Can Democracy Be Moral?

By William Gairdner

The most fundmental principle of direct popular democracy is that even if the will of the people runs dead against a Member of Parliament’s personal conscience, he or she must express that will.

Such logic compels us to ask: So why not just pick a rep out of the phone book? For that matter, why pick anyone? Why don't the people just send a letter to a vote-counting parliamentary computer by overnight courier? The answer leads straight to a conflict between two irreconcilable views of truth under democracy.

For A Leader, Truth Is Permanent

Politicians who consider themselves leaders, rather than delegates, will take the classical conservative view, as outlined from ancients such as Plato to moderns such as T.S.Eliot. As distinct from their modern finger-in-the-wind counterparts, such conservatives believe that the greatest moral truths of life are absolute, permanent, and unchanging. There are enduring values that must be discovered through reflection and experience, and relied upon by wise leaders. Once discovered, and only then, the proper political and moral judgements can be made, unaffected by how many might vote this way, or that, on Monday or Tuesday. Moral truth, in other words, like 2+2=4, cannot be altered by voting.

For a Delegate, Truth Is A Matter of Popularity

The delegate, however, unlike the leader, sees himself as empowered to express the will of the people, which he equates with what is desirable, with the good. Soon, pleasing the masses at every opportunity by removing all restraints on their will becomes the highest priority (and - not incidentally - the reaping of a corresponding popularity). Technical methods such as electronic town halls facilitate such direct expressions of mass desire.

The key to understanding the role of the modern secular-liberal delegate, is his underlying assumption that there is no such thing as immutable truth - and probably should not be. For only if truth is relative can society be engineered toward perfection by way of continously updated "progressive" policies. That is why, instead of weighing values, the liberal prefers to count them. Unfortunately, this essentially democratic process - equating the good with sheer numbers - is the dark side of democracy, for it opens the door to democratic tyrants.

That's why Eliot said in 1934 that "the forces of deterioration are a large crawling mass, and the forces of development are half a dozen men." This was just before a large crawling mass of utopian collectivists marched over a darkened, and soon bloodied Europe. They had been directly and enthusiastically voted into power by well-educated, democratic majorities. Hitler fiercely defended his national socialism as "the truest democracy" (Berlin, January 30, 1937), and described himself as an "arch-democrat."

What is the answer to this conflict at the heart of democracy, and why do we see those with conservative, absolute-truth instincts, promoting liberal, relative-truth techniques?

Perhaps the answer is that we live in a time when our elected representatives, rather than attending to remote national matters such as defence, fiscal policy, and foreign affairs, are intruding into the most intimate and detailed aspects of local, private, business, and family life, and plundering the energies of the people through taxation and debt to do so. Therefore, direct democracy - a kind of bottom-up revolution against a top-down political system - seems the only solution to rid us of such tyranny.

In most practical matters, such as taxation levels, this is likely a safe device. But when it comes to moral matters, such as euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, homosexual incursions on the family, and so on, I rather think an elected representative has a duty first of all to make his conscience known before he is elected. After that, he should vote with his conscience - or resign. And for democracy itself, the notion that deeply moral choices ought to be shaped directly by the emotions of the moment - whether felt by one voter, or a million - is the route to self-destruction.

That is because as often as not, the correct moral choices both in life and politics require us (quite contrary to the dominant secular-liberal view), to choose not for, but against our own appetites and desires in the interests of a higher good. But there can be no higher good in a relativist world. That's why at such times, political power ends up dictating every outcome. The democratic dilemma will not be resolved until our civilization decides once again to think through these two conflicting notions of how democracy is to be moral.

Spiritual Democracy

Spiritual democracy together with spiritual secularism is the antidote to the malady we encounter - the crisis of morality. There is a downside to secularism if morality is treated like a fly in the political ointment to be taken out.

The pendulum had drifted towards the other extreme end of the continuum to lay all emphasis on the present life and total disregard for the ecclesiastical. The duality was the concomitant, which is expressed in the words of Christ: "My Kingdom is not of this world and Render Unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." God is banished from this world to dwell and remain supreme only in the world hereafter (God forbid). In his brilliant chapter 'Man without Values' in the book The Tower and the Abyss, Erich Kahler has pointed out the folly of secularisation, which, in essence has "pushed the divine farther and farther behind ever growing scientific technological and economic material, behind the manifold orders of intermediary causations and evolutionary processes... We no longer live our days in nearness to the divine; we do not sense its permanent presence in every form of nature as the ancients did...The divine has been banished into a far removed sphere of vagueness and silence. Such silence and absence of God have been bitterly felt by various modern minds, such as Rilke and Simone Weil, who were only too disposed to listen and respond to the voice of the divine."

Science has, unfortunately, given a new form of fatalism. When everything is determined, it robs an individual of the quintessential value of 'choice', which is not possible without some degree of 'free will'. Human beings do not enjoy absolute 'free will' as that is only in the domain of the divine, but its limited quantum makes one accountable for one's behaviour. Unlike animals, humans discriminate between what is right and what is wrong. It is here that the moral force - the conscience - enables one to make the right judgment in his thinking - as per the Cartesian axiom Cogito ergo volo. Secularism, to the extent that it takes the temporal world and provides the guidance for promoting the spirit of tolerance for diversity, accommodates all faiths and lends them dignity. Professor Hamilton Gibb describes Islamic society as a "fully rounded society on a religious basis which comprehends every aspect of human life". Iqbal, in his profound book Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, explains why duality between the 'sacred' and the 'profane', the spiritual and the temporal, the 'ecclesiastical' and the 'secular', the Church and the state, exists in Christianity and not in Islam: "In Europe Christianity was understood to be a purely monastic order which gradually developed into a vast church organisation. The protest of Luther was directed against this church organisation. ..If you begin with the conception of religion as complete other-worldliness, then what has happened to Christianity in Europe is perfectly natural...Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into the irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam God and the universe, spirit and matter, Church and State are organic to each other."

Secularism was wrongly attributed to Quaid-e-Azam by Justice Munir on the basis of his famous speech of August 11, 1947. I have not come across any statement by Quaid-e-Azam in which he mentioned the word 'secularism' to be the guiding principle of Pakistan. Of course the temporal aspect of secularism is inherent in Islam. R Smith in his book, Mohammedanism in Africa, has mentioned: "Islam has given to its Negro converts a status, dignity and self-reliance which are all too rarely found in the pagan or Christian fellow country-men. " R C Reddy remarks: "The age long problem of racial equality has not been solved by any system of religion or ethics except Mohammedanism. In every other polity or religion, reason, ethics and spiritual ideas have been broken on the rock of race and colour."

Just one letter that Quaid-e-Azam wrote to Mr Gandhi on January 21, 1940 will clear the notion of how 'secular' was he in the sense the West conceives it: "Today you deny that religion can be a main factor in determining a nation, but you yourself, when asked that what your motive in life was, whether it was religious, or racial and political, said - purely religious. The gamut of man's activities today constitutes an indivisible whole. You cannot divide social, economic, political and purely religious work into watertight compartment. I do not know any religion apart from human activity. It provides a moral basis to all other activities which they would otherwise lack, reducing life to a maze of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Rousseau, the great apostle of democracy has made a startling statement. "No state has ever been founded without a religious basis." About Islam he said: "Mohammed [PBUH] held very sane views and linked the political system well together and as long as the form of his government continued under the caliphs, who succeeded him, that government was indeed one and so far good."

To conclude, I would like to stress what Erich Kahler said: "When the individual is supposed to submit unconditionally to the will of the secular powers as instruments or substitutes of the supreme power, then the will of God is stripped of its actual influence on earth." Pakistan's destiny is towards harmonising the 'secular' and the 'spiritual', and discarding the theocratic notion of Islam.

http://www.redgage.com/blogs/advokatku/secularism-sacrosanct.html

Dr Ambedkar on Democracy

MAINSTREAM, VOL XLV, NO 51

Shyam Chand

All over India the 51st death anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar is being observed on December 6, 2007. He was a genius par excellence—an economist a sociologist, a political scientist, a great historian, a legal luminary, a great constitutionalist and above all a great champion of the downtrodden.

Abraham Lincoln says: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.” Various philosophers, political scientists and writers have given numerous definitions of democracy. A relentless champion of human rights and staunch believer in democracy, Dr Ambedkar says: “Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation.”

Dr Ambedkar believed that in democracy revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed. The conditions for that are as follows: “(1) there should not be glaring inequalities in society, that is, privilege for one class; (2) the existence of an opposition; (3) equality in law and administration; (4) observance of constitutional morality; (5) no tyranny of the majority; (6) moral order of society: and (7) public conscience.”

Addressing the Constituent Assembly, he suggested certain devices essential to maintain democracy: “(i) constitutional methods: (ii) not to lay liberties at the feet of a great man: (iii) make a political democracy a social democracy.”

Dr Ambedkar firmly believed that political democracy cannot succeed without social and economic democracy. In his talk given on the Voice of America he argued that: “Democracy could not be equated with either republic or parliamentary form of government. The roots of democracy lay not in the form of government, parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is a model of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in social relationship, in terms of the associated life between the people who form the society.”

He was against coercive centralised institu-tional authority that Hobbesian Philosophy maintains. Associated life is consensual expression of shared experience, aspirations and values. If a small section of the society is allowed to manipulate the cultured symbols of the society that process becomes undemocratic and destructive.

For him political democracy is not an end in itself, but the most powerful means to achieve the social and economic ideals in society. State socialism within the framework of parliamentary democracy can defeat dictatorship. Fundamental rights without economic security are of no use to the have-nots. “Social and economic democracy are tissue and the fibre of a political democracy.”

In a multi-denominational society like India, the common denominator is secularism which is one of the pillars on which the superstructure of our democracy rests. It is a unifying force of our associated life. He says: “The conception of a secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of the West. No institution which is maintained wholly out of state funds shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or by any other body.” Participating in a debate in Parliament, he further emphasised: “It (secular state) does not mean that we shall not take into consideration the religious sentiments of the people. All that a secular state means that this Parliament shall not be competent to impose any particular religion upon the rest of the people. That is the only limitation that the Constitution recognises.”

Social unity can be achieved by coercive methods. For true democracy to flower and flourish, social union is must. For that he suggested safeguards for the minority. In democracy, minority does not become the victim of the tyranny of the majority. He suggested certain safeguards for the protection of the minority. “The State should guarantee to its citizens the liberty of conscience and the free exercise of his religion including the right to profess, to preach and to convert within limits compatible with public order and morality.”

A crusader against social and economic injustice and a great champion of human rights with a firm belief in democracy, he exhorted his audience at the All India Depressed Classes Conference: “It seems to me that there lies on us a very important duty to see that democracy does not vanish from the earth as the governing principle of human relationship. If we believe in it, we must both be true and loyal to it. We must not only be staunch in our faith in democracy, but we must resolve to see that whatever we do not help the enemies of democracy to uproot the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.” For that he exhorted the Dalits to defend and support democracy and secularism to safeguard their rights, life and liberty.

Dr Ambedkar laid much emphasis on the term moral and said: “The Declaration of Independence does not assert that all men are equal; it proclaims that they are created equal.” He further argued: “For the successful working of democracy there must not be glaring inequalities in the society. There must not be an oppressed class. There must not be a suppressed class.” In case of inequalities “State intervention is a must”. Right to treatment as an equal must precede the right to equal treatment as a state policy. Equality of opportunity is a misleading term. There should be opportunity for equality.

He emphasised on the need for liberty of movement, liberty of speech and liberty of action and political liberty to choose his government for securing “unalienable rights such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Political liberty is really a deduction from the principle of human personality and equality.” Liberty and equality exist together. One without the other is absurd. Commenting on failure of democracy in some countries, he said: “Parliamentary democracy developed a passion for liberty. It failed to realise the significance of equality and did not even endeavour to strike a balance between liberty and equality, with the result that liberty swallowed equality and has made democracy a name and a farce.”

He was against violence. A firm believer in the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence he asked his followers to ’agitate’ for their rights in a peaceful manner. Violence undermines the spirit of democracy. He would have been the first to denounce Naxalism.

Dr Ambedkar, like Tagore, was against the caste system. Tagore says : “Inhuman treatment meted out to the untouchables by Brahmins is lynching, facism, Ku Klux Klanism and the like.” (Rabindranath Tagore by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson) both urged Gandhiji to work for abolition of the caste system without which democracy, after independence, would not flower and flourish. When Gandhiji declared “I would like to assure my Dalit friends…. That they may hold my life as a hostage for its due fulfillment”, Tagore was with Gandhiji. Tagore was also with Gandhiji when he signed ’Poona Pact’ with Dr Ambedkar.

At the time of adoption of the Constitution, Dr Ambedkar warned: “On 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequalities. In politics we will be recognising the principles of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one vote. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of our political democracy.”

The author is a former Minister of Haryana.

Democracies Don’t Run on Dictation They Run By Self-Representation

This is a ploy to dis-credit the government and state, parliament, Supreme Court, all other government institution and in a word the whole democracy. If Anna and his Civil Society don’t trust so many institutions of democracy then why should we trust him and individuals around him? What he wants to say is this that all the state (government) is corrupt therefore we should give it to private sector. The Media understands it well and that is why it has been highlighting Anna’s crowed a movement. This is just a collection of Urbanites who always rush to faceless enemy. But they will never come for social justice in which they see their casteist face.

Dalits and poor have only hope from the government and democracy because they have got something from it only. If there were no democratic institutions Dalits would have got anything. Look at the composition of Indian Civil societies and Private Sector. They have not included any Dalits at any level. So how this Lok Pal Bill will be good for Dalits?

Look at the symbols they have used ‘Bhara Mata’ why not Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Sikhism, etc. symbol. That means what is Brahmanic Hinduism is Bhartiya or Indian. This is Hindu hegemony. Secondly look Shanti and Peasant Bhooshan they are father and son team. Is this not dynastic? You did not get any one else to form the five member committee to discuss the clauses of the proposed Bill.

Thirdly, there is no women, minority and Dalit member in the five member committee formed to negotiate the Lok Pal Bill. All are upper caste male. So they do not have any sensitivity for the gender, caste and religious diversity which exists in Indian Society.

Above all Babasaheb also argued that we should not resort to unconstitutional means for our demands. We should first go to the constitutional means if that are exhausted then we can go for these type of blackmailing.

Gandhi used this blackmail against Babasaheb against separate electorate. Democracy cannot be dictated by few self-appointed leaders. They don’t trust 542 MPs who are elected by billions of people. But they are telling us to believe that we should trust these five people with backing of certain urban people. Therefore we cannot say that this was a social movement which is good for the society in general and Dalits, Minorities and women in particular.

Please Watch this programme on NDTV INDIA

http://khabar. ndtv.com/ LiveVideo. aspx?id=196127.

Dr. Vivek Kumar
Associate Professor
Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi – 110 067

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Is Mayawati's Ambedkar park a white elephant?

Watch this Debate on CNN IBN

Amazing replies by Prof. Vivek Kumar, Dalits need many more intellectuals like him...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IJ0cEATtcg

Unthinkable? An Ambedkar memorial

Born 'untouchable', he fought for freedom and emancipation of all castes and helped to draft the constitution of India

Editorial The Guardian, Saturday 30 April 2011
Article history

Among the most tiresome of all observations made about the royal wedding was that it represented some kind of triumph of social mobility. The new Duchess of Cambridge is the great-great-granddaughter of a coalminer, runs this story, and her mother worked as an air hostess. Never mind that she also went to Marlborough College. Such cant brings to mind a more potent example of social mobility – and of that mobility being put to significant purpose. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in 1891, an untouchable in an India run by the British – that is to say a subaltern twice over, subjugated by an imperial government and by high-caste Indians. He died in 1956, with doctorates from Columbia University and the LSE. Most importantly, he will be remembered as the emancipator of other untouchables and the jurist in charge of drafting the constitution of the Indian republic. Ambedkar fought for a free India, and for the freedom of all castes within that state. He sought advancement not just for himself, nor for those like him, but also for Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists. His time at the bar in London and at the LSE, but most of all his sterling example, surely make him more than deserving of public memorial here. "How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?" asked Ambedkar. "If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril." His message, intended for 20th-century India, is just as relevant for 21st-century Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/30/unthinkable-ambedkar-memorial

BRP Bhaskar: Partisanship mars democracy

Exclusive to The Gulf Today

India’s successful conduct of massive elections has earned praise, and countries like Egypt and Nigeria are trying to profit from its experience as they seek to democratise their political systems. But, then, democracy means much more than holding elections at regular intervals. It calls for an ability to rise above narrow loyalties with common good in view.

When the Indian constitution, which incorporates the good practices that evolved in all democratic societies, was finalised, its chief architect, BR Ambedkar said, howsoever good the document might be, it would turn out to be bad if those called upon to work it were a bad lot. Six decades later those words ring ominously true. 

As the country grapples with the menace of growing corruption, there is unabashed display of partisanship by both the ruling coalition and the disparate opposition. They are more interested in scoring political points than in bringing to justice those who loot the public. 

The 2G scam, brought to light by the Comptroller and Auditor General last year, is the biggest corruption case in India’s history. In a 77-page report tabled in Parliament, the CAG had slammed Communications Minister A. Raja for causing the state a presumptive loss of Rs1,766 billion in 2007-08 through allocation of  second generation (2G) and dual technology licences. 

The 2G allotment irregularities were already before the Central Bureau of Investigation but it was dragging its feet. Public interest petitions brought the Supreme Court into the picture and its observations after scrutiny of relevant documents forced the CBI to act. Raja, who belongs to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the ruling party of Tamil Nadu, resigned. He and several of his aides are now in jail awaiting trial. 

The way the government and the opposition responded to the CAG report is a sordid story of political one-upmanship. Under the constitutional scheme, CAG reports are referred to the public accounts committee (PAC), which is headed by an opposition member and includes members from both the houses of Parliament. 

The PAC’s mandate is to look into government spending and ascertain whether there had been any loss or irregularities. In view of the limited scope of PAC examination, the other opposition parties demanded the constitution of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to go into the matter. The government refused.  Determined disruption of Parliament’s budget session by the opposition forced the government to yield. 

As the PAC, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi summoned officials of the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) to testify, JPC chairman PC Chacko of the Congress asked that it pull back. He argued there was no need for parallel investigations by two parliamentary bodies. 

Joshi turned down the suggestion and speeded up PAC work to finalise its report before his term as chairman expired on April 30. (He was yesterday renominated as chairman for another year.) Congress and DMK members created a ruckus and blocked examination of PMO officials. Nevertheless Joshi went ahead and produced a draft report. 

The PAC meeting called to discuss and adopt the report broke up in confusion. Joshi left the meeting with his supporters when he found that Congress and DMK members, who had won over Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party members, were determined to block the report. In the absence of the chairman and his supporters, the remaining members adopted a resolution rejecting the report. Yet Joshi forwarded the draft report to Speaker Meira Kumar. She must now decide what to do with it. 

It is not unusual for parliamentary committees to divide on party lines. Such bodies often arrive at decisions not by vote but by consensus. The well established practice is to prepare a report incorporating the majority viewpoint and for those with reservations to append dissenting notes. 

Both the majority and the minority in the PAC are in breach of convention. How the Congress party earned the support of two parties and chalked up a majority in the committee is not known. It should cause no surprise if it transpires that it resorted to means that do not accord with democratic norms.  

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who protected the tainted DMK minister until it became impossible to do so, too has not emerged as a reliable upholder of democratic norms. Politicians guided by partisan considerations are dime a dozen. The Prime Minister must be a statesman who is guided by considerations of public good. 

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The author is a political analyst of reckoning

 http://gulftoday.ae/portal/53c9cdd5-c7c1-4d88-b880-eccee7f37ba3.aspx