Democracy in India

Democracy in India has deep roots. It is in its civilization. Those who are not aware of or do not have a feel of India's civilizational traditions and heritage wonder at the success of democracy in India. The fact is simple; when India gained independence, all the factors which the Westerners regarded as compulsory for democracy to grow and flourish were missing. It happened despite everything and India remained a democracy, particularly in a global scenario where even today nearly half of the world's countries have yet to gain the dignity of being meaningfully democracies. There is no other factor than its civilization, which places India in this extraordinary and exceptional position.

However, this is not to say that the Indic civilization underwent a sudden transformation to democracy on its strength alone. The process was seeded during the colonial rule itself and other factors came into play supporting and catalysing the makeover.

Two factors which supported the process were the rise of the middle class and later the growth of Indigenous industrial capitalism in the early twentieth century.

It is the combination of these two factors, which made India survive the collectivist experimentation for nearly four decades.

Now, India is in the process of recovery; though the intellectual scape is still to be cleaned of the collectivistic pathogens.

Let my country awake.

Niraj Kumar Jha