Democracy: Not just rights, but also duties

Before I start analysing The Indian Mentality, I find it absolutely necessary to define Democracy. People here are just aware of the fact that India is the largest democracy in the world, but most of them simply dont know what does that mean exactly...so let us try to find it out...lets recapitulate few points that we learnt in Civics.

Literal Meaning of Democracy : Rule by the people (from the Greek demos, "people," and kratos, "rule")

More precisely, Democracy is a Government "of the people, by the people and for the people".

Democracies can be categorised into:

Direct democracy : All citizens, without any elected official, come together to make public decisions. This can be implemented only for a small group, but cannot be implemented nationwide.

Representative democracy: Here, citizens elect officials to make political decisions, formulate laws, and administer programs for the public good.

Some people define democracy as Freedom. But it must be understood that the words democracy and freedom cannot be used interchangeably. Democracy is not just a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also contains a set of practices and procedures that have been reformed through a long, often tortuous history.

Any society, to be called as democratic, needs to contain time-tested fundamentals of constitutional government, human rights and equality before the law. Time-tested (reformed and corrected by time) fundamentals of the human rights and equality before the law when merged with duties of the individuals make a constitution. To make a constitution succeed, it is very important that every individual is aware of his own duties. It is not sufficient to be aware of only human rights or equality rights. The constitution must be superior to all other laws, and must be always superior to an individual. The superiority of the constitution is a key factor to sustain democracy.

In India, the constitution defines "the executive(the administration), the legislature(the Parliament) and the judiciary" as the main organs of the government, and also describes their powers and responsibilities. It also regulates the relationship between them. Thus the constitution acts like a brain, where the intelligence to control and to operate the system lies. Every law implemented by the goverment has to be in confirmity with the constitution. Indian constitution specifies the goals of India as Democracy, Socialism, Secularism and National Integration, and in addition it also describes the rights and duties of citizens in order to achieve those goals.

All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic. Majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights that, in turn, serve to protect the rights of minorities. Rights of minority are not by the goodwill of the majority and also cannot be eliminated by majority vote. These rights are protected because democracy protects the rights of all citizens.

Everyone is aware of fundamental rights provisioned in the constitution, and everyone fights for them, but always forgets that there are also some duties specified, rather legally enforced, for each citizen. You can have a look at your fundamental duties, if you really care to, here.

It should always be a simple and fair equation : "No duties??? No rights...". But why is not the constitution so harsh? Because it wants each and every citizen to understand the serious need of implementing the duties in order to protect their own rights. This cannot be achieved by harshness or enforcement of duties, but can only be achieved through awareness.

Indian mentality lacks respect to the constitution. It lacks respect to the fundamental duties. It knows only about fundamental rights. It calculates using a reverse equation "No Rights??? No duties...". It considers government as a separate entity and as a scapegoat. It finds it derogatory to accept the blame. It is selfish and not willing to contribute to the nation. Such an unaware mind does not deserve a democracy...