A very common debate these days is to have a leader who is selected through consensus. But does the Indian democratic system allows for complete consensus? And is it really needed ?
Why not have a political system where the supreme of the government body (prime minister in our case) can only be selected if he/she gets 100% of votes? Well, I know most of you would laugh and call me naive in even suggesting this. We all know that it is nearly impossible for any population and more so a population as large as ours to agree completely on anything on anyone.
That's why some smart people have rightly constituted the democratic system, particular but not exclusive to our country where each smaller segment of people can select a local leader for their demographic territory, and this leader can represent the interests of that locality in the national scheme of things. As it is very difficult to bring in so many local leaders with completely different ideology under one roof for single agenda, thus came the concept of political parties with an overarching ideology. This ideology is supposed to drive the working of the people who work within the party. The ideology itself is not rigid and is and should be open to scrutiny and evolution.
But in all this, never is the principle of 'complete consensus' applied. It is assumed that as long as the local leader enjoys the trust of majority of the local population who decide to become part of this political process of selection and the ideology of his party strikes a chord with majority of such segments, leader of the party can be assumed to enjoy confidence of majority viewpoint and hence selected as the supreme of the government body.
This of course is set in context that this person needs to be working within the frame work of guiding principles which the people of the country has accepted in general ( preamble to the constitution ). Thus though the government is not selected by complete consensus, it is expected to work for everyone,which it has to as long as it is working within the guiding framework.
Thus the debate on whether a leader can only become the supreme of government body if he/she enjoys complete support of all ,is contrary to very idea of democracy we practise. It has never happened and is not expected to happen anytime soon. What we need to ensure is that the democratic institutions are so strong that anyone sitting in such influential position can never misuse the power and if he/she does, then corrective action is immediately taken.
Thus we should focus more of our energy in strengthening the pillars of democracy such as election commission, judiciary, administration, vigilance and audit and leave the rest to the people's choice in a free and fair election. That is the correct and only way to establish the democracy our founding fathers had dreamt of.
Why not have a political system where the supreme of the government body (prime minister in our case) can only be selected if he/she gets 100% of votes? Well, I know most of you would laugh and call me naive in even suggesting this. We all know that it is nearly impossible for any population and more so a population as large as ours to agree completely on anything on anyone.
That's why some smart people have rightly constituted the democratic system, particular but not exclusive to our country where each smaller segment of people can select a local leader for their demographic territory, and this leader can represent the interests of that locality in the national scheme of things. As it is very difficult to bring in so many local leaders with completely different ideology under one roof for single agenda, thus came the concept of political parties with an overarching ideology. This ideology is supposed to drive the working of the people who work within the party. The ideology itself is not rigid and is and should be open to scrutiny and evolution.
But in all this, never is the principle of 'complete consensus' applied. It is assumed that as long as the local leader enjoys the trust of majority of the local population who decide to become part of this political process of selection and the ideology of his party strikes a chord with majority of such segments, leader of the party can be assumed to enjoy confidence of majority viewpoint and hence selected as the supreme of the government body.
This of course is set in context that this person needs to be working within the frame work of guiding principles which the people of the country has accepted in general ( preamble to the constitution ). Thus though the government is not selected by complete consensus, it is expected to work for everyone,which it has to as long as it is working within the guiding framework.
Thus the debate on whether a leader can only become the supreme of government body if he/she enjoys complete support of all ,is contrary to very idea of democracy we practise. It has never happened and is not expected to happen anytime soon. What we need to ensure is that the democratic institutions are so strong that anyone sitting in such influential position can never misuse the power and if he/she does, then corrective action is immediately taken.
Thus we should focus more of our energy in strengthening the pillars of democracy such as election commission, judiciary, administration, vigilance and audit and leave the rest to the people's choice in a free and fair election. That is the correct and only way to establish the democracy our founding fathers had dreamt of.
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