Political Empowerment: Promises & Predicament
...its people. A people are empowered by their capabilities. People's capabilities are created by investments in their education, well-being and skills and providing them with opportunities for gainful productive employment. People are also empowered by the freedom they enjoy. A free press is an important element of our empowerment.
In the world, in which we live today, no country can feel empowered unless all its citizens feel empowered. When a child, a woman, a person belonging to a weaker section or a minority community or group of any kind feels disempowered we all lose something in us. " Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, India.
Historical Perspective:
When India emerged as a nation state in 1947, the founding fathers adopted for this new nation a system of governance, known as Parliamentary Democracy. Democracy in itself is neither new nor alien to the Indian ethos, because under the tutelage of its successive monarchs before its nationhood, a certain kind of democratic functioning did exist in some of its institutions. A study of ancient Indian history reveals the existence of institutions like the Sabha and the Samiti where the participation and opinion of people were sought for effective administrative functioning.
Hence democracy and its inherent participatory character enabling thereby the empowerment of the common man were in the minds of those who were to shape India's tryst with destiny'. Democracy has been variedly interpreted by both its defendants and its detractors and the one oft quoted is of it being "a government of the people, by the people and for the people'. This definition attributed to the 16th President of USA, Abraham Lincoln, has been the bottom line of arguments in favour of democracy. To be fair to the thesis, a government of the people' and by the people' ought to naturally be in...
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