{"id":29230,"date":"2018-10-24T17:39:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T12:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=29230"},"modified":"2018-10-24T17:39:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T12:09:07","slug":"whats-in-an-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/whats-in-an-election\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in an election?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/whats-in-an-election\/article23953489.ece\">What\u2019s in an election?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Election; democracy<\/p>\n<p>News:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>SundarSarukkai, Professor of Philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, analyses the role of elections in a democracy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Important Analysis:<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>The significance of democracy lies in how power is exercised by those elected to power.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>3.The defining principle of democracy is the principle of One Person One Vote.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Over emphasis on the principle of One Person One Vote:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>It has reduced the idea of democracy to a ritual of casting votes.<\/li>\n<li>The act of participation in a democracy was conceived as a dynamic and continuous process. But in a few years it has been reduced to merely an act of voting.<\/li>\n<li>The society thus formed is fundamentally undemocratic in character.<\/li>\n<li>The parties which speak for democracy have little democratic ethos within them.<\/li>\n<li>Political parties are dominated by families or friends or business partners.<\/li>\n<li>Nepotism and exclusion are the basic working principles of our political parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>Today, voting has become a business transaction where the voters are \u2018compensated\u2019 for their votes.<\/li>\n<li>Significance of voting:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Voting makes sure that those who have power are accountable in some way and that they exercise that power in a democratic manner.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Elections are only a means towards the goal of controlling those who wield power, but instead they have become the end in themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"7\">\n<li>In India, the mere exercise of voting or choosing a representative is being equated with democracy. This results in the election of people who govern undemocratically.<\/li>\n<li>The Principle of trusteeship:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>It was advocated by Gandhiji and even industrialists like J.R.D Tata.<\/li>\n<li>All of us have an equal claim to the public goods in the society we belong to.<\/li>\n<li>Elections help us implement the principle of trusteeship.<\/li>\n<li>Through elections we choose a person to take care of the \u2018public wealth\u2019 that belongs equally to all of us.<\/li>\n<li>The elected representatives are merely trustees on our behalf and it is a primary duty of the trustee to make sure that they do not destroy what they are trustees of.<\/li>\n<li>This principle of trusteeship has been completely destroyed by merely viewing democracy as an act of voting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"9\">\n<li>Good governance implies that these \u201ctrustees\u201d take decisions and implement them so as to protect the common public goods.<\/li>\n<li>Instead of protecting the common goods, the elected representatives take our share of the public wealth for their personal gain.<\/li>\n<li>Other institutions are affected due to this watered down notion of democracy:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Very few institutions inculcate democratic values in their functioning.<\/li>\n<li>Private institutions have little commitment to democracy. In an overall set up where democracy is not respected, they lose their little sense of trusteeship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"12\">\n<li>Political alienation happens because people are a part of the political process only for the few minutes when they cast their votes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>13.Political alienation leads to cultural alienation which in turn leads to right wing movements.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"14\">\n<li>In order to get rid of most of the problems plaguing India, not only choice, but even power has to be democratised.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s in an election? Election; democracy News: SundarSarukkai, Professor of Philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, analyses the role of elections in a democracy. Important Analysis: The significance of democracy lies in how power is exercised by those elected to power. 3.The defining principle of democracy is the principle of One Person&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/whats-in-an-election\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What\u2019s in an election?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704896029},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}