The Juggernaut of Democracy

The temple car festival in the Indian town of Puri (Odisha state) is said to have so stunned the foreign travellers like Franciscan Monk Odoric of Pordenone in the 13th century that Europe came to accept the term "Juggernaut" as meaning something so immense, so powerful and overwhelming. From HG Wells to so many writers used the term juggernaut to describe events and feelings of people in their works. The term has come to part of a few thousand Hindustani words that have been incorporated into English dictionaries. 

If a mere temple car of wood, few hundred tons in weight, invokes such awe and wonder, elections in the coming days in India that involves the biggest exercise in democracy anywhere in the world should actually be stupefying. How the world takes India may be a question for debate, but how India takes this mammoth exercise is a wonder beyond anything that ancient, medieval or modern history has ever witnessed. Take some statistics to understand this wonder:

1. Elections will be held for 543 constituencies in 07 phases between 11 April to 19 May 2019 across India. Indian Parliament has 543 representatives of people from across all communities and minorities including marginalized sections called Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes.

2. A total of 1,841 political parties will contest in the general election 2019. More than 8000 candidates are being fielded by these parties.

3. As estimated by a leading center for media studies, the elections will cost INR 500 bn (USD 75 mn) 

4. 90,00,000,000 voters are expected vote. This is 9,00,000,000 (10% increase approx) more than the last general election in 2014.

5. In the last general election in 2014, 6600000000 people voted. Statistically speaking, it is about 81 percent. If we take that as a trend, 7200000000 people will vote today. Nearly a sixth of these voters are first time voters. Approximately two-thirds of the voters are around 35 years of age.  

5. Election Commission of India will set up 10,35,918 Polling Stations in the country. This itself perhaps is a world record. If China does not turn to electoral democracy, such records set by India can never be broken by any other country.

6. 11,00,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are slated to be used in these polling stations.

7. Even transgenders are registered as voters. Approximately 39000 are registered.

The 17th General Election in a span of nearly eight decades of the independent history of the country speaks volumes about the strong foundations that the makers of India Constitution sowed in 1950. It also reflects the strong ethos that are ingrained in the Indian psyche, literate or illiterate by common standards of the world. It is a belief that transcends the normal, reflecting the  innate ecclesiastic character of India.

The Juggernaut will roll in the phases that it is scheduled. Yet again, it will decide the course this great democracy will take in the next five years. The course that it takes will not only affect the dreams of its billions of citizens; it will also affect the destinies of South Asia in an era when dominance over South Asian waters is vigorously sought by neighbors with not so democratic a credential that this Juggernaut can flaunt.

  

Symbolism and National Culture

On the 26th of every year, the Raj Path in Delhi comes ablaze with the crunch of military boots and the clank of armoured vehicles. Columns after columns of soldiers in their finest dress uniforms march past the President of India who solemnly returns their salutes. Braving the biting cold and early morning fog, thousands of people from Delhi and all over the country line up the Raj Path and the road leading to Red Fort, waving flags and chanting 'Bharat Maata ki Jai'. 

As has been the tradition from 1950, the Prime Minister of India pays solemn homage to the martyrs of the Armed forces, symbolically to the entire serving personnel in uniform, at the India Gate memorial. Then the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, the President of India, takes the salute of the serving, retired veterans from all shades of uniform as they march past the saluting dais. What follows are contingents of cultural troupes and tableau that represent the unity of diverse Indian culture. As I watch the panorama unfold every year, a question comes to the mind – why is that the prime Minister pays homage at India Gate, whereas the President takes the salute? And, some simple answers strike the mind.

The Prime Minister, as the executive head of government is the one who will commit the Armed forces into action in war, for war is a political decision. Those millions of men will fix bayonet and pounce on the enemy, defending the territorial integrity and sovereign principles of this country at his command. The sacrifices that they make are the price that he will pay to safeguard the political unity of India as a country. Hence, it is only proper that he recognizes their sacrifice as vital to the safeguarding of the edifice that is India by paying homage at India Gate.

The President, even though designated as the Supreme Commander, is the sovereign head of state. Like the monarchs of yore, he presides over all institutions of statehood – the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. It is in his name that acts are passed; executive decisions are conveyed and judicial pronouncements are upheld. The Armed Forces represent the power of the sovereignty of which the President is the face. That is why he presides over the parade as well as the cultural representation of the country.

The RD parade is not just a parade that displays India’s military might. It is not an occasion that merely represents India rises in the world as a sovereign democratic republic. It is a showcase of the fundamental principle that the founding fathers of this nation held as most dear to them – unity in diversity. A nation of thirty three million gods including the gods that humanity ever invented elsewhere; a nation that speaks 22 languages and over 1600 dialects; and a nation that celebrates the unity of its spirit in its abundant diversity. India - the enigma, the puzzle, the beauty, the indescribable.

The great saint of our times, whose 150^th centenary that we observed last year, Swami Vivekanada, said that it is in its indomitable faith of the spirit that India is actually one. The gods are merely representational. John McLeod, in his Beginning: Postcolonialism, says “Nations are not like trees and plants: they are not a naturally occurring phenomenon”. And, Eric Hobsbawm argued that, ‘the nation depends upon the invention of national traditions which are made manifest through the repetition of specific symbols or icons. The performance of national traditions keeps in place an important sense of continuity between the nations present and past, and helps concoct the unique sense of the shared history and common origins of its people. Nations often traffic in highly revered symbols that help forge a sense of its particular, idiosyncratic identity in which the nation’s people emotionally invest”.

It is important that, unlike the Delhi CM Arvind Kejiriwal who called it as a showcase of VIP culture, we understand that the RD Parade is an occasion when the cultural unity of India is strengthened. Such displays help the people of India bond with the idea of the nation that we are and reinforce the idea of an India that is strong and rising. In fact, aside Delhi, Tamil Nadu is one state that observes the day in the true spirit of the Republic representing the best that is in the traditions of Tamils as well as the country. We must continue to have these symbolism, while parallelly building through education and practice, strong character and respect for multicultural representation in our public and private life, if we are to make India the super power that we all dream of.