Look at the Nepalese pro-democracy protestors. Look at the French students who rioted to save their pensions. Look at the Filipinos who take to the streets almost every year to protect their country.
And then look at our own students' response to the move to hike reservations. One protest, one water spray, one meeting with the honourable minister, and all protests are off.
Questions: have we become a hopelessly docile people, happy to let somebody else fight for our causes? Has growing prosperity deadened our senses? Have we lost the fire in the our bellies to stand up and protest? Worse, if Emergency is reintroduced some day, will we—will you—even come out and join a procession?
churumuri 
This is a important matter. Let the debate start and continue in right perspective, when we have debate on the stability of the government relatively this is a far more serious issue. All the best
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We are definitely not a ‘dying’ democracy, but a ‘docile’ one…sure.
Whatever happened in a matter of 16 years. I rememebr how bad the anti-Mandal commission protests were. I definitely don’t condone violence, but then I don’t condone reservations either.
So, now it’s just a matter of days before all the hospitals are asked to have reservations for doctors. Imagine the guy doing open heart surgery !!! And, have we decided yet on defence.
I bet most people who will comment on this subject here will be anti-reservation. That’s because it’s just us who visit these blogs !!! Oh I forgot, private sector still doesn’t have reservations. So, THAT guy hasn’t taken away my job yet. OOOh, thank God I can browse interent from my office some more time.
KP, can I get a job at churumuri if THAT guy takes away my job ? No, I don’t fall into any damn A, B, C, D, E, F, ….X, Y, Z category of reservation !!!
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Yes! we have all become docile. Try talking about serious issues like unemployment and poverty to your friends in a pub and the instant reply would be “dude get a life”. I guess for most of us ‘life’ means working our asses off for some MNCs and feeling strongly about the latest candidate who got chucked out from American Idol. Patriotism for the majority of us is getting elated when Sachin Tendulkar whacks Shoaib Akhtar for a six and nothing else…
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Well, I don't see anything wrong with getting upset all over Kellie Pickler getting booted out. As a matter of fact she was quite cute and managed to sing decently well.
I am not sure why that should not go in parallel with the "serious" stuff. I do agree that "dude get a life" is quite inappropriate. But, American Idols and Sachin Tendulkar's are part of the generation and life. So, no harm there.
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We haven’t become docile! All that’s happened is this – we have lost dignity as a nation. A simple thought that knocks my mind – how many of us still feel a tingling excitement when we hear our National Anthem. How many of would actually stand up in a movie theater if our National Anthem is played. We’d think twice and be embarrassed to show respect to something that so derserves it. So the fire in the bellies has long been extinguished. These are stupid things but they most definitely, in my opinion, form the character of a nation.
Talking of characters – they shall be tested in an emergency. A bizarre thought but I think we need an emergency to bring us back to life and awaken those dead souls.
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Democracy is dead but long live democracy
I think storm signals are gathering in the horizon. Things have to get worse before they get better. We are now slowly reaching the nadir, forget about the zooming index. It follows the law what goes up must eventually come down. Yes whether we are docile, patient or maturing or whatever is only a mattar of interpretaiton but merest of incident will blow up because despite our patience there is a supressed rage inside about the inequity in the system and a tectonic upheaval can be expected because subtaranian tension is building all across the nation and something has to give in, it is a natural law. See what happened in Nepal. May be the untinkable may happen, the Army may rebel and take over, who knows. We are such a smug lot we think that death can happen to others and do not touch us
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Reading the above thoughts only my subconscious illuminated two images one after another from my memory. The first image is from the seminar on ‘Sting journalism and the future of Journalism’ I attended yesterday. Tarun Tejpal while lamenting on the state of democracy in India quoted Arundhati Roy that “We all are living in an illusion of normalcy.” Although it is too complex and broad generalization and due to constraint of time he couldn’t elaborate more on this. And the second image was from the Hollywood film ‘Alexander’ where Richard Burton playing the role of the one of the greatest conqueror in the human history said “It is only the fear of death which keeps man moving.” I am still unclear about what exactly was my subconscious was trying to explain me through these two images, but I have a belief that the consequent projection of these two images has some relevant message about this issue?
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I liked the “illusion of normalcy” theory. We are so complacent with everything that i guess only an emergency will show where we stand! Its sad but its the truth
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I cant say for sure whether the democracy is dying or not but one indicaiton of the way our democracy is functioning is the way our leaders think which is reflected in our dear HR ministers interview
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/decision-on-quota-is-final-arjun/11063-4-0.html
If this is the thought process of such a senior functionary in government then I do pity our democracy
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Our chalta hai attitude is the cause of all problem,we don’t sit up and think about something unusual and then it becomes a routine.for a domocracy to funtion a learned socity is needs.how many of us think while doing somthing that in wich way its going to affect a comonman.we just sit in ac room in front of laptops and write all this junk to give ourself a false sense od pride that i have done somthing.i was the leader of recent anti obceservation strikes at amritsar but we got little publlic backing.so instead of living in virtual world of internet do somthing in rreality.change urself teach others startinf from children.
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The answer to this question would depend upon how one interprets the term democracy. The dictionary meaning is a Govt. of the people, by the people and for the people. The reality of a democracy is determined by the way the democracy is created and from the side of the government and how the people participate in it. During the days of the emergency, sometime in 1976, I had the privilege of hearing from Acharya Kripalani that ” Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom”. Perhaps it is also the price that people have to pay for good democracy. In the absence of vigilance by the people themselves ( as opposed to leaders of people) the wheels of democracy have a tendency to run against the very people who usher in democracies. India is no exception. Judicious balance between the people and the state leads to a healthy democracy.
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