
Quleen Kaur Bijral Bijral
Columnist, The Logical Indian
The common people pray for rain, healthy children and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.
–George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones
In India, the making of democracy has become a noisy affair of political crossfire, scandalous link-ups, death threats, censorship, horse trading, full-day telecast of ministers’ fashion statements, and other dramatic media stunts.
While the common people have become mere spectators:
Very logically, Banibrata Mahanta has commented on the absurd condition of democracy in India:
The minister is elected to listen to the concerns of the public. But, shocking as it is, he/she is more greedily vigilant to remain in power or seize it rather than earning it.
The coronation of our ministers as the lucky one, the powerful one, the chosen one, the orator of orators, the best dressed one – when did this telecast become an embodiment of democracy?
What is wrong about it, this is a democracy, most argue.
Media is hogged by the ministers to address personal selfish needs, vendettas and rivalries, whereas the masses are either left unrepresented or misrepresented. This is what we can call hijacked democracy. In this version of democracy as is seen in India:
Consequently, the minister’s life must be represented right down to the nitty-gritty of his fashion statements rather than putting his actions under the scanner.
The love, faith and trust of the common man are viciously turned into blind praise by highlighting the starry persona of the ruler.
While the ‘ruled’ common masses in their excessive admiration of their leader forget to check his actions and happily clap at the ridiculous drama of democracy.
What is even more terrible, that even when people protest against this drama, the minister might be removed or penalised. But the public has to accept a successor who will rule in a system cut out of the same cloth.
It is not only the minister that needs correction alone but the system which crowns him as a hero than a public servant.
In the long course of governance, people are cunningly persuaded to accept the abuse of democracy as an upshot of a bad day and to move on. It is high time we got out of this sarcophagus of dead democracy.
Consequently, the public ought to realize that ministers are public servants. Not divine heroes and heroines.
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