People must have a voice in democratic governance

By SUSANTHA HEWA

How blessed would our nation have been today if our rulers had been wise enough to tap the creative and intellectual potential of the citizens for decision-making and policy planning, thereby directing the country towards a more vibrant and participatory democracy? The continued exclusion of the masses from being part of democratic governance, which has now proved disastrous for the entire nation, has finally prodded them to actively participate in demanding the leaders to step down.

It seems that the human “longing for belonging” is too strong to be totally suppressed. It emerges in one shape or the other. The fact is, if our leaders had been a bit less selfish, people’s deep desire for a sense of belonging could have been tapped for the progress of the country in a more proactive way, instead of letting it acquire legitimacy in an aggressive form in a campaign for ousting inept rulers. In a more pro-people democracy, citizens should be made to feel accountable for the country’s gains and losses. For this to happen, people should be made to have a say in decision making. It would stop the masses from pointing the finger at the politicians if things were to go wrong; more pertinently, it would stop the latter from sneering at the masses for being “dumb enough” to elect them, just to let them play merry hell with politics.

All these decades, we almost always wanted the ruling party to quit and the Opposition to take over. Much of our political sagacity used to be controlled by party loyalties and personality worship, which traits often came down the family line. When a ruling party failed to deliver, its supporters comforted themselves thinking how nastier things would have been if the other party had been in power, while its opponents thrived on the mortifications and misfortunes of those who had voted the rulers to power and thereby had “richly deserved it”. Being immersed in this self-defeating entertainment of sorts, we forgot that we were always at the receiving end, while the rulers had all the luck. Today those who still believe in things like party loyalty are becoming a vanishing tribe. People, by and large, instead of asking for the accustomed five-yearly regime change, are asking for a system change, which, in fact, bodes well for a healthier democracy, where people will have a better say in all decision making. The time is ripe if the leaders wish to make a clean breast of it, and earnestly help in facilitating the setting up of mechanisms required for steering the country towards normalcy. But old habits die hard and they still believe in number games in parliament.

Almost every week, more and more people are voluntarily joining the protesting crowds to use their democratic right to pressure the government to step down. What brand of democracy would see its citizenry using their democratic rights in such a pathetic way? It seems that we are badly in need of a more democratic space, where people in whom sovereignty is said to reside, can exercise their authority to nip corruption and mismanagement in the bud, not allowing them to strangle the economy and the lives of people. Resorting to “democratic rights” in the form of street protests can be the last option. In the present context, what we perceive as our democratic rights have much room for upgrading, if they leave a society with nothing better than thronging the streets and vainly shouting “we are dying” till they get hoarse, and return home where only hunger, darkness and emptiness await them.

Today we are paying the ultimate price for living the illusion that politics is remote and matters little, and what guarantees one’s well-being is “what one manages to earn”. Our present leaders deserve thanks for having done a good job, most probably, unwittingly, to bust that myth, awakening hundreds of thousands of people to the reality that there is much more to being a citizen than voting dutifully once in five years or so. A proper democracy should put in place mechanisms for enabling people to have their say, in planning and implementation of policies that determine their quality of life, which would make them accept a reasonable portion of the accountability for the consequences, desirable or otherwise. People will cultivate a sense of responsibility, if they are allowed to get that sense of belonging by genuinely seeking their contribution in active politics. It is only when they are barred from contributing to politics constructively and proactively that they, as Chris Hedges says, in a similar context, resort to “a virulent anti-politics, in which facts and arguments are replaced by slogans, symbols and sensation.”

All these years, we have been controlled by an artificially produced creed of competition and egoism, that has often made us unconscious of the bedrock of politics and economics on which our day-to-day life is sustained. We are accustomed to being narrowly focused on personal success. Of course, our politicians have no reason to be unhappy about it. In fact, they have prospered in a society, where each one is preoccupied with oneself and feeling alienated. However, it is heartening that today many discerning people, including those who occupy prestigious positions and even religious dignitaries, have come together to say enough is enough, and that we need a solid system change. The question they are asking is whether people should allow an incompetent and patently callous government to blunder along for another 2 ½ years, against the will of the people, simply because the constitution allows it, no matter how catastrophic the consequences are bound to be?

On what basis and for how long should people wait in hopefulness when the parliament, the institution where the will of the people should be reflected, continuously seem to disdain the sentiments of the masses – in the way it tolerates blatantly unethical crossovers, arbitrary appointments and pompous rhetoric – to subvert the responsibility and respectability attributed to it? Is it unreasonable that people have begun to think of having a monitoring mechanism outside parliament to ensure fair play?