Death of Democracy An Obituary to Indian democracy A cartoonist questioned in Times of India newspaper, British liberated us from Mughals.

Congress liberated us from British. Who is going to liberate us from Congress? Now the ruling UPA government is facing its tough time, shaking by million dollar scams like 2G spectrum scam & CWG scam. It is yet to face a heavy blow in the face. Civil society is now rallying behind the veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare and his team for implementing Jan Lokpal (citizens ombudsman) bill in the parliament. The tricky government introduced a toothless Lokpal bill in the Parliament, excluding most of the bureaucrats from Lokpals authority. Also the bill reduced many of the Judicial and police powers of the Lokpal proposed by Team Anna, thus making it a powerless crippled authority. Corruption is not a new issue for the Indian people. In India corruption is common at every level. From driving license to Industrial license, you have to pay the concerned persons for their satisfaction. That concerned persons would have paid something to a higher authority to ensure their position. This chain continues till the higher ends of bureaucracy. Indian democratic process is rotten by corruption at all levels. The flow of wealth by GLP policies has increased the swindle scale of politicians. The Bofors swindle of late 1990s said to have cost a loss of nearly 80 crores or a little more. But the modern spectrum swindle involves a mind boggling figure of about 1,76,000 crores. Also, democracy is becoming meaningless with the exposure of cash for vote scam. If the elected representatives of people can be bought for voting in the Parliament over the bills, what do we mean by saying the government of the people, for the people and by the people? Now the UPA government is doing some irreversible blunders. It launched false propaganda campaign against Team Anna portraying them as villains and is being paid by foreign powers. This is in par with Hitlers false propaganda against German communists of his time. UPA government has lost its democratic morality by following the ways of a dictatorial government. By saying that UPA government has lost its morality to continue as a democratic government, I did not mean that BJP, the arch rival of congress has the democratic morality to rule India. BJP government of Karnataka has caught itself in a scam involving mineral mines of Karnataka. Chief Minister Yeduyurappa refused to budge, but under high pressure from every quarter he had no choice than giving up. Also, BJP lacks a quality that suits a perfect democratic party. A democratic party must be secular. Democracy is not the rule of majority, though representative democracy is based very much upon majority. Democracy does not bind itself for satisfying the will of majority alone. Democracy is the government of each and every people governed by the system. In modern times, religion is separated

from polity in most of the countries except a few. Though India formally separates state and religion, religion and caste plays a predominant role in Indian polity. Many IPS officers are coming forward with evidences against Modi government proclaiming the guilt of Mr.Narendra Modi in the Anti Muslim riots that shook Gujarat after Godhra Incident. It is important to note that though Modi government is advertising about the clean governance and rapid development through advertising by media in other states, the ground reality in Gujarat is being exposed frequently by investigative journalists. I cant say that we are living in a democratic country when the major political parties of the country were lacking in democratic qualities. The UPA government is on the collapsing point. One step front or back may prove disastrous to the government. I am not dreaming an India of Sonia Gandhi or Advani, nor an India of Rahul Gandhi or Varun Gandhi. I am dreaming about a completely revolutionized government which is really transparent, secular and democratic. Lasantha Wicrematunga, a Sri Lankan Journalist wrote in his last editorial about the above qualities as those he wished to see in the future of his country. But he was killed by men of his own country under the orders of the government. But I hope that I will live till the resurrection of Indian democracy.