The Hindu Business Line : The lure of Democracy

THE latest issue of the `Human Development Report' says that Indians have a very high regard for their institutions, higher than what people have in the US, Germany, Switzerland and Australia.

A second interesting point is that the preference for "democracy" among Indians is right at the top of the international league-table with Uruguay being perhaps the only country scoring even higher.

The point of this piece is to throw up some ideas why this is so, especially when there is a strong point of view which states that too many contending, and sometimes cacophonous, voices have stood in the way of the nation's "progress".

Indeed, as far as the prevalence of corruption goes, India has been placed 83rd in Transparency International's ascending list covering 133 countries, which is not saying much for the level of ethics in daily life in India compared to the rest of the world.

In fact, one feels that the British system of governance prior to 1947 has been primarily responsible for the deep roots that democracy has struck in India.

It is a form of governance that has always been considered the best by the native Indian intelligentsia since the middle of the 19th Century when home-grown Indians first began to come into their own vis-à-vis their British masters.

At that point of time, the UK was the epitome of the civilised world, that influence being magnified many times over by the vast geographical expanse of the British Empire and economic pre-eminence (even if that pre-eminence was solely based on economic exploitation of the colonies of which India formed the brightest jewel).

Successive generations of Indians have been brought up on this "foundation", as it were, with the result that the democratic form of governance has come to be taken for granted.

In a manner of speaking, this is the air we breathe, a physical function about which no one ever has any time to think.

Indeed, in the mid-1970s, when Indira Gandhi struck out into uncharted territory and imposed the Emergency, suspending all the basic

Constitutional tenets on which the structure of democratic governance rested, the nation came together and threw her out of power in the 1977 election.

This was, incidentally, an election which should never have been called from Indira Gandhi's point of view but which she was forced to hold because of the values of democratic governance which, unknown to herself, were deeply ingrained in her.

A true dictator would never have taken that fatal step unless he or she was forced to, which was not the case with the former Prime Minister.

The Indian trust in institutions is a direct fallout of this unthinking, automatic preference for the democratic system of governance, and here too the erstwhile British rulers of the country are totally responsible for the trait.

If anything, the British form of parliamentary democracy, as practised in the UK over the past few centuries, rests critically on the functioning of effective institutions rather than on dependence on individuals, with the result that institutions have come to occupy an exalted place in the British scheme of things, both past and present.

Given the history of Indian administrative experience, it is only natural that Indians too have inculcated that trust in institutions.

Hence, India today finds itself right at the top of the HDR list of countries as far as "trust in institutions" is concerned.

But what does the future hold for the nation?

It is to be expected that as we go farther away from the period of British rule, and as the generations die out and are replaced by newer minds who are primarily influenced by what they see around them without having the burden of history bearing down on them, the automaticity in the preference for the democratic system of governance will become weaker (which of course does not mean in any way that, that system of governance will not be preferred over alternative systems).

One feels that the crucial element determining which way the pendulum will swing will be the outcome of the struggle between the imperatives of economic growth and coalition Government, a contest which has already begun and which will continue to dominate life in this country in the foreseeable future.