Are we making a mockery of democracy?

Mr. Chidambaram heroically said yesterday that we must keep our powder dry. It is amazing that it needed to be stated. The home minister doesn't seem to think that heretofore it was not necessary and that it could be dried when needed, especially in this country which is threatened more from internal threats than external ones. The same newspaper carried the news of a successful assault by the Maoists inflicting heavy losses to security forces. Sometime ago Times of India published a map of India showing the areas under Naxal threat or control and that was covering well nigh 1/3rd of the landmass of this country. The successive governments have miserably failed to contain terrorism and insurgency in various parts of the country. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has admitted this in the same issue of Times of India today. Not that it needed to be said. All these news items make for some interesting reading for one day in the world's largest democracy. The moot question of course remains whether ours is actually any longer a truly functioning democracy at all. I don't think it is. Just because we go through the motions of elections at any odd time under the provisions of a constitution which itself seems outdated, craving large scale review, does not guarantee a popular government to rule the nation. In fact the unholy alliances that are cobbled together by an assortment of dishonest politicians just to grab power, with utter disregard to ideological platforms on which they sought the vote, got it and entered the parliament are an abuse of the constitution, the vote of the electorate and the sytem of democracy itself. It is destroying the very basis of and the ideology behind democracy. To say the least, it is betrayal of the nation. There are no untouchables and any and every dispensation is accepted after the representatives are elected whether or not the populace would have approved of it or not. There is no mechanism to find out the electorate's reaction or opinion, and approval or otherwise of the electors for such collaborations which are even so not stable and are standing on the shifting sands of self-interest of the leaders who are more aptly termed usurpers of power. We have often heard of 'Plum Postings' or plum portfolios. What does this euphemism stand for? A position that offers more power? Or more money? Or both? Does it smack of corruption with the approval of the ruling dispensations? Do they also benefit from all these favours? Why is there a clamour for grabbing certain ministries among the political class? What is on offer there? One can go on and on.
The whole country is facing unprecedented upheavals. Religious divide is deepening, fraying the sensibilities of people of different affiliations to a dangerous level. The mutual tolerance is at its nadir and every small remark, a light statement, anything at all becomes a cause of hurt to the 'feelings' of one or the other group. This was not so before. We have lost the ability to accommodate each other and religious fanaticism and chauvinism is now at its peak in all sections of the society. We are no longer able to laugh together or at each other, and worst of all - at ourselves. We can no more have fun as we have no idea what might become politically incorrect and lead to anything from demands for public apologies to full scale riots. Can anyone rightly believe that we are a nation as a nation should be or is understood to mean? We are probably unwilling to live with each other. This is a dangerous portent reflected in demands of many break away groups such as the Kashmiri Separatist Movements, JKLF, Khalistan Movement, Naxalite Movement, Assom Gana Parishad, in its original avatar, ULFA, Nagaland National Council, NSCN, Gorkhaland activists, Maoists... the list goes on. Even the state governments have demanded special rights from time to time, some of them tantamount to breaking away from the nation, even if they were rejected by public will. Many states are being subdivided not because of administrative reasons but by buckling of the governments under the pressure exerted by regional groups demanding separation on the basis of small populations and contiguity of the regions they inhabit. Is this not the way to eventual Balkanisation of the country?