Democratically Elected Dictators

     Abraham Lincoln famously defined democracy as "Of the people, by the people, for the people". The word democracy comes from the Greek words "demos", meaning people, and "Kratos" meaning power; so democracy can be thought of as "power of the people"; a way of governing which depends on the will of the people. A democracy is a government in which ultimate power is invested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through representation.

In a strong democracy, people /citizens govern themselves to the greatest extent possible rather than delegate their power and responsibility to representatives acting in their names. For people to govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves openly, publicly, and repeatedly in speech and in writing.

Despite democracy’s popularity around the globe, it is important to remember that democracies can easily fail without proper upkeep. Dictators may rise to power in democracy in several ways.

Democracies are considered by the lively but peaceful debate between a variety of political parties and interest groups. But sometimes, these political groups begin disagreeing with each other so much that they no longer believe that compromise with the other group is possible. When the political arena no longer becomes about compromise, it becomes a matter of dominating by one group over the other. This allows violent or extremist groups to take over politics instead.

One means is to use democracy against itself. In this situation, a specific party wins an election and then uses its position as the leader of the government to curtail democratic rights,

Democracies can also fall into dictatorships when voters become politically uninterested. They pull out themselves from partaking in the political process. This is a growing problem in many democracies, as indicated by falling voter turnouts across much of the democratic world. This is very dangerous. This presents an opportunity for authoritarian-minded political leaders to start curtailing political rights for minority groups. This can then start a backslide into a dictatorship when the democratic voice becomes permanently suppressed, eliminating any kind of recourse against undemocratic policies such as violations of free speech.

 Though India is a multiparty democracy, as per freedomhouse.org  “The government has presided over discriminatory policies and a rise in persecution affecting the minority population. The constitution guarantees civil liberties including freedom of expression and freedom of religion, but harassment of journalists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other government critics has increased significantly under the current leadership. Minorities, scheduled castes (Dalits), and scheduled tribes (Adivasis) remain economically and socially marginalized.

Let’s keep ourselves politically literate, to be democratic