Democracy is a feature of an industrial society, not a feudal society. When India became independent in 1947 India was largely feudal,because the British policy was to keep India largely unindustrialized (because if it industrialized it would become a strong rival to British industry). After independence, Pandit Nehru and his colleagues, who were modern minded persons,were determined to set up a heavy industrial base in India. They enacted a modern democratic Constitution, borrowing from Western models, with freedoms of speech and religion, liberty, equality, etc., which was transplanted from above on our largely feudal society.The Founding Fathers thought that this modern Constitution would pull our feudal society into the modern age. The Constitution did help India to some extent, we did partially industrialize and made some progress, e.g. women were educated, we produced a large pool of engineers, technicians, doctors, scientists, etc. However mid way after Independence the feudals hijacked our democracy, and caste and religious vote banks became the normal feature in most parts of India. Most people vote on caste and religious lines, instead of seeing the merit of the candidate. This has blocked our progress. Democracy is not meant to be run in this manner.
natural phenomena, that only monkey becomes the king (Leader) of monkeys, and only he can understand most monkeys problem because he is from monkeys .
ReplyDeleteother animals if they are in lower in numbers, always unhappy.
but Bentham theory is Correct. अधिकतम लोगों के लिए अधिकतम सुख
this is also a fact that, new castes are growing like Doctors, Engineers, and workers also.
they also vote for their caste. if they stand in election.
i think education is not an education. it is only for creating workers. and workers always hold their own identity. they can not be democratic.
The bane in a democracy can be its rulers. But people in a democracy get the rulers they deserve. So people get the sham they deserve. Hence India's democracy is an empty shell.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy from the above has become deprivation for the mass bastion of poor masses. We used to observe in day to day life, how casteism perpetuating till the lower rung of our society! To quote and unquote, Casting your vote is voting your caste.. But the best antidote for democracy is democracy it self that means need to empower the poor masses then only we can bring social change in our societal structures.
ReplyDeletecaste, corruption,nepotism,and lack of accountability are real vices of our democracy.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I didn't get the gist of what you are trying to convey in the paragraph above which you have apparently cut and pasted from one of your earlier articles. Are you suggesting that India become a feudalistic society?
ReplyDeleteIt's sufficiently clear that the form of governance being practiced in India is just a skeleton of democracy, hiding in her bosom all the essential elements of feudalism. Extreme power in the undeserving hands of a chosen few; exploitation of the unsuspecting masses; vote bank politics to keep citizenry in a perpetual state of communal divide; a feeling of entitlement to illegal wealth through massive corruption; and reckless tampering and wanton disregard of established laws for personal gratification by the mighty ‘Lords’ are just a few inimitable signs of feudalism in India.
I can’t think of any way other than adopting a constitution that parallels US Constitution. Even that has many limitations and drawbacks but is still better suited than what India currently has. The only difficulty is how to trick the feudal ‘Lords’ into switching over.
What a bollocks! Who is this frigging idiot to write this non-sense. A semi-literate JNUite can write better than this.
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of time to read this 10 liner! Three generations of learning in jurisprudence did not produce a good judge, nor a good writer.
My ten year old daughter can write better than this and it would still go straight to the dustbin.
Anilkurup Chakili Thayoli
Justice Katju has lost his originality in writing a article. He is repeatedly making cliched statements. He merely CTRL+C and CTRL+V the paragraphs and statements that he made in his previous articles.
ReplyDeleteDont he have anything new to say?
Katju family continued to occupy a seat in judiciary for three generations thanks to its Kashmiri Pandit connections and basked in its mediocre glory. Who is a feudalist here? Still, he has got the gall to write about feudalism.
ReplyDeleteAL Bashyam
Venerated Katju,
ReplyDeleteIt will take time for india and indians to understand democracy. If my opinion matters, then i will also advise you to take a look at the history of our erstwhile rulers, BRITAIN, how the ENGLISH got a treay of unity, called PAX BRITANNICA, with scotland,wales and ireland, and from 12 th century onwards, it was all BRITAIN on this planet. They formed USA, they formed colonies, they got industrialized through slaves/labor. When indians will understand how democracy functions, then we also will rule.
Well i believe what Justice Katju remarked is his opinion, however i beg to differ here since i believe democracy has come down from ancient times, modern law and government has evolved from the Romans and Aristotle said, "If we willingly abstain from politics we let our inferiors rule over us" This is what has happened to us in the present times, our democracy is only 65 years old before that we were ruled by many different rulers last of all the British empire, prior to that we were princely states. Most parts of India lacked education and education was limited only to a hand full of elites, what is see in the present political set up of our country is a mixed bag of hoodlums, goons, few educated ones but we also have political feudalism in our country whereby some get at the top of political career only because they are born into political family and people just vote of chose them because of their political lineage, they do not count their efficiency, educational background or how they can govern the affairs of the state, such things do not count, and even some good educated leaders who are in the party willing agree to be subservient to someone who is more inferior to them by all virtue. Today what we lack is the strong leadership a leader or a minister is not to be considered a babu or raj minister means servant, they are there to served not to be served, their duty is to act on behalf of the people who elect them, but we all have this babu culture in our country, But then shall we have someone who can serve rather than be served?
ReplyDeleteOur nation has immense potential, we have a strong historical background but we are to learn our history well, most of our history are concocted version of the west, its these concoctions that has led to so many problem which we face today, its the root cause of all the social evils, if the veil of ignorance is to be lifted and we want to live in harmony with each other how we lived in the past irrespective of religion or caste, we are to unveil the ignorance and learn our true history. Simply education and setting up industries will not usher in a strong democratic nation, a nation has to come to the grips with its true past then only we can see who are pulling the strings and who have manipulated the entire facade of our nation, the people whom we blame are simply the opportunist who by chance have made their way into the system to subvert it, but the real culprit is our ignorance to fathom that who we really are and how have we been subjected to centuries of manipulation and we have evolved into a totally confused people living in the facade called democracy.
Long live our great nation.
Please forgive some typing errors in the above comment.
ReplyDelete