The Dance of Democracy

As always I have been a strong believer that the ultimate triumph of democracy lies in the fact that the vox populi is supreme and is the bloodline of the system. I had some time back voiced the same vein in “Whose Democracy is it anyway ?”

The drama that was enacted for twelve days both in the House and in Ramlila grounds had kept us glued. We have had raving and ranting from Mr.Sibal and his friends on the supremacy of the Parliament and the finality of the parliamentary procedure. However we saw a big resistance from most of the politicians to accept the writing on the wall. Finally better sense has prevailed and yesterday we saw one of the most serious debates on the floor of the House in recent times. The parliament has unanimously accepted to agree to the three conditions put forward by Team Anna. What was unfortunate was that it took 12days of fasting by an old man to do this.

Is this one of the major tests our democracy went through ? I would say yes and although it staggered in the initial run up, it passed the muster reasonably well at the end. I do not for a moment think that this process has undermined the position of the Prime Minister or the Parliament.

On the contrary I feel that this has only strengthened the position of the elected polity in redefining their stature as the representatives of the people , having a Herculean task before them to deliver each time correctly according to the wishes of the common man. I feel that most of the times our political class forgets that their position in power is not that of a ruler, but in a democratic environment it is merely a representation of the wishes of the people. The quicker they re-adjust their lenses to these basics the sooner will they have fewer problems in understanding and standing by the wishes of the nation.

So therefore what was enacted yesterday after twelve days of the saga was actually the real dance of democracy further strengthening the belief of all in the process and ensuring that the political class is part of the people that they have chosen to represent.