Getting back on the democratic path

Getting back on the democratic path

Context:

• India and countries worldwide find existing governmental systems unable to cope with contemporary challenges or people’s expectations, some even with basic needs.
• Particularly alarming is the condition in democracies, where the ideals and concepts, the very essence of their being, are threatened.

What are the roots of democracy?

• Democracy depends on the Enlightenment’s ideals.
• These ideals are the ceaseless expansion of liberty and equality, the impartial functioning of impersonal law and institutions, the reconciliation of society’s differences by accommodative compromise, above all the primacy of reason.

What needs to be done to uphold democracy?

• We need a organised body to make the Indian system work and modernise.
• We need to forget the excuse that politics is the art of the possible but remember leadership is the art of making even the impossible possible.
• The common mass is ultimately responsible to uphold democracy but political leaders have to lead.