An Outside View on the State of India’s Democracy

While Mr. Jayanta Ghosh’s point on the excesses of “Uncle Sam” is righty justified, one has to remember that “divide and rule” is a basic tenet of empire building. “Superpowers” inevitably create their own “rules of fair play” and eventually those very rules become their “nemesis”.

Mr. Matthew Lobo’s excellent poem and comments bear testimony to the futility of the blame game. What the six wise men failed to identify is quintessentially what global politics is all about – the unidentifiable complexity of shifting human paradigms subject to the dictates of power and control.

Today’s international order is composed of political dictates that lead to zero sum games where one does better at another’s expense. In essence, this has extended “game theory” to make a broad interpretation of “social” to include both human and non-human (technological) players. The application of game theory to politics is focused in the overlapping areas of fair division, political economy, public choice, positive political theory, and social choice theory. In each of these areas, the players are often voters, states, special interest groups, and politicians.

A game-theoretic explanation for democratic peace is that public and open debate in democracies, send clear and reliable information regarding their intentions to citizens. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders; what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus, there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make compromise, if at least one of the parties in a dispute is non-democratic. From the various comments on “the state of affairs” in India, it seems reasonable to say that open debate in India is becoming increasingly compromised by an undemocratic Parliament.

How does the world view the present state of India’s democracy? A minority that celebrates their 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges or the 70 (plus) per cent who live on less than $2 a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation?

“Democracy requires citizens to stay alert, to open their eyes and their mouths—to understand that societies of sheep typically beget governments of wolves. It (democracy) facilitates criticism of power”.