Democracy endures not only because the majority is heard but because the majority doesn’t weaponise the verdict to target the other. It makes us moral because we learn to listen to others. (C R Sasikumar)
Democracy requires a milieu where everyone is more concerned about caring and looking out for each other rather than becoming ‘for or against’
Written by Nanditesh Nilay
Updated: October 24, 2022 9:00:31 am
The election drums are beating for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. The two factions of the Shiv Sena are contesting one legacy over who gets the symbol and who gets the name. The ruling party, by its own admission, is always in an election mode. Meanwhile, not a day passes without someone red-flagging distress in our democracy. This Diwali, welcome to the Great Indian Paradox: Elections are in perfectly fine fettle but can that be said about democracy? Yes and no, there is both light and dark.
At the heart of the paradox lies this truism: We were supposed to vote once in five years, we were supposed to vote in secret (the ballot box is shielded from public view). Instead, today, we vote every five minutes and we flaunt our vote to the world. The “like” button on social media is a vote, the retweet button, the thumbs up emoji, the WhatsApp forward — each is a vote. This means that all the time, we are taking sides, we are seeing someone as an ally, someone as a rival but, more importantly, a rival that we need to defeat because what is a vote if you don’t win, what is an election if there are no results.
Even in the world of online ratings, from rating the Zomato delivery person to the book review on Amazon — even if we haven’t read it — or even on social media apps where people choose partners, we are called upon to be in a constant judgement mode. As we live more like a consumer than a citizen, this makes the market happy. The market feeds and loves this state of constant restlessness and judgement and we are comforted and vindicated by the illusion that our voting is being counted every moment, 24 by 7. That we matter.
However, this constant voting mindset has affected our moral reasoning. We are always in canvassing mode, we shall win at any cost, it makes us ruthless and judgemental. Human reasoning, simplicity and empathy for others are values that are the core principles of humanity but today they are wonderful to preach but not to practice. Because who won an election by praising the rival candidate?
Because we reduce our arguments into yes or no, like or hate, for or against, we become the champions of dumbing down, of mediocrity day by day. Thrill and happiness we feel only if we take sides. Democracy prepares us to argue as well as to listen but we are yelling all the time. Even after Covid, the pandemic that didn’t discriminate, we have learnt few lessons. Vaccinated and immune, we are at war and more with the self. B R Ambedkar, the chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution, saw it very early: “On January 26, 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.” That inequality today is the bedrock of all our divisions.
When veteran leader Mulayam Singh Yadav passed away, in many of his obituaries there was a passing reference to a speech he made just before the general elections in 2019 but it was framed in mocking terms. Yadav was praising the chair and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his humility and wished him well, even a next term. In a polarised climate, that was almost a sacrilege. Yadav’s humility and generosity did not travel well. His critics saw it as a suspicious act. They had a reason to, given how everyone is branded an “enemy” when she is merely a political rival when you cannot praise an adversary.
This hurts democracy. It makes us more of a minimal democracy rather than a maximum democracy. In its broader meaning and understanding, democracy has been a part of contemporary political philosophy and other social choice theories. Its aspects date far back in time, much before the Greek city-state. Democracy is all about a government by discussion but that discussion should not divide us into two hard brackets.
Even a political leader is a citizen first. If everywhere we all will be divided and resist appreciating the qualities of another person, democracy becomes just lining up to vote once in five years rather than the universal human pursuit of speaking, expressing, reviewing, decision making, valuing togetherness and thus becoming and acting with moral reasoning.
Can we begin at home? A home where everyone is more concerned about caring and looking out for each other rather than becoming “for or against”. At home, imagine the burden on our children if we tell them to choose between parents. We are allowing ourselves to be defined by our differences rather than what’s common to us all. In Mahabharata, Bhrigu argues with Bharadwaja about caste divisions related to human beings. Bharadwaja responds, “We all seem to be affected by desire, anger, fear, sorrow, worry, hunger and labour; how do we have caste differences then?”
Democracy endures not only because the majority is heard but the majority doesn’t weaponise the verdict to target the other. It makes us moral because we learn to listen to others. The biggest ability of democracy is to blur the divide between “for and against” and enhance the social capability of moral reasoning. We the people, we for people and we by people means that we listen to each other. The great king Ashoka was against any kind of discussion that can ignite animosity or violence. He argued: “For he who does reverence to his sect while disparaging the sects of others wholly from attachment to his sect, in reality, inflicts, by such conduct, the severest injury on his sect”.
That is the gift we can give to each other and to ourselves this Diwali. The realisation that inflicting injury on others is causing severe injury on ourselves — that healing others is healing ourselves. That’s the purest essence of democracy — and a good way to say Happy Diwali.
Nilay is the author of Being Good, Aaiye, Insaan Banaen and Ethikos (stories searching for happiness). He teaches and trains courses on ethics, values and behaviour
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