Neither Demos Nor Cracy

NEITHER ‘DEMOS’ NOR ‘CRACY’ Democracy, as they mean, is “rule by people” whereas the Greek writers used “demos” to mean “many”, thus meaning Democracy “rule by many”. In Greece these “many” were conscious citizens; not mere illiterate, powerless, poor people, who were ignorant of their rights and obligations. People were viewed as a single cohesive body, bound together by common and collective interests. As human beings they were one and indivisible and so democracy stood for the disadvantage masses. Democracy implies: people govern themselves by participating in making the crucial decisions that structure their lives and determine the fate of their society by means of direct participation, continuous involvement in decision making through open discussion, mass meeting and interaction. Present day democracy does not stand for the disadvantaged and the powerless poor. It comes to mean strict application of the principle of majority rule overriding the minority or even totally ignoring them. People do not make decision by themselves, nor do they influence decision making. What they can at best do is “kick the rascal out” after the stipulated period of time. That is also, sometimes, not possible due to socio-economic factor that rules family and social life. In western democracy there is educated and conscious people and a long tradition of exercising democratic rights of direct democracy through mass meeting, rallies, protest demonstration and an independent ever alert media. But in the underdeveloped third world countries no political equality exists. Democracy means nothing more than ritualised submission to the will of all-powerful leader who take it granted that the people lack education, experience and wisdom necessary to frame politics and to execute those. The purpose of democracy in western practised democracy is to establish through some process of popular participation, a framework of laws within which individuals can conduct their own affairs and carry on their private as well as community interests. It democratizes the political, social and economic life. In the third world underdeveloped countries it neither democratizes political, social or economic life nor it democratizes opportunities, and means to avail those opportunities; what it

democratizes is absolute subjugation. Thus the western nation, in whatever form adopted liberal democracy whereas in the third world countries it is partisan democracy. Democracy must be liberal, that means (i) protective in the sense that it must protect the people from encroachment of governments and the creation of the mechanism to protect the individuals from over mighty government, (ii) democracy must be developmental, i.e. have concern of individual and community. It emphasizes the 7th century philosophy that there should not be merely political equality, but also a relative high level of economic equality. It professed that no citizen should be rich enough to buy another and none so poor as to be forced to sell themselves. Thus developmental democracy gives way to participatory democracy, (iii) democracy must ensure promotion of openness that calls for accountability of politicians and bureaucracy, decentralization within all the key institutions of society and clarity in the political parties, interest groups and legislative bodies, (iv) democracy has to promote highest harmonious development of individual capacities, enhancing understanding, strengthen sensibilities and achieve a higher level of personal development. The simple device of voting cannot determine debate, criticism and intellect the attributes of wisdom. Democracy denotes party competition, multiplicity of ethical values, cultural norms and that diversity is healthy and desirable, usually because it safeguards individual liberty and promotes debate, argument and understanding that ensure distribution of political and economic power. It holds that power is widely and evenly distributed in society rather than concentrated in the hands of an elit ruling class. Thus democracy is united politics in which individuals are largely represented through their membership of organizations and all such organizations have access to the policy process, and that organized labour, business elits and consumer lobbyists are not able to exert influence at the margins of policy process and that a measure of democratic accountability is constant and consistent. Thus democracy becomes the “rule of many” instead of the “rule of the politicians”. In

present day developed and under developed countries, it has become norm that major groups and interest in society compete to shape government policy through negotiations between government officials, politicians and leaders of powerful economic interests including the foreign interest groups rather than through the deliberations of a representative assembly, which threatens to subvert the process of electoral parliamentary democracy. Interest group leaders thus exert considerable political power, even though they are in no way publicly accountable and their influence is not subject to public scrutiny. The very popularity of democracy has threatened its use as a meaningful political term. Debates about the nature of democracy have tended to focus on three central ideas. First, who are the people and how far the political power be distributed? Secondly, should the people rule themselves through non partisan political process or should the government be left in the hands to politicians and parties that claim to represents them? Thirdly, what democratic process is appropriate to ensure participatory politics? Democracy has to take care of several functions including: a) Stability and order: Democracy shall be exercised so that it ensures the maintenance of stability and order. Spontenous action of long chained free individuals provoked by vested interests may cause emergence of anarchy. Hence a democratic government must keep chaos and instability at bay, and create social order. Once solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life must be replaced by peace and prosperity. Any democratic regim must have ability to contain and reconcile conflicting interests and ensure longevity and endurance of social order and stability and establish consensus and consent. Regims responsiveness to popular pressure and demands deemed to be justified if they comply with democratic principles. Here is the role of a vigourous civil society who are well acquainted with democratic norms and are convinced of its success in bringing peace and prosperity of human beings. A democratic government is supposed to have the ability to impose his will on society and on groups that threaten to

generate irreconceivable conflict. Political authority is underpinned by shared values and common culture. Stability and order are largely the product of social and cultural cohesion and the capacity of the society to generate respect and maintain support for established institutions. But it must be taken into account that relying on authority exerted from above may not place effective control and constraints on exercise of political power. If stability is seen as an end in itself, divorced from consideration of democratic legitimacy, social justice and respect for human rights, the result may simply be tyranny and oppression. b) Citizenship performance: The idea of politically alert and over vigilant citizenship can be traced back to a 7th century Asian philosophy. It states that though citizens take care of their household, they must not neglect their obligations to state and shall possess a fair idea of democratic politics and economy and remain ever vigilant so that no antidemocratic political tyrant can take over state power or even local power in pretex of this or that context. Citizens who do not take any interest in public affairs may not be harmful but surely are useless in a democratic political state as their indifference many dare vested interests to try to usher in autocratic rule to serve their purpose of dominance. Citizens must be active and sound judges of state policy. A citizen as a member of political community is endowed with a set of rights and a set of obligations. “Citizenship” is the public face of individual existence. Civil participation is linked to the advance of constitutional government. Citizens must be aware of their democratic rights necessary for social development, freedom of conscience, of assembly, of free movements, of speech, right to equality before law and right to own property without harming other’s enjoyment of those rights. Citizenship involves such rights which guarantee the individual minimum social status that provide the basis for his exercise of both civil and political rights, that include right to vote, right to stand in election of local or national government bodies and hold public office and thus ensure availing opportunity and means to participate in political life. These enable a citizen to live the life of a civilized being according to the standard

prevailing in the society. Liberal democracy perform well particularly in this respect. Civil, political and social rights are the essence of the constitutional, representative democratic form of government. Citizenship ignores unequal class power and patriarchal oppression. There arises a need to balance rights and obligations and thereby to apportion responsibilities between the individual and the community. Politics of right must conform to the politics of common good. But care should be taken that in functional democracy, interesting individuals with rights and entitlements do not breed atomism and alienation, weakening the communal bonds that holds society together and flourish democracy. Society is a sensitive organism. If its unifying element is removed or destroyed, it breaks into a thousand pieces. Men still live together, but the cement which bound them together into one with a common goal is no more. The charisma of democracy is not enough. Only charisma is transitory and unstable. It has to be institutionalized. c) Material performance: The brilliance of any political system is judged by its material performance dominated by economic issues. The success of a political system is linked to its capacity to deliver goods. Widespread poverty and low level of economic growth in developing nations deepens social tension, fuel corruption and undermine attempts to sustain democratic constitutional representative government. So, government must adopt reliable means of generating wealth and achieve material prosperity for the people. In a democracy the generation and distribution of wealth must take into consideration two factors: (i) the people and (ii) the unstained means. The redistribution must acknowledge welfare for all and not greatest benefit for the greatest number. Performance indicated by material prosperity is judged by fairness. The free market view in addition to unhindered opportunity and state guaranteed means states that general prosperity is best achieved by redistribution according to the necessity for generating common welfare and more wealth. Economic growth is best promoted by material incentives that encourage enterprise and endeavor and penalizes laziness. Thus democracy ensures a safety net that protects individuals from absolute poverty in the sense that they

feel no want of basic means of subsistence. Greed and corruption arise from inefficient and unproductive laziness. Democracy stands for social justice through redistribution of wealth and ensure that all citizen have a stake in nation building and that each of these has an incentive to contribute. The so called democratic system that tolerate wide social inequality run the risk of promoting social exclusion, encourage increase in number of the underclass and opens the breeding ground for crime and social unrest. Hence, democracy, to ensure sustainable prosperity requires that material performance operate within a broad framework of fair distribution and effective welfare for all irrespective of likings and dislikings, for and against. d) Democratic performance: Stability, citizenship and material prosperity are all outputs or products of democracy which is concerned with the process itself i.e. how decisions are made, and why and what decisions are made. The purpose of liberal democratic politics is to liberate and empower the individuals and enlarge the scope of personal autonomy. Democratic political participation is a source of personal development and self-realization. Liberal democracy stands for institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions on which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a unstained competition for support from the people. Hence people must be made conscious, politically educated and taught the virtues and benefit of democratic political participation and they should be imbued with the spirit of building an absolute exploitation free society of peace, prosperity and progress. Present day politicians are self seeking persons who will support their party or government only so long as it suits their private interests and will follow whatever course offers biggest material rewards. Also there are advocates and beneficiaries of sectoral interests and the booty seeking intellectuals i.e. reactionary civil society. Those are members of a collective conspiracy for exploiting ignorant human beings. The vote maximizing behavior of political parties has serious adverse implications for the capability of democratic government to its development objectives. If the

oppression consciousness can be imparted in hearts and brains of the people the scope of vote politics becomes limited and the parties have to behave more responsibly in the presence of a well-informed people. Dispassionate debate and discussions in front of peoples gatherings is a democratic process but it is practised by parties in a most passionate and emotional way either to agitate the people or to make them passive and imbecile onlookers. Very seldom, the parties speak of realistic economic reform or good governance, other than ridiculing the party in power or in opposition for their failure either real or concerted –who goes to verify the speeches! Pride and prejudices overtakes the real achievement or failures. In Bangladesh there is general erosion of faith in democracy and state institutions. There lies the hope for liberal democratic revival provided a people oriented human rightist civil society or political party can be fromed form grass root level activists and modest fund to nurse them to grow and develop. When a cruel human catastrophe is nearing the door step either humanity would step aside to give it a free passage or it has to unfurl the standard of its real self and advance with all fury not to just resist but to its total annihilation. Human Rights as is now widely recognized is a pre-condition for development. It not only embraces political decision making process but also administrative and implementation processes at local and national level. It involves further the establishment and enforcement of laws, regulations and a legal framework and institution for the effective functioning of public and private enterprises and initiatives of people as well as civil society. The first component of a development-oriented system of governance is the commitment of the political leadership to development. This commitment can be based on a vision or on a sense of compulsion or urge that unless development is speeded up , the long run legitimacy and sustainability of power and authority will be jeopardized. Political commitment, if it is to succeed in promoting development, requires (i) a broad national consensus on development objectives and the nature of economic system, (ii) that there is enough competence in administrative and implementation capacity in carrying out the development policies and programs. There should be a national

consensus among various sections of the society and political parties that the nature of the desired economic system is a market-friendly and open, and liberal politics and economic system geared to development. It is necessary that the political government actively promotes sufficient debate, dialogue and discussion in various forums, both political and otherwise, to explain and mobilize public support for policies and programs it espouses. In addition to commitment and consensus, competent government is a must for development. Government require a considerable amount of expertise both at political level and administrative and implementation level. While politician need not be technocrats, scientist, engineers, or economists, they must have a understanding of the broad policy issues, their rational and consequences for economy. It is needed that a set of adequately trained political leaders are there in the ministries who are able to communicate and to advise the bureaucracy regarding various policy implementation options and their implications, both in short and long term. However, to ensure a minimum level neutral bureaucracy, not heavily aligned with or dependent on favours of one or the other political parties remain a continuing challenge. Uncertainty discourages productivity and indecision hampers taking challenges. It is not exaggeration that decentralization of decision making and implementation of development activities to the local governments increase the transparency and accountability of administration, promotes a wider popular participation and brings the administrative machineries near to the beneficiaries. This is not being done due to the fear of the reactionary bureaucracy that their power will be greatly curtailed and fear of the political parties in power and in opposition that power of the local governments may go in the opposition’s hands. This fear is negated only in liberal democratic process that says that various political interests and viewpoints can co-exist and live together by negotiations, accommodation and compromise if politicians just give up patronage in projects and financial allocation. Political leaders have yet to show charisma and vision to put the country on the path of stable political and economic progress. The

commitment to democratic principles, i.e. honoring the will of the citizens is lacking. Here political activism, intolerance and mobilizing mob power in the street are not democratic characteristic. Downsizing the government is a must to curtail corruption that takes in Bangladesh, having in contrast with the western countries, an antigrowth characteristic mainly because it is predominately related to rent seeking activities. Democracy should be considered from a three fold point of view: a) as the attitude or sentiment of an individual human being towards himself, b) as the attitude of an individual human being over other human beings, c) as the ensemble of the social and political conditions necessary for the formation and development of the same sentiments in the individual human beings. Democracy cannot be attained as a political fact – as a regim constituting the “power of the many” unless it has first become part and parcel of the individual who is an essential constituent part of the many unless it is firmly imprinted in his “self” or “ego” in the components of his personality, and it exists in society as an ensemble in conventions, customs and traditions. The democratic spirit is not necessarily inherent in any given set of moral and social conditions. It is rather the completion of a culture, the supreme triumph of humanism, that is to say, of a definite evaluation of man appropriate to his individual level of evolution and that of others. But in every process of democratization, the democratic spirit has come to connote certain psychological limit or level, below which prevails the slave mentality, and above is the mentality of the despot. The status of the free man – the citizen of a democracy constitutes a positive assertion midway between those two negations. That is the intrinsic reality, the criterion of any process of democratization. The process of democratization must eliminate these two anti democratic tendencies, one towards servility and the other towards despotism and oppression. But these negatives of the democratic spirit do not disappear spontaneously. The spirit of democracy has to be implanted within the psychology of human beings, with the full assurance that it can create the general social conditions favorable to the maintenance and development of the individual and effectiveness of the democratic spirit. Democratization is not mere handing over of power between two parties, such as the people and the government, but the formation of

sentiments, of emotions, of reflections which go to make up the foundation of a democracy in the consciousness of the people. Where the continuity of such sentiments, customs, conventions of democratic spirit is ensured there can be no despotic regime ever. But where these are absent i.e. the democratic spirit is not infused in the individual, there the superficial character of those constitutional methods which are being adopted from countries with age old democratic traditions by newly independent countries building up a new order, will never succeed. Democracy is thus first established in the consciousness with the new evaluation of himself and others which reveals the sublime importance of human dignity. The granting of political rights and social guarantees is a natural consequence of this. Borrowing and implementing a bit by bit picked up and then joined constitution without reforming the psychological structure will miss the true path to the process of democratization. The psychological infrastructure is the subjective basic of democracy that places a man on the same footing of another man. The characteristics of political democracy give individuals a certain responsibility in the constitution of authority and every guarantee against the abuse of such authority. But the historical experience of political democracy that is prevailing in the world clearly manifests how precarious are the liberties of the individual if at the same time he does not enjoy social guarantees which ensure his material independence. We have seen how, in politically evolved countries, it is actually possible for the “free citizen” to become the obscure “faceless” slave of powerful vested interest and combines, and how, in consequence, he losses all the advantages which were granted to him, in theory, by democracy and constitution, neither of which have played any visible and tangible part in his life. All legislative measures which constitute the social aspect of democracy have produced no visible results in human society. The impelling need to protest to the despotic regime brought severe torture with people all around and the so-called civil society remaining silent. The nature and consequence of protests, if taken

into account, and acted upon after consideration with united democratic spirit, raises humanity to a lofty level. CONTEMPORY experience has shown that it is not enough to have the forms and trappings of democracy in place in the way of free and fair elections. Democracy must play an instrumental role in promoting human rights which in itself also means to the end of raising certain societal goals such as: (i) the eradication of human deprivation (ii) the realization and sustainability of fundamental and human rights. (iii) the security of life and human liberty (iv) the democratization of participation in the process of governance and the market. Regrettably we note that formal democracy in Bangladesh, even in countries where functional democracy has flourished for many years, have not been able to sustain human rights. This has led to the degeneration of democracy and its sustainability compromised. It is evident that democracy cannot be taken for granted and that it has to be nurtured and constantly renewed. The institutions of democracy need to be made more inclusive to ensure the participation of the deprived majority who vote but have little say in the process of governance. It is, thus, arguable that Bangladesh crisis of democracy lies in the shallowness of the roots of our political system. As a consequence of the weak foundations of democracy in Bangladesh, we are witness to a progressive degeneration in the quality of our democratic institutions both as to the nature of the political discourse as well as the operational outcomes of such honored institutions as parliament. It is this exclusionary political process which has contributed to the elevation of apolitical politicians, driven by no public purpose but by their ability to use politics as an instrument of private gain. Such politicians depend less on public esteem than on the resort to money

and muscle, manipulation and mastermind which remains the currency of choice for capturing electoral office. Such a political culture has compromised accountability and hence lack of good governance in a most fundamental way, politically marginalizing the concerns and participation of the deprived majority as also those committed to enhance the integrity of public life. We are thus witness (with a little substitution) to the Gresham’s law of politics where bad politics drives out good politicians. In Bangladesh, the growing cost of elections has made parliament into a rich man’s preserve where the deprived, including women, have little chance of representation and thus remain without voice once they have cast their vote. In such process, force, farce and fraud have become integral to the political process. In such system, policymakers are, with some distinguished exceptions, making themselves accountable not to their citizens but to themselves, through mutually collusive interest with policymakers, bureaucrats and the business sector. What little accountability exists appears to be owed to the international financial institutions and their policy agendas and to the need to propitiate the abstract forces of the global capital market. Without prejudice to the importance of taking congnisance of both these symbols of globalization and the making of policy, the sustainability to democratic institutions needs to originate in the concerns of those who vote for the policymakers. In a truly representative democracy, policymakers need to make themselves accountable to their voters. To build such a representative and accountable policy, a significant segment of the deprived sections of electorate, who constitute the voting majority in Bangladesh; need to be elected to parliament. No process or policy reform or agenda for poverty alleviation can be made credible as well as sustainable if the deprived remain without direct voice in our electoral institutions. Accountable democracy does not limit itself to the machinery of the state. In an increasingly privatized market driven economy, those who operate in the private sector need also to make themselves

accountable to their shareholders, to their depositors, to the communities where they operate, to the workers in their enterprise and to the environment which to be sustained. This concept of corporate responsibility is now an important part of the contemporary discourse on democracy. To establish a system of accountable democracy, to cloak secrecy and obscurity which shelters misgovernance must be lifted. In the process of establishing accountability and demanding transparency, civil society sector has to play an activist role, which goes beyond holding seminars and publishing research paper. Credible and sustainable civic activism is a labor and skill intensive task with a high attendant risk factor. Thus, present vocal reactionary civil society organizations have to be grounded. It is the felt needs of affected and concerned citizens for better governance. A civil society constructed by aid donors and an externally funded livelihood activity can imperiously sustain itself but can never exercise an impact on entrenched vested interests unless they are held accountable and committed to the spread of liberal democracy in Bangladesh. By its nature democracy remains a deeply indigenous process. At the end of the day the voting citizens of Bangladesh have sufficient hunger for better run hospital, school, municipal services effective and equitable and law enforcement, of elimination of corruption in accessing such services, to demand transparency and accountability from both public as well as private providers. The quality of democracy in any society thus depends on the extent to which citizens are willing to assert themselves in demanding better governance. If we treat democracy as a spectator sport then it is the professional politicians who will only play the game and people will witness the end of citizenship, particularly, governance that they deserve. The capacity of citizens, particularly the deprived majority to assert themselves will in no small measure depend on whether they can put in place institutions and polities, which give citizens a direct material stakes in these institutions of democracy. Such a stake would contribute to enhancing the opportunities to these citizens to both

influence policy and enhance their capacity to operate in the market place and ensure sustainable democracy as participatory polity as well as economy. Malfunctioning democracies tend to misgovernance. It may generate into the failed state, whose very cohesion as a national entity can be put into question. Such a prospect is no longer an academic issue in the crisis ridden world today. Those of us from Bangladesh, who are witness to our prevailing crisis of governance, have already seen the consequences of such failures of governance in our own neighborhood. Rather than search for false solution associated with half democracy political culture, which lies at the roots of our crisis of governance, it is a human duty to seek, to build an accountable and sustainable democracy in both the political and economics and human rights sphere. Having dealt with the formal aspect of the issue, let us come to the conflict, so to say the conceptual part of the problem and why indeed we had failed with our Parliament. The parliament is indeed a real-life place where there is no scope for political demagogy. It is neither the place for getting claps nor for pats on the back by hurling abuses at one’s opponent, lest of all form the highest echelons of the political institutions. It goes without saying that these are the most obnoxious deterrents for avoiding the “boycott or walk out” culture in our Parliament. But there are even more substantive reasons contributing towards such unhealthy behavior within the Parliament. First, start with examples of how MPs generally behave inside the Parliament. The thumb rule in a parliamentary democracy is the responsibility of governance that lies with the majority party. Opposition is assigned to establish their accountability in the Parliament and try to help and rectify them if and when the majority party is making obvious mistakes. The simple cure is that the treasury bench would take the signal form a genuine criticism coming from the opposition in case of a real lapse on the governance process and retain their popularity. Obviously the purpose of the present day parliament is to establish the accountability of the government of the day and not of the

opposition. Paradoxically the reality of the parliament has just been the reverse! Here, the treasury bench jumps up on their seats at every simple criticism of the government, taking hold of the microphone for hours in castigating the opposition, trying to establish the opposition’s accountability, who apparently had already been castigated for their role in the past and that is why they are in the opposition now. How strange! Besides in a parliamentary from of government, one rarely observes a situation when a cabinet minister jumps out of his seat in order to refute any comment whatsoever that may have been made in the House on a topic that is not at all the direct concern of that particular Minister in ones wildest dream. The treasury benches job is to play in cool, let the opposition get excited, while the Parliament has seen the highly excited Ministers hurling awful abuses and utter sometimes untruths at the opposition which they can ill afford in a Parliamentary system. On the same account it is obvious that in a parliamentary system bills would be passed by the government although at the same time there is no reasons as to why the government should not ever listen to the amendment to the bills inside the parliament knowing full well that the opposition cannot ever get them through. No wonder, the opposition also most of the times, waste their stipulated in hurling accusations full of lies, on the government. Raising voices to show how active they are in the service of the people, whom they ignored till the last day of their reign. In their exuberance want to have their way in the passages of bills, very well forgetting that they can only criticize, and that also constructively until such time as to when they can get back the mandate from the people to be majority party and pass their own bills. Incidentally, the fact that they are at the mercy of the government, in this particular respect so long they are in the opposition, can claim results to the possibility that if they indeed have done good points in the amendments which had been rejected by the government, the opposition would modulate public opinion against the government thereby reaping benefit for the next general elections. That is the way of democracy and so long they do not seem to appreciate these axioms.

Finally, there is an old English adage, which forbids people living in glass house from throwing stones at others. Pity we hadn’t learnt from this counsel over the centuries. The consequence has been obvious. Men in power and in opposition threw away the spirit of Parliament by sheer arrogance, it is now imperative that people opt for liberal democratic politics that their forefathers have cultivated for ages till the British in collaboration with the active help of the Aryan Vedics occupied this land and subjugated the people, kicked out the functional side of liberal democracy and forced formal democratic culture that robbed the people of all their right, except the right to vote the unscrupulous powerful and the rich to state power.