Floundering Democracies, Growing Cynicism and the subcontinent

Jai Ho Cynicism (Victory to cynicism)

Recently, I wrote in a comment on a blog – “Nobody wants to be a cynic but one can not be optimist in a vacuum”. When I look most places across world, I do not see any optimism from any events but pessimism permeating everywhere. The very helplessness which gives birth to cynicism. It is not just in trouble spots like Syria, Bahrain etc but also in those parts where there is not much trouble as in China, Russia etc. Of course, exceptions also make occasional occurrence too like Myanmar(Burma)’s elections. Looking at the subcontinent – India, Pakistan in general one confronts more pessimism. Cynicism in that case can not be washed away. I was listening to this summary from Patrick French: Indian democracy fails on almost every count – IQ2 debate. It was pretty perfect analysis from him giving a deep insight into how Indian democracy has degenerated into farce. Pakistan’s democracy gives even more of a alarm.

Look at the falling rose petals on the head of Pakistan PM after a conviction by its own supreme court for not refusing to write a letter about corruption of its president. How brazen the conduct of this Pakistani PM is. I also looked at the struggle of Balochi people. Right towards the end of this long video on Baluchistan, there is firing squad of Pakistani army finishing off rounded up men and kids . A nice blog article by perhaps a Pakistani on minorities kidnap and conversion in Pakistan can be seen here on – Rinkle Kumari – the new Marvi of Sindh. One can think that Pakistan is just facing too many problems so it is not an ideal state to look up to but Indian politicians are only slightly better than Pakistan. Under pressure, they resign and also get jailed. So, they are not brazenly unashamed and only in that respect India ‘s democracy is working better as some pressure still works on Indian politicians. Now, the Anna Hazare’s agitation about enacting legislation of corruption ombudsman is long gone, the politicians are back to their game of lining up their pockets. Both the parties at helm and its opposition who is also ruling in number of states are thoroughly corrupt. All the electorate can do is guess who is less corrupt. So, the democracy in India will keep on failing because there is no prospect of an alternative for the electorate at next elections.

It is any wonder that democratic institution building is required across the world – be that in a nascent democracy like Egypt or one like India who may be 60-70 years old one. We have seen that two NGOs from USA, National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) are helping the countries like Egypt and I guess in Libya too. If these two NGOs become part of UN and start providing consultation to all democracies, then perhaps things could be better. However, the problem with most democracies is that whoever may be in Power may not be interested to bring in transparency in their systems so even if these democracy building institutes become part of UN it will not help as the politicians at helm will never use these bodies offering expertise e.g. will Putin’s Russia ever accept democratic reforms. Will the Indian leaders ever elect a legislation on corruption unless forced. So, cynicism is bound to take roots and prosper when there is no solution in sight. So, jai ho cynicism not that I wish to clamour for it.