Why Sanatan dharma is most compatible with Democracy and why India needs democracy?

Not because of idealism, there were practical reasons. With the advent of technology societies got complex and more dynamic. And democracy provided the platform for a change. the opposite of democracy i.e., monarchical dictatorship, the King or Queen was absolute and stayed in power throughout the life. In a situation when a person with different skillset was needed, the monarch could not change. For e.g., Churchill was an excellent PM during WW2. Even after winning the war, the people voted him out and brought in Atlee who was better suited during peace time as people knew that Churchill wont a good PM during peace time. Atlee gave independence to India and many other nations immediately thereby saving them from aggressive Russian Communism.

Democracy also means separation of powers. We have Lord Ram who was a benevolent ruler. We also have Ravana who sacrificed an entire nation just for his personal like. To guarantee such a situation does not occur the democracies ensured that there are checks and balances and no one person has absolute power. One person can make mistake, but a group wont.

Hinduism is by nature inclusive. People have freedom of worship, I worship Krishna, my wife worships Jagannath, my father worships Kali and my mother-in-law worships Lakshmi. Yet, we co-exist and don’t slaughter one another as is recommended in barbaric cults. This is the precise reason why no single Islamic country is a democracy as it doesn’t believe in becoming inclusive. Do you know why Islam is in trouble? The reason in 1 sentence: “Islam is not compatible with the relevant political system of the age (Democracy) and not compatible with the economic system of age (Capitalism)”.

All the sections of society get representation in parliament and participate in Governance. Say, we abolish democracy and establish a one-person-dictatorship (just as Indira wanted to). There will be civil war in the nation and that’s the precise reason why there was a lot of unrest when the Gandhis ruled, and the social unrest is going down after the dictatorial Gandhi dynasty is getting weak. Vajpayee became the PM. He was Brahmin from UP. He was accepted widely. Why? Others thought that their chance will come as democracy essentially means there will always be a transition of Power. I belong to Odisha, a lady from my state is the President. I feel included. The PMs in India have been from multiple states, so no one gets left out and hence India is thriving as one nation despite diversities. Without democracy, forget 565 states, India will be split to 5650 states. Democracy is the best system to hold diversity. If you look at history of Russia, it was always ruled by cruel and merciless dictators who always imposed Russian culture on others. What happened? It was not once Russia broke into multiple parts; it has broken multiple times. After USSR, the countries that separated from Russia ( Poland, Finland, Sweden, or Ukraine) are the dead enemies of USSR.

Putin used Russia’s influence to raise the oil prices and made windfall profits by cooperating with the Oil cartel which uses very unfair means for making profits. Today, Oil is extremely important for the world, and he is able to make money. What will happen an alternate to Oil is found? Can Russia survive? Putin has put all his eggs to one basket and that’s Oil. Dictatorships can either grow or fall but can never find a middle path. Look at UK, it had huge colonies, it lost all of them in a jerk, but it still survives and thrives. But Look at Ottoman empire, after the areas it had captured got separated, the empire just dissolved. The difference between UK and Ottoman empire is Democracy v/s absolute dictatorship.

When a person stays in power for long, the coterie around him/her become powerful. And Power corrupts. That’s why we see massive corruption in communist countries. In India corruption is high in communist states like Bengal Or Kerala. And since they loot, they mercilessly suppress people to ensure that the news of their loot doesn’t come out. That’s why in Putin’s Russia, if I were writing this article, I would have just vanished the very next day. The single most reason why Putin is losing the war in Ukraine is corruption. The flagship Moskva sunk because the diesel meant for extinguishing fire was stolen. The culture of corruption has deep percolated in Russian society. In India, had there been no dynastic politics, the corruption would have been less.

Gandhis in India, Al-Saud dynasty in Saudi to name a few.  Dictatorship leads to dynasty and dynasty leads to production of Pappus and Pinkis. It is not possible to guarantee a “benevolent dictatorship”. What if the dictator loses his/her benevolence? How do keep that check?

We need a strong democracy. If we do that, a diverse country India will tear itself apart.  We are divided. Why Lalu, Mulayam etc. have ruled so far? Because we Hindus think ourselves Brahmins or Yadava or Lingayat first and then Hindus. All Lingayat voted for Congress in Karnataka in recent elections. Muslims are united and we are divided. There is casteism in Islam, but Muslims think themselves Muslims first and then anything else. We need to learn from them and do the same.  It is okay to retain your identity, but that identity should be always lower than “Hindu” identity.