Times they are a changing

With the ongoing economic crisis (Yes, the crisis is ongoing and only become deeper), It's time to renew focus on Democracy and it's future. There are lot of questions that need answers. To begin with,

1. Do we really have a democracy prevailing in the any country?

2. Are we the masters of our destiny and not being led to believe things to be true or false

3. In case we are made to believe things, who is guiding us?

4. Does the so called democratic government has the will or authority to enforce it's will and act in order to fulfill the obligations under social contract?

5. What is forcing this unparalleled creation of money and why it is interfering in the governance?

6. The most important question that needed asked a long time back, Does the Voter Matter?

Let me start with the first one. No we don't have any democracy prevailing in any of the countries anymore. If the writers of Indian constitution were alive and came up with things like fundamental rights, they would have been jailed. There is a blatant contradiction that is so obvious in the way government is functioning in India. I grew up believing and reading that all people have rights that are endowed by constitutional fathers after long debates and centuries of accumulated wisdom behind them. I also believed that government can secure and protect rights but is incapable of bestowing them (since it didn't have them in the first place), and that government has mere privileges granted by the people - and that the people have the right to revoke those privileges through debates or through election process. However what happens in between the election process that comes in 5 years? Damage is already been done.


The answer to the second question regarding being masters of our own destiny. Well we are not! This 'Government of the people, by the people, and for the people' never involves people in things that impact their destinies, our destinies. Democratic governments (all parties) believe that fiscal policy (that is to say almost all government endeavours involved in spending money that touch most citizens apart from home affairs and foreign policy) is "too important" for voters to have a say over, that would be better be agreed, again, in my words, in "dark, secret debates." When everything is done in the name of people of India, why there are no informed debated with the citizenry is beyond comprehension?

The answer to the third point is muddled. Lot of Conspiracy theorists, Jholowalas would like to make you believe that they have figured it out, "It's the government,silly". This is only partially true. The Government across the world over are subservient not to the people but to 'Business interests' or the invisible hands. it's those invisible Multinationals and Indian conglomerates in addition to the banks and financial institutions. They rule from a moveable, intangible palace: Sometimes the orders seem to come from Brussels, sometimes from New york or Berlin, sometimes from a Luxembourg castle or maybe just via a dinner-time teleconference over a dodgy line and lukewarm coffee from Mumbai.

And in seeing how easy it is to intimidate democracy, they have have now gone so far, it appears, as to be on the verge of morally bankrupting the government who is so neck deep in corruption and probably lost the mandate of the people. Alas! we have no concept of 'Seppuku'

On fourth, Government has no will or authority to enforce it's part of 'Social contract'


Since the topic is more of democracy and Economics. let's stick to

This has not happened by putsch or coup d'etat, at least not one involving any guns or tanks. There are no colonels or partisans who have captured the garrisons and seized the telephone exchange. Yet a junta has installed itself nonetheless, a junta of ‘experts', technocrats, those educated in the knowledge of What Needs To Be Done. Wherever these masters of the Economic universe happen to be hovering at any one moment, the refrain in effect is the same: ‘Of course, there is no question that you are still allowed to vote however you like. Nevertheless, the policies absolutely cannot change even if the government does. Take the case of Portugal where the banks forced the parties to sign agreements even before the elections to agree to certain policies or no debt. It is therefore worrying that the dangers to democratic governance today, coming through the back door of financial priority, are not receiving the attention they should. There are profound issues to be faced about how democratic governance could be undermined by the hugely heightened role of financial institutions and rating agencies, which now lord it freely over parts of Global political terrain.

The day is not far of when the UPA profligacy will lead us to a similar situation. With the combination of 'Sarkari Jholawalas' in Sonia led NAC (national advisory council) and a 78 year old 'Sarkari Clerk' in PMO we are heading towards the same way. With a ballooning debt at almost 75% of GDP (so what if most of it is in INR) our capacity to pay it back will depend on the earnings of future generations, who are increasingly unemployable due to poor education, we are hell bent on implementing inane, stupid and inflationary ideas such as NREGA/Food security bill. what happened to the old fashioned way of hardwork and earning one's bread through the sweat of of brow?

The formal trappings of clean elections - in which political parties with competing manifestoes contest a ballot free of voter intimidation - are all still there, but someone else is deciding in advance what the result will be. Political parties will be in no position to resist these financial institutions if we continue to collect debts for these hazardous, poisonous schemes. we are surrendering our capacity to maneuver and implement the will of the people. Today it's Europe, tomorrow it could be India. What is happeneing in Portugal, Ireland and Greece is erosion of democracy.

Money creation is nothing but debt creation, my professor taught me. While we are creating money we must balance it with Goods and services of equivalent value to offset the inflation. With 15% inflation raging on our heads in india, we are headed for more disaster with Food security or any other bill of that nature. Once you promise to give certain things free, you can not take them back or get ready for violence (think free TV, washing machine, laptops in TN) .

According to a poll conducted by Greece's Kappa Institute two weeks ago, 30 percent of Greek respondents actually want the country to be led by "a group of experts and technocrats."

A plurality of Greeks have now become so disillusioned with sovereignty and democracy that they think at least the experts could deliver something better than the seemingly insurmountable unemployment, corruption and economic collapse they see around them.

The same survey said that less than a quarter believed that a democratically-elected government will be able to overcome the ordeal they are going through.

But if the experts, the technocrats who are sidelining democracy in their subtle way, feel heartened by such polls, they should pause when they read the rest of this census.

A full 22.7 percent want "a strongman" to resolve the ongoing crisis.

We have seen a Greece, get ready for India in 10 years. The Anna, Ramdev campaigns under the garb of 'Civil society' are nothing but capturing the moral space vacated by the government. A handful of zealots, partisans are holding the government, who should have reflecting the will of the people, by their throat. This blatant undermining of constitution, parliament and cabinet has been made possible by the acceptance of NAC as super advisory body by Manmohan government.

The state and the rule of law are being ridiculed on a daily basis. May god bless Bharatvarsha!

Jai Ho! jai Ho!