Popular sovereignty is a concept that renders people the source of all political legitimacy. And democracy is the necessary condition that sustains popular sovereignty. In simplest terms, democracy is where governments are elected through competitive elections.
In India, democratic traditions date back to the Vedic Age, where representative bodies like sabha, samiti, and sansad find mention in texts like the Rigveda and Atharvaveda. The concept of dharma as embedded in both Ramayana and Mahabharata stands for governance for welfare of the people. The age of the Buddha features the Vajjis who were known for their system of republican governance.
Calling Bharat the mother of democracy, the Prime Minister himself has given a reference to a 1,100-year-old Tamil inscription dating back to the reign of Chola king Parantaka I. “The inscription found there is like a local constitution for the gram sabha. It tells how the assembly should be run, what should be the qualification of members, what should be the process to elect the members, and how a member would be disqualified,” the PM said.
Needless to say, democracy has flourished as a resilient and enduring tradition throughout the nation’s history and geography. After independence, the Indian Constitution concretised this tradition, placing its faith in a parliamentary form of democracy based on Universal Adult Franchise—a right that didn’t exist in many countries of the West at the time. The Constitution itself provides for a third-tier of government— the Panchayati Raj—strengthening participative democracy at the grassroots level. Today these institutions of local self-government are galvanising a bottom-up approach, empowering local communities, especially by giving women an equal voice in the decision-making process.
This story is from the April 2024 edition of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist.
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This story is from the April 2024 edition of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist.
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