India is still a solid democracy

After all my research, I have come to the conclusion that India is a fully-functioning, healthy democracy, ruled by the most qualified people who only have the best interests of the country at heart. Representation pic/istock

I have been hearing a lot of doubts about democracy in India over the past decade or so. It worries me, as it should worry any true patriot, because as everyone knows by now, people who ask questions about the government or raise doubts about it are almost certainly being funded by China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or any of the other neighbouring countries that began to be extremely jealous of India around the year 2014 or so. This is common knowledge by now.

That said, these doubts are only expressed in private because saying something critical in public can get one into all kinds of serious trouble these days. To be clear, I still don't think of this threat as a sign that something is wrong. Just because students, minorities, farmers, women, the poor, people from the North East, South India, or the Punjab, seem to think that their fundamental rights are being taken away from them doesn't make it true. It's just a sign that a lot of people are misinformed, and I think of it as my duty as a columnist to try and correct this. They need to know how lucky they really are to have the government and the politicians that they do.

It's why these doubts prompted me to try and examine what India really is. I assumed that the best way to do this would be to examine some of the other terms that tend to crop up in some circles whenever the government is being discussed. One of them is ‘oligarchy' which, I found out, refers to a form of government where political power rests in the hands of a small, elite group. Apparently, this group tends to make decisions that benefit their own class rather than the general public. I dismissed the idea because I can't think of a small group of Indians doing this. It just wouldn't be allowed, would it?

Then there's ‘plutocracy', which is also like an oligarchy, except that this is based primarily on wealth. In this instance, political power belongs to wealthy individuals who indirectly control laws and leaders by using their financial standing. They use lobbying, for instance, or ownership of the media, to obtain a louder voice than regular voters. I don't see this happening in India either, because that would imply that a couple of billionaires are controlling our politicians and using them to gain access to public resources. If it were true, wouldn't our independent, unbiased journalists have said something by now?

I then stumbled upon ‘kakistocracy', a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens in a country. The term was supposedly popularised as the opposite of an aristocracy, which is meant to define being ruled by the best. If this were true of India, we wouldn't have the most highly educated politicians in the country in charge of education, defence, finance, and the environment. We wouldn't have a Prime Minister with a Masters in Entire Political Science which, as everyone knows, is among the rarest degrees offered by any university in the world today.

One last term came to mind: ‘kleptocracy', which refers to ‘rule by thieves' and describes a government where leaders use their power to steal public money and national resources for themselves. It's what happens when a small group of people gets very rich while regular citizens stay poor. This sort of government promptly takes over all major industries and natural resources, then changes the rules to protect the corrupt.

I didn't even bother taking that last term seriously because of how far removed it seemed from what life in India is like. If something like that were to take root around here, politicians would see their wealth climb in rapid, mysterious ways after just one term in Parliament. They would suddenly have crores in their bank accounts and apartments across the country purchased in their names. They would also get away with this because no one would call them out and ask them to explain the sources of their income. I simply couldn't see the possibility of this happening without someone noticing.

So, after all my research, I have come to the conclusion that India is a fully-functioning, healthy democracy, ruled by the most qualified people who only have the best interests of the country at heart. Anyone who chooses to disagree with this is an anti-national or a fool, and India no longer has space for these kinds of individuals.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He can be contacted at www.lindsaypereira.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.