The Democracy that India is

As the assembly elections commence, I think about the past rulers of India and the vibrant democracy that India is.

It was centuries ago that the idea of a united India originated. Going by Hindu mythology, it was perhaps Ram who spread his rule over India with his Ashvamedh Yagya. That wasn’t so much of an empire as the respective kings only had to accept his supremacy but were free to rule their own kingdoms, but he was the only one to have had influence over the Deccan which would be left out until the British arrived.

The Mahabharat has references to almost all of India barring the South, where it only extends up to the Vindhyas. Although it was called Aryvarta but had a lot of independent and powerful kings. Then came the age of documented history where north India was united quite a few times under the Mauryas, Guptas and Asoka.

It was just before the Mauryan era that the Alexander dreamt to conquer the world and almost succeeded, leaving out only India. At this time a new ideology was coming to stage, propagated by a visionary called Chanakya, mentor to the great Chandragupta. It was this idea that has now become the hallmark of a free society. It is this idea that makes India different from its neighbours. It is this idea that has kept us safe from dictatorship. We call it democracy. Thank God that Chanakya happened.

After years of stagnation, we developed another quality; to revel in the past. I’m no expert but I believe it was during the period just before the Muslim attacks when it happened. The society was rotting, the caste system became oppressive and we were lagging behind the world on all the fronts. May be it was then that we started marveling our past because our present was grim and future looked bleak and the only way to feel good was to look at the sun that had risen long back.

The Muslims came with the sole purpose of looting our wealth and taking it back to their native lands. After a few such invaders, history made an exception and did not repeat itself as the Mughals arrived and decided to stay. Akbar ruled and knitted together an empire from an artwork that had been torn to pieces over the centuries. It was under Aurangzeb that the boundaries of Hindustan came closest to modern day India. He even tried to conquer the Deccan, spending the last 20 year of his life there but it proved to be a wild goose chase.

Then came the British who actually made the present day boundaries but eventually left splitting it up in two. They also reintroduced us to democracy, an idea that had been lost in the sands of time.

Since they left, we have always chosen our leaders, unlike most of our neighbours. It is perhaps this mindset that has kept us in a better state than the rest. Two years back an sms was doing the rounds stating that in a Hindu dominated nation, we have a Muslim president, a Sikh prime minister and the leader of the ruling coalition was born a Christian, a foreign one at that.

I just love the vibrant and sometimes foolish Indian democracy where we can’t seem to generate a consensus anymore and sometimes 3 MPs are enough to get you a Cabinet berth through a post-poll deal but it’s still better than having Taliban a mere 100 kms away from our capital. For that, I salute Chanakya as I believe that he seeded the concept of democracy in our culture and conscience.