That democracy, the way we practise it anywhere in the world, is a hopelessly flawed system of governance and that elections, the only tool for the people to participate in it, seldom reflect sound thinking or free choice, needs no attestation. Latest proof is the election of Donald Trump as its President by the 'oldest democracy in the world'. Looking at from even the other side of the globe it may appear incredulous that the people of America actually elected him as their Commander in Chief. But, that is the way democracy is and his election is as is laid down in the book.
No wonder that 'majority of votes' seldom means the will of a 'majority of the people'. Democracy in practice is never participatory or even representative but only 'substitutionalist'. It was Leon Trotsky who used the word 'substitutionalism' first in 1904 to warn the revolutionary leaders of the proletarian movement in Russia about the danger of "the Party organisation substituting itself for the Party, the Central Committee [of the Party] substituting itself for the Party organisation, and finally the dictator substituting itself for the Central Committee". He was inadvertently prognosticating about the 'most perfect democratic form of government', as claimed by Stalin, degenerating into a diabolic dictatorship during his own reign.
Incidentally, about Humayun, the son and successor of Babur, historian Stanley Lane-Poole had said: 'He tumbled out of life as he had tumbled through it'. For, Humayun's career was a series of twists and turns of fortune, which ended finally with a fall on the steps of his library. In the case of Trump, however, we have to wait for some more time for the 'through' and the 'out' of his Presidency to play out. But, if we may improvise on Lane-Pooles' remark, it can certainly be said: He Trumpled into Presidency, is Trumpling through it, and will probably Trumple out of it.
Compared to the American electorate, are we in India any better off? Or, would the 'largest democracy in the world' follow Trotsky's prediction and become a dictatorship, if not of an individual or of a party, of a majoritarian community? I don't mean the community of humans, but of the cows! Wow! That could be the way to a better 'gaurnment', a Ram Rajya: A government of the cows, for the cows, and god forbid, by the cows! Orwell might certainly be turning in his grave!
