Lincoln’s Definition of Democracy and Its Limits
- Democracy and the Need for an Educated, Modern Mindset
- Casteism, Communalism, and India’s Electoral Reality
- The Question of Voter Responsibility and Criminal Politics
Justice Katju’s Stark Conclusion
Former Supreme Court Judge Justice Markandey Katju challenges Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy, questioning its relevance in India, where caste, communalism, and vote-bank politics dominate the electoral process.
On Democracy
By Justice Markandey Katju
These days a lot of hue and cry is being raised by opposition parties, mediapersons, and so-called 'intellectuals' over the alleged 'murder of democracy' by the Election Commission of India, hand in glove with the BJP Govt, particularly in view of the coming Bihar state assembly polls.The assumption of such persons is that democracy is a good thing, and so anything which harms it is bad. But is this assumption correct ?
Former US President Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
If that is democracy, I am not in its favour.
Government should certainly be for the people, meaning that it should work for the welfare of the people.
But to be of the people and by the people ( the two expressions really mean the same thing ) requires a highly educated, modern-minded population, for how can people with backward minds rule themselves? They are like small children, who do not know what is good for them and must be controlled by their parents and elders.
In India, 90% people are casteist and/or communal. Casteism and communalism are feudal, backward forces, and people who are casteist and communal have feudal, not modern scientific, mindsets. Are they fit to rule ?
Everyone knows that in India, democracy largely runs on the basis of caste and communal vote banks. When most voters go to vote, they do not see the merit of the candidate, whether he is a good man or bad, educated or uneducated, criminal or not. They also do not consider that prices of essential commodities like food have skyrocketed, and unemployment has reached record levels. They do not keep in mind that every second child in India is malnourished ( see Global Hunger Index on Google), nor that 57% Indian women are anaemic.
All that the voter sees is the caste or religion of the candidate ( or the caste/religion his party claims to represent ). That is why out of the 543 MPs elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections 47% reportedly have criminal backgrounds.
Do such people deserve the right to vote ?
(Justice Katju is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. These are his personal views.)
