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Recently, we had a situation where four judges of the Supreme Court held
the press conference saying democracy is in danger. Their own institution is not
running well. And a few years ago, there was a lawyer who made a statement
in the court saying that he had evidence that 10 of the last 20 Supreme Court
chief justices were corrupt.
So, there is this concern about legitimacy, right? People need to feel that
democracy is living up to its ideals, or if there is corruption, if each institution is
being inching away by people behaving in a maniac counter to the theory, then
you start to see a decline. You start to see in some parts of India, people
taking to guns and violence saying we want no part of this. So, democracy is
something that you have to keep nurturing as you go along.
And unfortunately, we do have tendencies for political parties who turn to
emotive issues like religion and identity in their political mobilization, which can
actually hurt, which can give electoral evidence, which will hurt the ability of
minorities and others to feel that they have a stake and they are included in
the overall system. So, there’re many, many such challenges as we go forward.
But, one of the biggest that I see right now, in front of us, I wanted to say
this right up front. One of the other things that has made the democracy work
very well is that the armed forces have been under strict civilian control. I’m
just making that statement, and leaving it there. But the basic point is that
there are lessons from that as well. In India, today we are up against to three
interesting developments.
One was eluded by the Professor from England as well, which is the new
ways in which information is being shared, social media. And, this is amazing
empowering and democratizing technologies, but they’ve turned out to be
technologies that can allow for manipulation, but even more, they’ve been
allowing for fake news and the spread of rumors, and all kinds of divisive
rhetoric which is not helpful. In India this has led to random lynching. There
was a stranger in the village and someone receives a WhatsApp message
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saying there’s child kidnapper in town, then people just gather together and kill
that person saying this guy comes to kidnap our children. Random people are
killed like that.
Let me come closer to the end. And the other real challenge of course, is
that we are seeing in India and elsewhere, in many parts of the democratic
world also. The rise of populist leaders who appeal to sentiments which are not
necessarily inclusive or democratic, and who’re quite authoritarian in their styles
of operation. This is something that as a matter of great concern, going
forward, because the other side of democracy is that a lot of participants in
democratic processes are careless. After a point they say, well, look it doesn’t
