 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
�GREATNESS CRISIS� OF A GREAT MAN �02 : PROF. AMARTYA K. SEN AND DEMOCRACY Part -2 By Bijon B. Sarma INTRODUCTION: Even though Prof. Amartya Kumar Sen is basically an economist, from his works it is clear how keenly he observes the relation of this subject with various subjects like the government, politics. sociology etc. So far one can understand him through his works, Prof. Sen he believes democracy to be the ever best system of political administration. His criticism for the communistic-socialistic cum military administration in China, that brought him wide fame is known all over the world. He identified the lack of democracy as a dominant factor behind the famines in China. However, any person with common sense can understand, beyond communistic, socialistic or military forms of governments there are numerous factors which eat the essential green leaves of democracy-tree, before it can stand on its own backbone. The �context� in which Prof. Sen so long worked to prepare his scholarly works �probably� encouraged him to write against what that �contextual forces� disliked. Since Prof. Sen is now out of and away from that context he can look at these problems impartially. We know he has a deep root in Indian soil, such deep that the distress of his countrymen deeply concerns his feelings. By achieving the highest honor in his discipline Prof. Sen he has placed himself in a position where from he can make this world to listen what he thinks. This is the most appropriate time for him to find out the real enemies of democracy. In the current article I shall present a few of those for Prof. Sen�s kind attention. COMMUNISM / SOCIALISM / MILITARY RULES FOR THE PEOPLE: The harsh truth of this world is �All men are not equal�. The plain meaning of this line is, �neither all men are not created with equal capability, nor all men�s needs are equal�. In such a reality �demanding equal works from all and sanctioning equal provisions for all� is a wrong concept. Even the socialists who shout for �equality� don�t endorse this idea (even though their critics often say, say do). What they demand is �all persons would work to the best of his ability and enjoy to the most of his need�. This is an impossible proposition, because men would never acquire such noble and impossible qualities. As a matter of fact it is never possible to quantify men�s abilities and needs. Still the advocators of socialism/communism would expect to do that. There is no doubt, they would have to apply �force� in various magnitudes to imply those. Thus socialism is an erroneous concept. The only appreciable thing that lies in communism/socialism concept is, it is the outcome of some men who earnestly wanted to find out a mechanism by which the distress of the poorest men could come to an end. They observed the administrative of various countries and discovered, most of the citizens are oppressed and only a few are privileged. Naturally they thought, since the administration of few privileged men cannot solve the problem of the majority, definitely the administration of many would be able to do that. Democracy in fact is the administration of the majority through a mechanism in which people�s endorsements are conveyed through their representatives. Thus the problem they encountered had the solution in democracy. At this context they discovered a major weakness in democracy. They saw, the various concept of impartial election in democracy is foiled by people who are capable of manipulating the common people�s endorsements due to their money or productive machines. Naturally they concentrated on two things : (a) Taking away all the instruments that could be used by the public in manipulating fair election and (b) Forming a �party� with men with certain qualities and proven records of dedication to work for the common men. Socialism-communism may totally vanish from this world for genuine reason, but the intelligence, sincerity and greatens shown by its advocators for the distressed minority of this world would never vanish. The saddest part of Socialism-communism is, before its advocators could finish the paper works, some army generals discovered an excellent �provision� in it. This provision is, in Socialism-communism there is a post of the party chairman, who, for all practical purposes enjoy the privileges of a dictator. Naturally, the army generals picked up this policy, such that they could rule the country as dictator in the disguise of people�s representative. However, even after a long time they failed to produce �dedicated workers� not to say anything about men with that rare qualities. On the other hand, when the productive instruments were given in the hands of the administrators, who were in need of �backing� from the workers, those could not show efficiency. The country under the dictatorship of the ex-military general, however, demonstrated the discipline, steady progress and the type of peace that any country under the military rule shows. The success of the military administration towards solving the problems of the common men depends upon how far the �man on the top� or the dictator feels for the common men, how far his courtiers give him proper and how far his deputies abide by his decisions. We know these are quite far and by now any civilized country should consider military rule as a disgrace for the country. DEMOCRATIC RULE : When we intend to administer the people of a country who widely differ in religion, sex, aspiration and ability to work, and when it is not possible to get all the people at hand at the time of making laws and formulating policies, the only workable solution to accomplish this �great� job is to get it done by their representatives. That is what �Democracy� stands for. There is no guarantee that the elected representative would do �the best� for the people. In case they �do not do that� the people reserves the right to oust them. What can be a better solution than this ? If the majority of people fail to elect the �best� representative, they would suffer from the consequences. And if even the majority cannot find out the best for themselves, how can a dictator, military general of chairman of a party should expect, they could do the best ? So, till today Democracy is considered as the best system of administration. However, the harsh reality is, this system has failed to perform its role in any part of the world. Since we have no other option at hand, it is high time for us to find out the reasons behind the malfunction of this system and endeavor to eradicate those. First of all let us look at the major types of �irregularities� observed in democracy. DEMOCRACY IN THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: In the present system of democratic system election to higher posts is a costly affair. That indicates the first criteria to become elected is to have affluence. And there is no hard and fast rule that intelligent, efficient, honest and sympathetic person would be rich. Also no one should claim that a rich man would have the quality and capability to lead a country. If a rich man invests money for being elected, it is natural for him to make a big profit out of his position. Needless to mention each such �profit� is going to cause heavy loss for the country. Now, say since a man willing to be elected does not have the money and say, a rich man or company bears the cost of election. What will be the outcome ? It will be worse because the elected person will have to look at the interests of both. In the system of election there is no provision for the state to assist efficient men in getting elected. In such a context prevailing in the poor or third world countries no one should expect Democracy to work. Well, one may trace �dishonesty of men� as one important cause also. In this case we observe, there was no provision of creating good men in these countries. DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM: In spite of failure of democracy in the Socialist-communist countries one must appreciate their endeavor, because of the fact that there was a sincere attempt to eradicate the exploitable items from the hands of the probable manipulators. It is pity that the capitalist countries could not still understand the blunder in their system, they endeavor to call democracy. These countries allegedly adopted democracy for political administration and capitalism for economic development. In the capitalistic economy the instruments of production are proposed to be in the hands of few, who could make their best uses and the government is asked to patronize them in all possible ways. Naturally, their economy suffers from a boom at the cost of the suffering of the common people (because they are subjected to exploitation). Even a school going boy may have the common sense that democracy or fair election cannot in a situation where all the exploitable items are in the hands of few. In addition the medias who play crucial role during election are also owned by those manipulators. When the �guardians of capitalism� rise to power as a result of such �manipulated election� whose interest would they serve ? When several hundred millions of people fail to realize this simple fact, we can guess the �brain-washing capability� of their medias. I request Prof. Sen to comment on whether or not democracy and capitalism can go together. Whatever the experts under the influence of those brainwashing elements might say, we know �capitalism reserves the inherent power to savor the fruits of democracy�. That is why we see their there �democratically elected government� to waste people�s money in the name of (a) Self created wars (Vietnam war, Iraq Kuwait war, Iraq war etc.), (b) Self created enemies (best example, the Talibans), (c) Self created ego�s (for example, taking the unnecessary responsibility of protecting Japan), (d) Self created trade loss (example, trade imbalance with Japan) and so on. DEMOCRACY AND THE RELIGIOUS COUNTRIES: Can democracy work in a religious country ? It depends largely upon the nature of the religion. Democracy believes in equal rights for all, irrespective of sex or religion. It is natural that in a mono-religious country the government will follow the principles of that religion, because that will be endorsed by the majority. Now the question is, does this religion give equal rights to men and women ? Does it give equal status to men belonging to any religion ? Or, whether it advocates killing of or conversion of people from other religions ? ( It is not difficult to find it out. One may just go through their authentic religious books). This is the reason why the Muslim countries should not expect to have democracy till they can give it higher position than their religion. Democracy cannot work in a country where there are many religions with conflicting nature and where the people are religious minded. In this case democracy might fail due to contradictions between religious rules and democratic principles. Another important point to note here is, the religions have failed to produce good-quality men. CONCLUSION: It has been proved beyond doubt that none of the poor, rich, capitalistic, socialistic or religious countries in their present set ups can produce good men, where as the first and foremost condition of success of democracy is "there must exist be good men in the country". By that consideration the extent of democracy extends from mere fair election of representatives to creation of good men. Religions have absolutely no hope of success in this age of science and technology. It is a pity that they have no role to play in democracy also. In this article I have endeavored to show what the men from the eastern countries (who still boast of being away from the brain-washing limit of the west) think about various aspects of democracy. We want to see, how far Prof. Sen�s views differ from these. Since Prof. Sen is now above and beyond the limits of blinding curtains, we believe he can easily express the truth. Bijon B. Sarma, Associate Professor, Architecture Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna-9208, Bangladesh. Go to: Part3
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
||
|
||||