State-Society Relations

30th January, 2008

The Prime Minister of India
New Delhi

Kind Attn. : Dr. Manmohan Singh

Subject : Understanding Democracy

Sir,

This is my third communication to you. I have given my thoughts on the said subject, which is as follows.

In a precise way, I explain the relation of state and the society. Democracy means to me that the people legitimize the ruler to rule them. For that they pay a certain amount to the ruler so that they can have their survival in a peace and progressive manner.

The understanding of democracy to me limited to “the rule of people, by the people and for the people”, where people choose their representative, seems to be inadequate to me. The concept of “Rule of Law” is also incomplete. I feel the democracy needs to be understood in a broader perspective.

To me, the society is divided into three streams.
i. dejure
ii. defacto
iii. Faith

For me to explain further I need to make it clear how these three streams work in the society. The society is the reflection of a human body. Man has three vital points to govern his life i.e. Reason, Emotions and Spirituality. The inadequacy of reasoning leads to man’s action based on emotions, and where reasons and/or emotions do not succeed man move towards spirituality.

The strong connection between three streams had witness the evolution of societies. The hegemony of the monarch in the ancient times, later the hegemony of the religion and further the hegemony of the rule of law clearly indicate its development since historically. The dejure rule indicate the rule of law, whereas, defacto indicate the power and the faith indicates to the spirituality.

To further enhance them in a holistic manner, we need to understand the institution based of these streams. I would like to start with faith because my focus is more towards the defacto and dejure rule.

The institution of faith differs from religion. Religion is an identity, whereas, faith is spirituality. The growing institution of spiritualism since the medieval, modern and post-modern period clearly indicate a parallel rule of these institution where people do not relate themselves with reason or emotion, i.e. dejure or defacto. The growing wealth of the spiritual organization and its social activities creating its own community where the member of these communities is governed by the ideology of their spiritual leaders, clearly indicates its strength.

The next aspect is the role of dejure in the human society. The reason is the modern concept but existed since the evolution of the mankind that paved the path of progress. The democracy is legitimized with the written constitution, i.e. rule of law. The rule of law is governed by, what we call, the control system or state machinery, i.e. army, police, judiciary, bureaucracy. They operate according to the rules and regulations derived from the law. The maintenance of the state machinery derives from the tax received from the community so that they can provide provision and protection to the society.
The third aspect is defacto that is the rule of power. The power can be generated in any form, i.e. economy, social, mussel, cultural or political (ideology) power. The leader generates recognition from their community that derives from these sources. These leaderships are being legitimized by the constitution which is the basic essence of the democracy. The survival of this power is based on the collection from the community as a donation or in any form. The defacto rule governs its community both direct and through the state machinery. The state machinery is a tool of the people’s representative when they are in the constitutional power.

Now, if we see, in all three stream, people are contributing to its belief (as tax, donation or offerings) for their sustainability, but still there is an adequate unrest in the society that is creating many debates and discontentment on many issues such as corruption, violence, political unrest and environmental hazards. To understand this discontentment we need to further elaborate the political system. After the second World War, the rule of law paved the way towards the governance of the community, but after the end of Cold War, the Structural Adjustment Programe paved the way to the liberalization, privatization and globalization, that weakened the hands of state machinery. New Market, Media, NGOs and the Cultural Identity became more powerful and started manipulating without accountability. The rise of power gave birth to many political ideologies that distributed powers in many hands. To sustain its power defacto tended to many ways to please its community either by bribing them by legitimizing their outlaw acts or through violence. The loosing essence of dejure, let the community without understanding defacto ideology, achieve their means by many other options which they term as “corruption”.

In democracy there in a constant tussle between dejure and defacto rule. The constant struggles amongst the defacto rulers and towards their sustainability, creating a sense of competition and violence where the common people are bearing the expenses. The present global issue such as terrorism and environment is basically an act of decline of dejure rule.

To me terrorism is a political act that challenges the rule of law and creates its presence in the community. Whereas, environmental hazard is an economical act which is an outcome of the economical liberation. The sustainability of the environment and the sustainable development is only possible when the community move towards the dejure.

The concept of ‘corruption’ do not exist in the dejure rule. The State Machinery is the system that cannot be despotic. In every action there is an accountability. When the state machinery is over powered by the defacto then only the transparency become blurred. The main element of dejure is accountability, peace, social justice and sustainable development, whereas, the element of defacto is violence, economical disbalance, environmental hazards, subjugation of the deprived and destitute community.

I would like to explain my argument by stating an example. In a survey conducted by the Times of India (cutting enclosed) explains the reason for the backlog of almost 3 crores cases pending in the judiciary. Lack of attention in filling the vacancies and specially, low salary of judges and poor infrastructure makes the government responsible for inadequacy in the judiciary. Contradictorily, the unanimous acceptance (in just one sitting) by the legislative body on the ‘revision of remuneration’ for its member clearly proves the self-centeredness (corruption) in the Legislation. This seconds my argument on overpowering dejure by defacto.

The society gets their ruler, what they want. If they want to be ruled by power then they have the accessibility to it where there is no conformity and uniformity of growth along with there is no accountability on the facilitation. But if the society tend to have dejure rule then they are only accountable to the Law and their also limits in facilitation that is a confirmed way of paying tax. The tax collection is further being invested in the growth of the community, which is not there is other two streams of rule, i.e. faith and power.

The difference between dejure and defacto, that defacto is segmented and hetrogenous, whereas dejure is homogenous and universal.
The democracy is such a broader concept that it gives space for every individual to choose its ruler. The society reach to the destination by the path it chooses.


With best regards,



(SHARMILA BOSE)


Encl. : as above