For the past ten years from 2014 to 2024, Indian democracy was in a limbo of sorts. Democracy by name and autocracy by choice. Never since the emergency regime of Mrs. Gandhi did, we have such a paralysis of democratic pulsation.
Several factors have worked in tandem to create a tectonic shift in the governance paradigm of our nation. The 2024 federal election outcome was of course a powerful trigger. But that was not all.
The assertive objectivity and non-nonsense approach of CJI Chandrachud and fellow judges, the powerful but toxicity-prone Social Media and the ever-simmering unattached activists all conjured up to create a much-needed democratic resurgence in the country.
Whom should we thank for? Even the much-maligned RSS pitched in to de-clog the gathering authoritarian streak in the political horizon.
Today, public interest litigation as well as a renewed relevance and assertions of the Constitution of India play their role in rebuilding democratic dynamism. Just like in the post-emergency elections of 1977, the 2024 polls provided empowerment and articulation to the sections of our society such as SC/ST or minorities, which experienced a heightened threat-perception of marginalization.
The Supreme Court and High Courts are tearing up the carefully fabricated myth of unbridled executive supremacy and questioning the political propensity to institute partisan investigations and procedural harassment in the name of muscular leadership.
In the short term, we might need to tolerate over-reach as well as narcissist and hyperbolic narratives by a new Opposition that is yet on a learning curve. The days of fifty-six-inch chest-thumping are over, and thankfully.
Democracy calls for restraint, accommodation, mutual respect and above all social empathy. With our ruling dispensation, the new Lop and the fragmented Opposition blocks at a loss to find cohesion and moorings, the near-term road ahead is skiddy and bumpy, for sure.
Modi, Rahul, regional satrap and political ideologues must learn to adjust to the new realities and challenges of democracy.
Those who fail to learn lessons will be bypassed, discarded and brutally punished by the ultimate masters, the people at large, however underprepared they are.
The one block in our democratic stock that failed to live up to the expectations of objective and powerful contribution has been the Press and Visual Media, which with very few exceptions have behaved more like mercenaries of the political masters.
But for the Courts, we would have been doomed to mediocrity as a polity! Will a new era of accountable, ethical and empathetic politics emerge?
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