When Abraham Lincoln defined Democracy as a government of the people, by the people and for the people I can’t guess what was running in his mind. But this iconic definition of democracy by the most respected American president holds true for the 21^st century. What he literally meant was ‘Your karma is in your hands’.

When the government elected becomes corrupt then according to Lincoln’s definition it implies to be a corruption of the people, by the people and for the people. When the government fails then we can imply that it is a failure of the people, by the people and for the people.

American democracy is around 150 years old and Indian democracy is more than 60 years old. In both countries, if the government was by the people then why are they still facing problems of poverty, unemployment and inflation? What went wrong? Was there any problem with people who elected the government or was there any problem with government?

The basic framework upon which democracy is built raises serious doubts. The basic principle of democracy is the rule of the Majority and this is where it sucks.

Let us say there are 4 candidates A, B, C and D who secured 23, 27, 26 and 24 votes respectively from a constituency of 100 voters. By the rule of majority, candidate B wins. He was the choice of only 27 persons whereas the remaining 73 persons didn’t prefer him and their preference was divided among the other three directions. Where is the rule of majority here? A person who was not preferred by 73 % of voters is declared as winner. In a diversified country like India, this kind of representative democracy with the rule of Majority is pretty ambiguous.

We all have different Opinion and ours may not be in agreement with others. This disagreement causes conflicts. When Brexit happened, the opinions to leave and remain stood almost equal but Leave campaign won by a minor difference. So, democracy had its last laugh. Nearly half of the citizens desire to stay in EU was almost shattered by the other half and they had to agree to majority’s opinion.

Democracy boasts of equality and if everyone is equal then why does the opinion of minority kept aside?

How about proportional representation? I am not sure whether it is followed anywhere. As explained in the above example, why not give power to the other three persons proportionately according to their vote share.

I asked my friends whether they were satisfied with the person and party they voted. The answer was a humongous NO. They said they chose the best among the worst. And surprisingly, few people confessed that they didn’t even vote.

Citizen’s vote is used differently across the world in the form of Parliamentary and Presidential system of governments. And lately, the concept of coalition governments is coming up due to vast differences in the opinion of people. In the coming days, democracy is going to get new definitions by the budding propagandas across the world. Besides inconceivable alterations, it is going to get interpreted in drastic ways. Wait and watch!

Feature image By Rama (Own work) [CeCILL or CC BY-SA 2.0 fr], via Wikimedia Commons