No society has been able to abolish human sadness; no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition ,not vice versa -Eugene Lonesco From the starting of human civilization ,society is being ruled by some or the other form of political system. There are various form of political system such as AUTOCRACY, COMMUNISM, ONSERVATISM, DEMOCRACY, IMPERIALISM, MONARCHY, FASICM and many more. In modern world most of the countries follow democratic system but still there are countries that follows communism, monarchy, military junta form of governments. Democracy is the most popular political system followed by the various nations throughout the world. Basically there are two major modes of democracy.
1. Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.
2. Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government. In India we follow the second system .Our country is the Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government. It is the largest democracy in the world.
Democracy is the government by the people it means people choose their representatives by exercising their right to vote in the parliament. But are we really living in democracy? There are various equations to this question. Some say it is running well and some are with the view that though it is a democracy but it’s a privilege of few. Our nation is divided into 28 states and 7 union territories with each state having its different culture and language .People of different religion, castes and creed are residing in this great nation which makes it really diverse.
But then also there is unity in diversity among us. But sometimes in democracy when the power is in the hands of wrong people it functions exactly likes despotism. According to Indian constitution we have several fundamental rights such as right to equality, right to freedom, right to freedom from exploitation, right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, right to constitutional remedies .Though all these rights are for each and every Indian citizen still every Indian cannot exercise these rights properly. If each Indian citizen is fortunate enough to exercise his rights properly India can become a perfect democracy. The reason behind this irony is the corruption, nepotism, regionalism, poverty, illiteracy ,casteism .
In this great nation sometimes law changes according to the position of an individual; for rich its different and for poor its different and unfortunately this practice has become a part of the system. As we all know that there are three pillars of democracy in our country which are executive, polity, judiciary and some people consider press as the fourth one. But unfortunately every one of them failed in their assigned duty. Let’s study each of them one by one. To start with executive which is the weakest of them it is headed by the president who exercise his or her power through the officers subordinate to him or her. According to the study of political science executive branch of government is that part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the daily bureaucracy .Unfortunately each and every government department functioning in our country is corrupt to the core. Because of which common man has to suffer a lot. let’s take the example of police department many people have even died due to police atrocities for instance ruche girhotra case which involves the molestation of 14- year-old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990 by the Inspector General of Police shambu pratap singh rathore in chandigarh .
After she made a complaint, the victim, her family, and her friends were systematically harassed by the police leading to her eventual suicide .Fake cases of theft and murder were filed against ruchika's father and her brother. Even the school authorities were instructed to expel ruchika, Because of the continuous harassment by one of the department of our executive estate which is responsible for the safety and security of citizens a 14 year old small girl committed suicide. Such kind of democracy we lives in where the rich and powerful can do anything they wish. Now let’s discuss the second pillar of democracy which is polity. Due to the diversity based on region, religion, caste, and language various political parties have formed, who just for their political gains creates a divide between the people belonging to same nation.
Political system of this country have become so corrupt that just to be in power parties and candidates make full use of money and muscle because of which corrupt candidates wins and instead of working for the development of nation they work for their personal gains. Criminalization of politics has gone to such an extent in this democratic system that each and every political party has candidates who have criminal records. Though election commission came up with newer and stricter reforms then also it’s not possible to stop participation of criminals into Indian political system. There are many criminals like mukhtar ansari,paapu yadav ,munna shukla and a never ending list of such kind of criminals who are still very active in politics .
Also there are some regional parties who on the name of language and region creating an atmosphere of hatred within our own countrymen just to achieve their political motives. Though we say that India is showing a strong development in terms of economy but still 70% of Indian population lives in rural areas who are still deprived of basic amenities .Government has launched various schemes under its flag ship programme such as sarv shiksha abhiyan, nrega, bharat nirman, central rural sanitation programme but unfortunately except sarv shiksha abhiyan none of them is implemented properly. In these schemes funds are straight away transferred from central government to panchayat level but due to the corruption at panchayat level these schemes are not getting implemented.
Again corruption comes into role and over here also corruption is done by the panchayat officials elected by the people. It’s great that women get 33% reservation in gram panchayat ( village assembly) and municipal elections but still there are lot of cases in which the woman who got elected as the head of gram panchayat(village assembly) is sitting at home and his husband is actually playing the role of village head on her behalf. Definitely with such kind of public representatives any democracy can be endangered. The third pillar of democracy is judiciary which is said to be independent and impartial .Infact it is the only pillar of democracy in which people still have faith.
But then also it is always been criticize of its delayed judgment .Justice delivery system is expensive as well as time consuming infact there are around 250 million cases pending in various courts of India. To get justice fast some litigants gets involve in corrupt practices. In past couple of years corruption charges against some judges have been reported like the Sumit Mukherjee scandal of the Delhi High Court; the club scandal of the Punjab High Court; and most recent case of justice dinakaran of Karnataka.It means judiciary is not maintaining it status with responsibility and dignity. A widely known fact about judiciary is that it suffers from lack of freedom, poor infrastructure, and shortage of judges and unfortunately the government is not supporting the process of empowerment of judiciary. Basically judiciary is been neglected by both executive and polity they want to keep it weak so that they can manipulate it when required.
There are cases when rich people have influenced the decision of court by money or power.Inspite of all this still many steps are being taken for judicial reforms for eg a judge has to declare his or assets and liabilities before taking any new appointment, fast track courts etc .Anyways the corruption level in judiciary is less then executive and legislative and that is why people still have faith in it. Finally let’s take in to account the Press which is considered by many as the fourth pillar of democracy. Press has a very important role to play in democracy .
It help us to know about the truth of events at national as well as international level. Press makes u aware about social, political, economical activities happening around the world. It has become life line of the nation. The press also exposes loopholes in the democratic system. It is the press only who reminds politicians about their unfulfilled promises at the time of elections. But with the advent of electronic media things have changed a lot, now every news channel's primary concern is increasing TRP rating. These channels sounds more like an entertainment channel then a news channel.
They sensationalized each n every news just to increase their viewership .The media instead of being a vehicle for advancing freedom and democracy started becoming more and more a means of making money and propaganda for the new and powerful classes. Money is ruling over morals and profit motive has made the media forget its social responsibilities. Media is no more interested in creating awareness in people about social causes or revolutionizing the society instead of this it is interested in increasing viewers by offering them entertainment ,education, knowledge and information. Because of the corruption in all the estates of democracy .it is really difficult for a democracy to survive. Inspire of being known as the largest democracy in the world because of the conditions mentioned above we are acting as a failed democracy. If we have to save it then we have eradicate this system of corruption from our democratic country.
