Democracy or bust!

One ‘Americanism’ that this blessed nation has stuck to like glue through thick and thin has been the dictum: ‘democracy or bust’. Makes one wonder why! Given the recent events, the ‘lovers of democracy’ are all floundering around much like a bunch of headless chickens. No wonder! Come to think of it, for this privileged class much more than the future of democracy is at stake.

We, in the Land of the Pure, are known for making mountains out of molehills. Give us a ‘cause’ and we are bound to blow it up to unrecognisable girths.

Democracy is one such ‘cause’. Switch on the TV and you will confront a pundit singing the praises of ‘democracy’. One side of the political spectrum has progressed from calling democracy ‘the best revenge’ to democracy being the be-all and end-all of every worthy cause.

The other extreme, political chasm notwithstanding, constantly talk of ‘not derailing the system’. Caught in the middle of this pincer-like situation is the proverbial man in the street who continues to look askance at all forms of government. His principle concern, i.e. to keep body and soul together, is yet to be addressed by the powers that be.

Democracy is today a big thing — a thing to cherish and to propagate. We have arrived at an impasse where democracy is being equated with not just good governance but even the state per se.

What is, or at least should be, a means to an end is being erroneously touted as an end in itself. It is a different matter altogether what democracy of the brand being peddled around brings in its wake. Examples abound. Take former US president George W Bush’s resolve to ram democracy down the throats of reluctant Iraqis.

Our own horde of ‘liberal intellectuals’ has been weaned on Western propaganda. ‘Democracy’, by that token, is bound to figure among the de rigueur words in their lexicon. In their estimation, any person wishing to be counted among those fit to be counted must needs be an admirer of the Western type of democracy.

What is the common man to make of democracy, then? It would be pointless to go to the good old dictionary for a definition, since that would be banal in the extreme. Everyone knows how the dictionary would define it: something akin to Lincoln’s well-known description of it as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

Defining is the easy part; transplanting the definition on to the field — and a field as slippery as that of the Land of the Pure — is something else.

Perhaps the most apt definition came from the pen of philosopher-poet Muhammad Iqbal who defined democracy as a form of government based on the premise that “people are to be counted, rather than appraised.”

The detractors often deride democracy as ‘tyranny of the majority’. Yet it can also happen that a veritable minority can actually triumph in a democratic dispensation. The Westminster type of democracy — so dear to our liberals — has peculiarities all its own. The ‘first-past-the-post’ British concept is, at best, deeply flawed.

If one does one’s sums diligently, it would not be far to seek that this system almost never ensures that the winning party would be the one that polled the most votes.

As a matter of fact, it often happens for a party winning an overwhelming majority of the popular vote to end up with a minority of members in parliament! These deviations are enough to shake the purist’s faith in democratic institutions, such as they are.

Come to think of it, what really matters in the long run is how well a people are governed. It is governance and the welfare of the common man that deserve top billing, rather than merely the form of government. Good governance rather than the mode of governance, then, is what is — or at least should be — the ultimate touchstone.

As for the situation in this blessed land, developments, hopefully, can only be for the better. For a society at rock bottom, it can be argued, the only direction to go is up! Or is that being unduly optimistic?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2019.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.