Political Empowerment: Promises & Predicament

Political Empowerment: Promises & Predicament

Introduction:

" A nation is empowered by its people. A people are empowered by their capabilities. People's capabilities are created by investments in their education, well-being and skills and providing them with opportunities for gainful productive employment. People are also empowered by the freedom they enjoy. A free press is an important element of our empowerment.

In the world, in which we live today, no country can feel empowered unless all its citizens feel empowered. When a child, a woman, a person belonging to a weaker section or a minority community or group of any kind feels disempowered we all lose something in us. "Ð'- Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, India.

Historical Perspective:

When India emerged as a nation state in 1947, the founding fathers adopted for this new nation a system of governance, known as Parliamentary Democracy. Democracy in itself is neither new nor alien to the Indian ethos, because under the tutelage of its successive monarchs before its nationhood, a certain kind of democratic functioning did exist in some of its institutions. A study of ancient Indian history reveals the existence of institutions like the Sabha and the Samiti where the participation and opinion of people were sought for effective administrative functioning.

Hence democracy and its inherent participatory character enabling thereby the empowerment of the common man were in the minds of those who were to shape India's Ð''tryst with destiny'. Democracy has been variedly interpreted by both its defendants and its detractors and the one oft Ð'-quoted is of it being "a government of the people, by the people and for the people'. This definition attributed to the 16th President of USA, Abraham Lincoln, has been the bottom line of arguments in favour of democracy. To be fair to the thesis, Ð''a government of the people' and Ð''by the people' ought to naturally be in favour Ð''of the people' and therefore democracy by itself is a guarantee of political empowerment. A system of governance, which owes allegiance to none and seeks justice for all is indeed supposed to be the fairest of the fair.

Therefore with the knowledge bestowed by hindsight, the drafters of the Indian Constitution incorporated the six Fundamental Rights, which offers to all citizens irrespective of sex, caste, creed, individually, and collectively those basic freedoms that alone make democracy meaningful. These rights are an integral part of the Constitution and hence cannot be altered or taken by ordinary legislation. These rights are fundamental in the sense that any law passed by any legislature in the country would be declared as null and void if it is derogatory to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These basic Rights empower the people to seek redressal of justice if it were denied to them.

The primary organ of the government, which is to act, as vanguard of the democracy that empowers people is the Parliament. This is the place where laws are made keeping in mind the well-being of the citizens of the country. The lower house of the Parliament or the Lok Sabha has as its members elected representatives of the people who are to represent the common mass which has elected them.

In order to ensure that the rights of the common man are protected the founding fathers also set up a system of judiciary, which would be independent of the two other organs of the government, the legislative and the executive. The independence of the judiciary goes a long way in the establishing a sense of justice, which would offer succour to all but succumb to none. Many a common man has knocked at the doors of the judiciary seeking redressal of grievances.

It was also decided that since effective administration is at the heart of good governance, an effort be made at decentralisation of administration.

Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation had said Ð''India lives in the villages', and it is with an aim to develop rural India that Pannchyati Raj has come about. It is a system of local self government administered by a council or Ð''Panchayat' duly elected in a democratic manner .The Panchayati Raj system is bestsuited for developmental and administrative need of India's rural masses because of the vastness of the country and enormity of local problems . It is an inexpensive form of local government that can identify and address the local issues in an expeditious manner. The panchayats provide a forum where local people can meet and chalk out programmes to address their need. Thus existence of Panchayati Raj enables the country to make democracy more meaningful and political empowerment a reality.

Today: Are we empowered ?

Fifty eight years of experience with Parliamentary democracy poses a number of overwhelming questions. The failure of democracies especially in the newly emerged states in Asia and Africa in the 1950s and in recent times has also led one to grow skeptical of this form of governance. More over in recent years the changing world equations have led some to wonder about the fate of a nation, which still is battling problems of over population, unemployment and poverty. In the worlds largest democracy a substantial percentage of the population is de facto disenfranchised. In fact the political instability and sectarian continue to threaten the very core of the country. This can be partly due to the persistence of caste system-a form of discrimination. A Ð''systemic drag' is produced by the persisting structures of social and economic inequality.

The bench mark of parliamentary democracy is its participatory character which is guaranteed by the exercising of Universal Adult Franchise. Democratic politics has an extraordinary autonomy: to activate, institute, or mask various kinds of social cleavages. As they insist, it also has a special responsibility to be the vehicle for social transformation, to reinvent the national community in terms that are inclusive, open and fair. How ever sound the method may seem, for a country steeped in large scale ignorance and illiteracy, the method of electing people's representatives remains a grey area. Money and muscle power is often used in elections and the voter at times faces the Hobson's choice.

The question, which skeptics most ask, is whether the promises made regarding the political empowerment of people like the youth and