In spite of the ignorance and illiteracy of the large mass of people during the independence of India, assembly decided for the adoption of adult franchises. It was the biggest political experiment in human history.
Despite huge diversity in India and variations of religion, demography, altitude, and topography people from all over the nation gave their contribution to voting.
However, many critical factors like harsh weather conditions, remoteness, illiteracy, and inaccessibility of people didn’t become a barrier for India to be the largest democracy in the world.
Ravi Ramamurti, University Distinguished Professor of International Business and Strategy at Northeastern University says, “This is really against lots of odds; you wouldn’t think that a country that was this poor could really be effective as a democracy and that poor people who were not educated would know how to vote; would know what their interests are.”
Ravi Ramamurti recently was on India tour where he observed that the Indian public was in anxiety due to the global economic slowdown and its ripple effect on the republic. This made it very clear that the youth of India is aware of the present situation in the nation.
Ashutosh Varshney, a professor at Brown University held talks on the achievements and deficits of Indian democracy. Ravi Ramamurti acknowledged the recent talks that would be on secularism, the relationship between democracy and economic development, state of the media, the judiciary, and the astounding votes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With these talks, the reasons behind the Indian economic slowdown also came to the forefront. The reasons are manifold since it was global economic slowdown, its effect will come on every nation. Structural reforms are also required in labour laws and land acquisition policies.
Over the years, Ashutosh Varshney has studied the relationship between the minority communities and the majority Hindu community. He has studied where it is more tense and where it has been less, and what lessons can be taken from that.
Today, despite being the most populous country and vast in diversity, India and her people are trying to coordinate with each other and want to participate in the development of the nation. This democratic experiment was somewhat successful.
Shweta Tripathi