We the people

“Time is the biggest healer”, and in the present paradigm, this statement glows in perhaps its most glittering sheen. What great age are we living in, when a website in the US is contemplating a presidential nominee , when one of the most autocratic rulers this world has ever seen has been put to one of the most hideous deaths that, again, the world has ever seen. And last but not the least ,when some facebook posts have triggered a country wide revolution, a movement that gave them the flavor they desperately sought for- a taste of democracy.

Democracy- a word with Greek origins that generally has been put into practice when all the other ways of ruling a state have failed. As it is often quoted – the worst form of governance but the best one available. Leftist often argue that a human, naturally, is a communist. But one cannot hide away from the fact that social nature is what overrides any of the inherent tendencies of man.

A normal human being needs social interaction for his hygienic survival. An environment where he can communicate , criticize, laugh, cry thus developing different traits of a personality. A democratic set up is where one gets such an environment with the highest degree of freedom. And what happens when things go the other way round? Imagine a guy in a wooden box with no ventilation, what is the most probable end result?...a destroyed box with an injured but satisfied guy out of it. Today’s Tehrir and yesterday’s Tiananmen were such incidents.

So when democracy helps us to avoid such coups , then why it is termed as the worst form of governance? When every person has got an equal voice, an equal status, there is bound to be a clash, but , in the midst of such heat and fire, we do get the best shaped idea that run a long race but, its the slowness that frustrates. India can be termed as one such frustrated country. The reason is that after more than 65 years of independence and being led by some of the best statesmen , the country still rots in the filth of corruption and poverty. But for a country that was judged to Balkanized within years of its independence , a fairly united stand tells about the magic that the democratic scepter has created. And one cannot help but admit that it was our freedom, our popular stand that helped us to make a transition from a socialist environment to a more open one, in a peaceful way.

Lastly, it will be a gross misjudgment to judge democracy as a form of governance. Its a way of living life in a pleasant oxymoron. Here we have conflicts when we care for a common cause , we fight but we value the hard earned peace, and we often find ourselves plunged in a dark abyss but we know with freedom and ample opportunities we will , someday, see sunshine.