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From: debray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Political maturity of the masses
Message-ID: <178@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Mar-85 12:37:43 EST
Article-I.D.: sbcs.178
Posted: Sat Mar 16 12:37:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Mar-85 04:45:06 EST
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Organization: Computer Science Dept, SUNY@Stony Brook
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Judging from some of the responses I've seen to my original article, it
seems that I hadn't expressed myself as clearly as I ought to have.  Rather
than go into a line-by-line refutation of a line-by-line refutation of my
article, therefore, I'll simply try to define what I mean by the phrase
"political maturity", and see how this applies to India; I'll then briefly
touch upon (i) the relevance of this to Indian democracy, and (ii) the
relevance of the political maturity of the American voter to that of the
Indian voter.

Assume that in an election, the voter's choice is based on his perception
of the effect, on his well-being, of the electoral victory of the various
candidates.  Then, I take the phrase "political maturity" to be indicative
of the extent to which this perception tallies with reality.

It's a fact that in Indian politics, factors like religion, caste and
language play a very important role (what are the chances, do you think, of
a Bengali MP being elected from Assam?).  One of the responses to my
article tried to defend this by saying that because of the oppression of
the lower castes by the higher, a Harijan might be justified in voting on
the basis of the candidates' caste.  My contention is that whatever the
historical facts might be, broad generalizations such as "SCs will look
after my interests", or "Brahmins will oppress me", are inapplicable to
individuals.  I know -- and I'm sure you do, too -- of enough exceptions,
either way, to make such generalizations meaningless in specific
situations.  Therefore, when a person votes for a candidate because the
candidate belongs to a particular caste, speaks a particular language,
practises a particular religion, or prefers spaghetti to lasagna, rather
than his attitudes, stands on specific issues of concern to the electorate
and capacity to better their quality of life, he makes a choice based on
perceptions that may not accurately reflect reality.  For this reason, I
feel that the Indian voter is politically immature.

I've been complaining about how film stars have been getting elected, and
how that might be indicative of political immaturity.  Here again, I feel,
votes are given on the basis of the actor's screen personality, which,
however wonderful, may not be reflective of reality.  I feel, rather, that
politicians should have to work their way up, demonstrating competence and
the ability to deliver at lower levels (district, state) before being sent
up to the national arena. 

A couple of postings have pointed out that India is a democracy.  Since I
haven't seen anyone disagree with this, mentioning it again and again seems
redundant.  Note that "democracy" simply refers to the ability of the
people to choose who should govern them; it makes no mention of whether
the people so chosen are well suited to the task, which is what "political
maturity" refers to.  Ravi says that by criticizing the maturity of our
voters, "we laugh at ourselves, and call the voting population idiots!".  I
respectfully submit that this criticism is in no way meant to demean or
ridicule; rather, it is meant as an attempt to pinpoint weaknesses that
we can then try to set about rectifying.

Finally, let me touch upon the relevance of the political maturity of the
American voter to that of his Indian counterpart (Kulbir has already done a
good job here, so I'll keep it brief).  If we accept my definition of
political maturity above, then it seems obvious that whether or not the
American voter has an accurate perception of political reality is not
related in any way to whether or not the Indian voter has such a
perception.  For this reason, I'm going to dismiss responses of the form,
"Gee, look at these silly Americans, they've elected this deaf old retired
actor as their president", as irrelevant.  Such responses can, at best,
conclude that "the Indian voter is as mature as the American voter" -- but
since the question of relative maturity doesn't concern me, I see no reason
to address it here.
-- 
Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook

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