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From: rajeev@sftri.UUCP (S.Rajeev)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Political maturity of the masses
Message-ID: <380@sftri.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 18:36:51 EST
Article-I.D.: sftri.380
Posted: Fri Mar 15 18:36:51 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 00:00:21 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit N.J.
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> > Does it occur to you that every one of your arguments applies equally well
> > to this country and Reagan?
> 
> Rather irrelevant, isn't it?  I was talking about India.
> 
I think you're not addressing the issue here: either you can talk about
democracy in a relative sense by comparing the US version and the Indian
(assuming familiarity with both); or you can discuss democracy in the abstract.
If you're doing the latter, you've come up against a fact of life: the world
is not perfect. A perfect democracy will only work in a situation where all 
voters are perfect, unbiased, aware, fair, thoughtful, etc. But there is not
one society in the world where this is true; in fact it is probably impossible
for humans to be ideal democrats. So if you can sway the masses, you win elections.
The conclusion might then be, as I've read somewhere, "Democracy is too important
to be left to the people" :-)

> shady doings with nary a spot on the escutcheon.  It's only in extreme
> circumstances, as with Mrs. G in 1977, that the image tarnishes, and even
> then often only temporarily.  This leads to a false perception of reality,

The reason why Mrs. Gandhi came back to power is interesting: you had asserted
previously that she lost in '77 because of compulsory sterilization. Why did
the Janata party lose so badly so soon after? They werent sterilizing anybody.
I think the reason they lost is that they were obvious incompetents.
And if the people can make value judgements like that, I think they have a
degree of political savvy. Might not be up to the standards of the well-educated,
but adequate nonetheless.

By the way, the average Indian voter's illiteracy does not disadvantage him much.
How many average US voters do you know who get their political opinions by reading
and not by watching slickly produced television commercials?
-- 
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Sri Rajeev, SF 1-342, Bell Labs, Summit, NJ 07901. (201)-522-6330.