declared vision that it will render India bereft of any opposition. A few weeks ago, in a public show in Madhya Pradesh, several members of the Congress Party embraced the ruling BJP, which puts a question mark on the political efficacy, ethics, and morality in the country.
Was the horse-trading a consequence of a sustained pressure from the BJP, or a sheer exploitation of the human greed and political ambitions, or both? In no less terms, it illustrates mockery of democracy and a blatant exhibition of a deeply rotten political system.
With a couple of months left before the 2024 General Election, Indian farmers are again calling out the government for not having fulfilled the promises that it had made to them more than two years ago in lieu of calling off their 16-month long protest against the three farming laws at that time (August 2020 – December 2021), during which more than a hundred protesting farmers took their own lives and several hundred died due to elements and fatigue. Similar to the last time, this time also, the government is reported to be using a disproportionate force to stop the protestors from entering Delhi. If they have not been heard all these years, what other options are left with them but to protest, which they are seen to be doing peacefully but resolutely. After all, it is a matter of their livelihood and survival. Why have not the election promises made to them been fulfilled?
Why is the farmers’ ‘right to protest’ not recognised or respected in India by those who happily consume their produce? Why are they seen as enemy soldiers? Such mistreatment of farmers in a democratic country is unimaginable. Such deplorable treatment of those who feed the nation is an ominous sign of the coming times. Is it a class warfare or just aristocracy?
Since about 2020, farmers around the world have been protesting for their demands. At present also, apart from India, farmers’ protests are seen in several European countries (France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Poland, Greece, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands). Despicably, however, only the well-to-do, privileged nationalistic supporters of India’s ruling party call the protesting farmers as ‘terrorists’ and welcome their mistreatment by the state. A social media campaign, calling the protestors as wealthy cheats and Khalistani terrorists, is rife to discredit them and muffle their voice.
Truth can’t be destroyed because it permeates into everything around us, including our memory, soul and conscience, and lives permanently in our published works.
Interestingly, do the militarised barricades erected around Delhi mean the areas beyond the barricades don’t belong to India? Horrendous beds of spikes (nails) in roads, insurmountable concrete barricades with razor wire, and deep channels have been dug to deter the protestors from entering Delhi.
Such blatant abuse of wartime machinery against own people can’t be imagined in a democracy — any democracy for that matter — unless it is a democracy no more. What do you call a grown-up person who uses weapons to crush his own belly? A suicidal lunatic or a progressive visionary?
India’s second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri must be imagined feeling appalled due to the state of the nation that he led and died for. Most Indians must be imagined hearing his immortalized cry, ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kissan’, [meaning, ‘hail the soldier, hail the farmer’] gushing from the depth of their conscience, but how many of them will really speak out and stand for the farmers, who feed their insatiable belly but face an existential threat from a potential corporate take over?
India’s boisterous claim of being the ‘mother’ of democracy is wrought with sheer ignorance and arrogance.
This bleak scenario across the Subcontinent compels us to ask pertinent questions. Is the Subcontinent sovereign? Who rules it? Why does it fight itself 76 years after the British left? Why do most people feel neglected, exploited, unprivileged, disempowered and treated with disdain and contempt? Why do people protest and why are their protests crushed mercilessly by the establishment?
The concept of democracy requires acceptance of egalitarianism, which is incongruent with a vertical hierarchical social, religious and political order followed to this date in the Subcontinent. The Indian Subcontinent, unable to free itself from the stranglehold of its feudal past, is severely plagued by a deeply rooted class, religious, caste and ethnic civil warfare and hanging on the precipice of self-destruction. As long as this remains the case, no liberal democracy can thrive here.
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