Challenges Faced by Indian Democracy Class 10 Political Science Notes Maharashtra State Board
As we have said earlier, democracy is a continuous living process. Mere adoption of democracy does not bring democracy into practice. Alert and conscious efforts are required to sustain democracy. It is necessary to understand threats to democracy in time and democratically deal with them. In this chapter, we will primarily focus on challenges before democracy in India. But before that let us have a look at challenges before democracy at the global level.
Today every nation in the world claims to be democratic. But in reality, very few nations in the world have a democracy that protects the rights and freedom of people and gives priority to the welfare of people. Many democracies are facing the challenge of a military takeover. The Spread of democratic values at the global level and the adoption of true democracy by all nations is a major challenge at the global level.
Democratic values are found to be very weak even in those nations where democracy appears to be deep-rooted. In nations like India, democracy appears in the form of voting, elections, governmental structure, judiciary, etc. However, this is only a political form of democracy. To become a way of life democracy must be practiced in every aspect of social life. Several measures such as inclusion of all social components, autonomy to social institutions, empowerment of citizens, and protection of human values need to be adopted for the real cultivation of democracy.
Another challenge before democratic nations is to ensure that democracy becomes deep-rooted. Freedom, equality, fraternity and justice, peace, development, and humanitarianism are the values that should be practiced at all levels of society. The mass support for this purpose can be gathered only through democratic means.
Challenges Before Indian Democracy
To make democracy more meaningful the government of India decentralised power and adopted the policy of reservation for women and weaker sections of the society. But we should think about whether such measures gave power to the hands of citizens.
Communalism and Terrorism:
Religious conflict and the resultant terrorism are one of the major challenges before Indian democracy. Social stability gets hampered due to increasing religious hostility. People’s participation in the democratic process is reduced to a great extent due to terrorism.
Left Extremists – Naxalism:
Naxalism is a major problem in India. Naxalism began as a movement to remove injustice against aggressive landless farmers and tribal people. But today Naxalism has become a violent struggle. In the Naxalite movement, the importance of the problems of farmers and tribal people was reduced. Instead, violent measures to oppose the government policies, attacking the police forces, and other tactics are used by the Naxalite groups.
Corruption:
In India, the extent of corruption is said to be very high in the public sector. The government’s working capacity is reduced due to corruption at the political and administrative levels. People develop distrust and dissatisfaction with the entire governmental system due to delays in governmental work, poor public services and facilities, and different financial blunders. Corruption in the electoral process, bogus voting, bribing the voters, abducting the voters, and other things reduce people’s confidence in the democratic process.
Criminalization of Politics:
Increased participation of criminals in the political process is another serious problem for democratic systems. Sometimes political parties give candidature to people having a criminal background, and facing criminal allegations and allegations of corruption. This increases the role of money and muscle power in politics. This may also lead to violence during elections.
Social Challenges:
Apart from the challenges mentioned above, Indian democracy faces other social challenges. The problems like unemployment, unequal distribution of resources, the increasing gap between rich and poor, and caste-based issues, need to be resolved.
What steps should be taken to make Indian Democracy Successful?
1. Majority opinion has a lot of importance in Democracy. In a democracy, a Political party getting the majority of votes comes to power. Parliament takes all decisions by majority. Democracy aims at the welfare of the majority of people. When importance is given to the majority injustice may be done to those who are marginal and who are in the minority. Though democracy is a government by majority, minorities should also be included in the process of decision-making. The government must take into consideration the interests of minorities. In short, in a democratic government, everyone’s opinion should be considered important. Similarly, the majority government should not be the government of the majority community. All religious, linguistic, ethnic, and caste groups should get equal opportunity to participate in the decision-making process.
2. The judiciary in India is seen to be making conscious efforts to make the political process transparent. To prevent the criminalization of politics, the judiciary has adopted measures like strict punishment of criminals and prohibiting criminals from participating in the political process.
3. To make democracy successful in India, it is not just sufficient to make efforts at the level of government, administration, and judiciary. Everyone at social and individual levels should make conscious efforts towards it. Education for All campaign, Clean Bharat campaign, Gram Samruddhi Yojana, Self-help Groups, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and such other projects are undertaken at the level of Government and Administration. To increase the political participation of women, 50% of seats are kept reserved in local self-governing institutions.
4. To make Indian democracy truly successful, it is essential to increase the participation of people at all levels. If such participation increases especially at the level of the government it will help in changing public policies. Public policies are made through interaction with the people. Interaction with those who are not in power is also important for the success of democracy. The values of equality, liberty, social justice, and secularism should be respected and implemented even in our personal lives. For the success of democracy, everyone should keep in mind that we are responsible citizens of the nation.
Well-maintained Maharashtra State Board Class 10 Political Science Notes Challenges Faced by Indian Democracy can serve as a reference for lifelong learning.