Democracy wins in the US, but…

It is ironic that the person who promised to make America great again, could only prove to be an anti-thesis of the idea. Now that the old order changeth and there is a sense of relief, some issues need to be debated and discussed. Not with reference to some individual but in the context of the system. It was largely for this reason that the US Presidential elections gave no less anxiety the world over than the Covid-19 pandemic. Though coronavirus also had a role to play in the outcome, yet the US elections leave many a lessons to learn. The first and foremost is that it validated the hypothesis of Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest US presidents. Yes, you can fool some people all the time, all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. Incidentally, he was from the same party as Trump, though they were poles apart in terms of their value system. And that made the difference. Even if you can fool some people all the time and all the people sometime, you can rule. That is how the world got to experience the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. They were able to fool a large number for a long time. Democracy is a workable system that rests on the principle of maximum good to maximum number. But there is an inherent weakness. Sometimes majoritarianism becomes the norm. Race or religion may create false sense of pride and make people believe in the unbelievable. Memories of Hitler’s rule in Germany still send chill down the spine and suggest how a democratic rule can become undemocratic. That the US could ward off this threat may give a sigh of relief to majority of Americans and most of the world, yet what happened on 6th January at the Capitol Hill is a grim pointer to the way a democracy can be distorted. If such a thing could happen in the US that claims to be a global champion of the cause of democracy, then what about countries that are on weaker grounds. There is a need to think over this issue deeply because one person can hold the nation to ransom and run amok. How to rein in such aberrations is a big question. Systemic checks and balances are very important. The strength and independence of various institutions determine the success of a democracy. Fortunately in the US there were those institutions that did not succumb to whims and fancies of one person. The judiciary and the media remained largely objective and even the sections of legislature, the republicans, refused to act like apparatchiks. Democracy is not leader driven. It is institution driven. The integrity of such institutions depends on values of individuals manning them. Chances of a leader going astray are always there but institutions must stand firm. The simple prescription is by putting right men rather than Yes men in places. It is meritocracy, thus, that can steer democracy. When self infatuated leaders start getting carried away by their own slogans institutions must act as a check. Slogans don’t make Nations great. It is the actions that matter. Actions based on sound reasoning and noble intentions. Democracies are fragile systems that can easily become totalitarian. Strengthening the institutions makes Democracy survive and thrive. Mr President has a task cut out for him. Democracy has survived. But it should thrive. For a more democratic and just post corona world order.

Of the year that was…

By any measure the year that passed by was the worst for the entire humanity in the past 75 years, if not more. The tiniest of the organisms, which according to one estimate, weighs one millionth of a trillionth gram, whatever that signifies, brought the globe to a grinding halt. And proved one thing beyond doubt, that all our advances in science and technology are no match for nature’s supremacy. But that is not the point. What is intended here is to view in retrospect what happened and how we handled it, so that we can look forward to decades or may be a century or even more to come. All that happened was nothing short a nightmare we all would like to forget, if of course, we can. We missed many things. The children missed school, the workers lost jobs, economies faced recession, the youth missed joy of living, the old forgot peace, democracies lost freedom — the list is unending. In one sentence the entire humanity missed life. Was there a way out? Not easy to answer. Could it have been handled better? No idea. However, if we look back objectively, we can well nigh conclude that while the vast multitude was pained by the disarray that the pandemic wrought, there were certain sections of the ruling elite world over who found a chance to usurp absolute power in the name of pandemic. The result obviously was as lord Acton had said — absolute power corrupts absolutely. Barring a few notable exceptions, the ruling elite of the whole world behaved in almost the same way — brazen display of state power. Taking this into account we can then say that but for this attitude, the pandemic could have been handled better. So, that one critical attribute that was found missing was the Reassuring Leadership. There were some Heads of the State who brushed aside the whole threat as a gimmick while there were others who cried wolf so loud and frequently that more people died of fear rather than the disease itself. The call of the hour was a leadership that would have given confidence in the people by assuring them that we undertake to protect, leave all your woes to us. And this was not just the case for the leadership of the nations. Leadership of organisations also left their people to fend for themselves in the times of distress. What was missing in the response was the famous assurance that Lord Krishna gave to Arjuna in chapter 9 verse 22 of Gita — Yogakshema Wahamyam. A simple interpretation is that “for those whose minds are always absorbed in me, I provide what they lack and preserve what they possess”. And this could have been done. Does a mother ever think of deserting her new born helpless child who is entirely dependent on her. The burden of maintaining the people lies with the leadership. It was not the people who were found wanting in faith. It was the leadership that was found wanting on creating confidence. States world over relied on the headless, heartless bureaucracy that behaved calculatedly and callously. It is time to revisit Weber’s approach to examine whether the neutrality and objectivity of the system he proposed, and which is so much in vogue, is actually useful in times of distress. Empathy, after all is what crisis situations like this call for. Faith is something that depends on the action of the leadership more than anything else.