DEMOCRACY, WHAT'S IT?

Iran's in the news. In the United States.

Hypothetically, if Mahmoud Ahmedinejad were to sing paens to the United States even if he were at war with his neighbors, he won't make news. But that's hypothetical.

Two years ago, I attended a workshop of Asian film-makers on "Why Democracy?" in the beautiful town of Shillong in north-east India.

For centuries since its birth as a concept, a particular shade of democracy has been the driver of the global geo-politics.

Fascinating though is the question, what's democracy, than why democracy.

As I see the U.S. media almost overtly likening the street protests in Iran - and as shown by the cameras - as counter-revolution of unprecedented nature (the re-elected president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad being the villain of course), I am reminded of that gripping brainstorming on the notion of democracy at that workshop.

My notion of democracy could be totally different than yours. We talk about it. We fret about it. And yet we can't really explain what is democracy.

The British empire went on enslaving the world in the 18th and 19th centuries while claiming itself to be a democracy.

Others European nations owned, until very recently, tiny island nations, some in the Caribbeans, and yet were called democracies.

Some of the founding fathers of the United States owned slaves and even had racial prejudices. That's part of the history. But they were "democratic".

The two world wars had nations fighting each other despite being "democracies."

So when the ebullient media - and the TV hosts in particular - jump on their seats on what is perceived by the west as a counter-revolution in Iran, I wonder if those on the streets in the Muslim nation are really championing democracy that I see as my notion. Would the Ahmedinejad rivals, who by now are openly tip-toeing the line that United States want them to, be in any way promoting democracy in that nation?

Fundamental issue is what makes the west see Iran undemocratic. And will that change if Ahmedinejad were to be toppled in a coup!

China, for ages, remains undemocratic electorally and socially. And it funds North Korea too.

But the US won't preach democracy to China the way it does to some of those smaller nations in the middle-east.

For, the Asian behemoth remains the big super market on the street that you can't mess with.

It's easier to preach it to Iran, as to Iraq, the small road-side shops.

Modern day geo-political situation is complex enough to be shaped by the principles of democracy. It remains alas a garb. Merely.

At the core of nuclear proliferation, military build up and religious fundamentalism around the world remains the notion of autocracy.

Some of the so-called democracies today have highly undemocratic principles driving its economies and social structures.

India, for instance, is called as the world's largest democracy. But we hardly have any social or economic democracy.

As the architect of Indian constitution Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar said in the early fifties: "We are an electoral democracy, but we aren't yet a social and economic democracy." Poverty, illiteracy and communal violence are symptops of that.

How can any form of violence - physical or verbal- or war be the driver of democracy that fundamentally espouses the principle of non-violence and inequality.

Globally, which includes of the United States as well, social and economic democracy remains far from a dream.

Some nations may at best have electoral democracy, which is driven by the concept of a majority and not pursuasive unanimity or concensus.

Some are better than others. But they still remain only electoral democracies.

Mahatma Gandhi once described the western form of democracy as "a diluted form of fascism." Stress is on "The Western Dominion Form of Democracy."

Why? because he saw the British empire go about conquering the world while calling itself the mother of all parliaments.

Ironically, humanity has progressed very little on embracing a democracy that has no place for dominant one-upmanships and economic inequalities.

Modern day wars waged in the garb of promoting peace and democracy would continue to hold hostage the very notion it intends to propagate.

The argument that a nation needs to be invaded or toppled because it doesn't toe a dominant western line is also a sign of autocracy.

Mere electoral democracy isn't enough to play preacher to the world.