The election of the Black American, Barack Obama, on 4th Nov 2008 to the highest office of the President of the USA, has come as a startling and a welcome surprise to all of us. We have drowned ourselves in legitimate euphoria about this incredible event that has stormed the Americans themselves into a happy stupor. No doubt, till a few months ago, a Black man occupying the Oval office would have seemed to us unthinkable at least during the next three or four decades.
But the unthinkable has already happened and history has taken the strangest turn in the USA. This should not however lead to undue praise of American democracy by us and inordinate criticism of Indian democracy by comparison. There have been a few articles here asking us as to why Indian democracy could not be like America's. There is even a denigration of our own system. In my view, such judgment is hasty, superficial and wrong, and could not have been born but for the euphoria generated by Obama's win. Let us not go overboard and say that theUS democracy is better than ours.
While a long essay could be composed here, I shall handle the subject very concisely for the sake of space and readers' patience.
India established democracy nearly 3000 years ago. It is sometimes wrongly taken that we became democratic only from 15 Aug 1947. No doubt, India was largely ruled by kings and dynasties. We know of the dynastic rules by Mauryas, Sungas, Kushans, Guptas, Harshas, the slave Muslim dynasties, the Moghuls etc. But this does not erase the fact that independent republican self-governing communities have co-existed in India. That such republican communities existed has been acknowledged by experts and historians. The sources they drew from are: (1) Buddhist Pali Canon and Jatakas in BC times, expertly interpreted by T.W.Rhys Davids (2) Accounts of Megasthenes, Greek Ambassador to the Court of Chandragupta Maurya (3) Arrian’s work “Anabasis of Alexander” which is an eye-witness account of the Greek’s Indian adventure (4) Grammarian Panini’s accounts of ‘Janapadas’ (self-ruling communities) . Historian K.P. Jayaswal’s book “Hindu Polity” is acknowledged to be a brilliant work that encompasses democratic/republican elements in the Hindu polity from ancient times.
So, how can you compare American democracy in one breath with Indian democratic ideals and practices which are very ancient? Independent America itself is a baby of a nation, in international polity. It was born only on 4th July 1776, just 232 years back! It adopted a Constitution only in 1787. The present USA as we know it took slow birth in the 19th century primarily through the massacres of the Indian Tribes, and the conquests through wars and bloodbaths followed by treaties by which territories were acquired from the UK, France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia. (For example, territories such as California, Texas, New Mexico etc were taken over from Mexico after America fought bloody wars with Mexico in 1846-48.) Thus the new USA was born on account of barbaric wars and annexations and genocide too. (Compare this with the integration of more than 550 Principalities/Rajadoms on a largely peaceful basis when India got Independence).
And let us not forget the Civil Wars in 1860s in the USA (just about 150 years back) where the North and the South fought absolutely bloody wars on the issue of slavery!! At that time, the slave population in the eleven Southern Confederacy States was a whopping 4 million out of the total population of 9 million! The “barbaricity” (my word, not in the dictionary, which has “barbarism”) of the Civil War (1860-1865) can be gauged by the fact that nearly 6,20,000 Americans died in the Civil War! And now the Americans talk about human rights, and where were they just 150 years back?
Let us not go overboard about the American democratic and Human Rights track record. Here is a summary of the inhuman and cruel practice of slavery by the white Americans when dogs and horses were better treated than the “Negro” slaves. (Negro in Spanish means black, and strangely the Whites have absolved themselves for their crimes by calling them now “blacks” which is worse according to me).
Slavery trade began in 1619 when the first Africans in bondage were shipped to the American Colony. (The British were as bloody at this). Slavery thrived till the Civil War (1860-65) although the “importation of slaves” was abolished in 1808 by law. Yet, nearly 54000 slaves were illegally brought to the USA between 1808 and 1865! At the end of the Civil War, in 1865, slavery was abolished in the US by the 13th Amendment. Yet, the blacks were horribly segregated and were not even second-class citizens. The Blacks had to have separate schools, separate buses etc. The Rosa Parks episode is not very old, and it happened on 1st Dec 1955 atMontgomery, Alabama, many years after we ourselves became a great Republic(1950)! Is that not a shame?
And the USA had a poll tax and if any citizen did not pay it, he had no right to vote in a Federal election! Thus the Blacks were indirectly prevented from voting! Can you conceive of a more sinister White man’s policy of excluding the Blacks? It was only in 1964 that by the 24thAmendment, it was made illegal to deny a citizen the right to vote in a federal election for failure to pay a toll tax!
So, do you still believe that our democracy is worse than the US democracy?
Now, let us consider the occupants of top posts in the two countries. The Black Americans account for 13 percent of US population. Their man Obama just became a President elect.Muslims in India also form 13 percent of Indian population. And look at the fact that we have already had Muslim Presidents such as Zakir Hussain and Abdul Kalam. We had a Dalit President in K.R.Narayan. We have a lady Presideny of India now. In India, real power is with the Prime Minister. Here too we have had a lady Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. And although the Sikhs are less than 2 percent of the Indian population, we have a Sikh Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh. So, who could say that our democracy is inferior to America’s?
No doubt, Indian politics over the last three decades have become vastly caste-based and region-based. Our caste system was based on division of labour and socio-economic organization in a society. Every country has class-systems and even today many countries like the UK are even more feudal in many ways with their monarchies, Lords and Peers or whatever. We have made a huge mountain of the caste-system. How many caste wars with arms and ammunitions have we witnessed in India’s history? (Just compare with the Civil War in the USA). No doubt, untouchability was a horrific practice but does that come anywhere near the brutal slavery in the USA? How many untouchables have we hanged by the rope –zilch indeed – compared to the women branded as witches and hanged in the USA? We are still a newly Independent nation and luckily caste-practices have been fast vanishing from our milieu.
So, let us not again go overboard and cry from roof-tops that American democracy is better than ours. It had never been based on real equality. Indian traditions over millennia of tolerance and goodwill towards foreigners and minorities should not be forgotten due to the glitter of theUS celebrations we have just witnessed at Obama’s election
