I was wrong. I used to preach democracy as the supreme right to choose my suitable representative so that no harm would be done to my habitat. In my nineteen years of living until I became mature enough to eradicate and judge what is morally right or wrong for me, I started spreading awareness about democracy. The best thing about democracy that attracted me the most is that it safeguards everyone, even if they don’t believe in it. I know many people with different ideologies regarding democracy. Some call it a beginner’s guide to life, some call it a supreme right, but some have had really bad experiences with it. I’ve come to realize that this land of democracy does not have followers present in every region. I don’t have the right to object to their ideologies, but this makes me wonder why any individual living in the world’s largest democracy can hate democracy. I researched this thought and found that India is not the only state with democracy haters. Almost every region of the world has different perspectives on the structure of democracy.
Now, honestly, I won’t say that every hater is baseless. I used to talk to the haters more than the supporters to understand exactly why they are against democracy, and then the moment of truth stood before my subconscious mind, and every matter of democracy changed for me. I was at the library of my college reading about ancient Greek philosophers, and then I learned about a great Greek philosopher called “Socrates”. Socrates, who regarded people as the supreme power to select representatives, elaborated on his views on disliking democracy: “If you need any recommendation regarding your health, then you go and see a specialist, i.e., a doctor. If you need to get your shoe stitched, even then you need a shoe specialist. Similarly, you need specialists for every work, whether it is big or as small as shoe stitching. Then how can you say that choosing a government or regulating a state could be done by common people and not specialists? Giving the right to vote to every citizen, whether educated or not, uninformed, and easily manipulable by leaders, is thus not appropriate.” He argued that if democracy gives the right to an individual to select their representative to govern, then the criteria should be harder for the people themselves and not for their representatives. His main target was uneducated individuals who do not understand the notion of democracy but select any suitable candidate, which decreases the standard of democracy from the start. Socrates argued that if leaders openly manipulate or brainwash their people, then there is no point in giving them the right to govern, and this issue can only be resolved when the people themselves have the knowledge to choose wisely. This idea of Socrates made me wonder if I am also a victim of this stigma, choosing any representative without having sufficient knowledge of what they would represent, their people, or their political agenda. We humans have this bad habit of making decisions without verifying if they are morally right or wrong for us. After studying Socrates’ thoughts on democracy, I formed a negative perception of this term and started disliking it at present. There are certain reasons for this which I don’t want to elaborate on for now, but I can assure every reader that whatever reasons I have to dislike this term, I will come back stronger with a solution. The solution is simple: social education. A country can never progress if its people aren’t well-educated and socially active. I’m a man of rational thinking and can clearly see the loophole between our growth and our decline, but this is not something that cannot be solved. I’m preparing myself for the worst this state could ever witness because of this issue, but I can assure you that in the land of tomorrow, there will be no more thoughts like Socrates’ if we start becoming rational. Jai Hind!