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From: ravi@crystal.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Political maturity of the masses
Message-ID: <420@crystal.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Mar-85 14:04:10 EST
Article-I.D.: crystal.420
Posted: Thu Mar 14 14:04:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 01:36:39 EST
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Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
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> >> [My article claiming that the Indian populace is not very mature
>     politically, despite what is claimed.]
> > 
> > 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.


No it is not.  It makes the point that what may be perceived as a fault in 
the Indian system (and often presented as such), is really more or less a 
property of the system we call "democracy".  When people are given the right 
to freedom, they will tend to do as they please.  To ensure that people's
rights are not infringed either by the government or by anti-social elements 
not only presents hard ethical/moral questions, it is also requires tremendous
resources.  (Just compare the equipment of the average American police to 
that of the Indian police, or the resources spent here on the legal system to 
that spent back home.)  A lot of the problems back home arise from lack of
resources, not out of faults with the system or the electorate.  It is unfair
to sneer at the problems in India's democracy; one is also invariably sneering
at India's poverty.

> One big gripe I have about the Indian voter is his tendency to deify
> leaders.  That happened with Indira Gandhi and MGR, and may very well have
> been a factor in the landslide victories of screen personalities like
> Amitabh Bachchan and Vyjayantimala (don't tell me about Reagan, he was
> governor of California for a long time before he came to Washington DC.
> What was Vyjanantimala doing before being elected to parliament - putting
> makeup on before a shooting session?!).  The problem here is that since
> gods are by definition benevolent, these people can get away with a lot of
> 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,
> which to me doesn't smack of political maturity at all.
> -- 
> Saumya Debray
> SUNY at Stony Brook


Reagan wasn't born governor of California; he was a B-grade actor who was
elected to political office at some point.  The point, again, is surely not 
engage in a discussion of which system is "better" (I think we have agreed
that all systems have their faults, and that American democracy is no "better"
than any other, including our own).  Every population that is given the 
privelege of a free ballot can be both inspired as well as asinine.

The issue under discussion is our attitude.  Americans take a more positive
attitude:  When a B-grade actor attains the highest political office in the 
land, they see a renewal of the promise of opportunity, that anyone may 
acheive anything here.  (They call it the fulfilment of the American Dream.)
Why do we take a different attitude?  We laugh at ourselves, and call the 
voting population idiots!

Also, the "vitality" of a democracy must be judged not by whether the choice 
of the electorate meets our criteria; it must be judged by the extent and 
vigour of the electorate's involvement with the democratic process.  By this 
criterion, I submit that our democracy has far more "vitality" than the 
democracy here does!