Democracy has many meanings and many definitions. It is just not the political, but deeply economic and social. It is not just the form of organizing people politically, but also socially and economically. Social democracy also entails respect and reverence for the fellow human beings. The democracy is the condition where human beings can realize their full human potential. It is not the reduction of power into millions of pieces, but it is about a common will, common intention, and making the society fully absorbed in that common goal and vision. The vision is the reclamation of human personality.

The state and the democratic state is important as far as he supports the vision of community that is achieved through communication and sharing common things, ideas, and vision. This is a tough deal, but this is the only deal that is going to help humanity evolve into better forms of human organizations. India will soon see discussions about the essential will of the people and in all probability India’s elitist classes, though in the numerical minority, will manufacture the will of the masses through propaganda and mass media. The will be towards making India into “Brahman (Hindu) India”, in which the will of the Brahmans-Banias will be the will of the nation. The vision of India and the direction towards the more egalitarian common will of liberty, equality, fraternity was set in the constitution, the supreme law of that land. The constitution is the only connecting force for India, as Indians are divided into caste-nations, which are often at war with each other. So the manufacturing of the common will is important.

Though in principle/theory nobody should be opposed to the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity, in practice, the caste is completely hopeless. India could have made the practice of caste into a theory of governance (the Hindu Raj in which the Brahmans will be at the top), but the social movement and the intellect of Babasaheb Ambedkar halted it. But what we are seeing today is what exactly Babasaheb Ambedkar feared: the making of the practice of caste into theory and organ of Governance. The social system that is so alive and growing has now become the political system through manipulation of minds, media, and money. In the ultimate sense, in the Governance of India, the people at all levels should become the stakeholders. But the stakeholders never became the part of the state, as the Government is hijacked by the RSS, the organ of the Brahmans and their device to keep the system of caste alive. So long the interest of one class of people is secured, other classes will perish.

So what is to be done in this case?

The people at the bottom of the social pyramid are divided into fractions and factions. There is a need to aggregate that. There is a need for integrating the fractions and faction into millions and into a common will. That can be achieved only through communication and holding things in common. At this moment what is held in common is the experience of suffering and discrimination, which can be a starting point of the association, but it can be the purpose of the association. The purpose of the association must transcend this experience of suffering and discrimination and must strive for the experience of community and society. It is important to work to deal with the large-scale suffering due to discrimination, but it is also equally important to feel and live the sense of community, in which individuals associated with each other freely. The things held in common which makes people down and low are not sustainable, but the things held in common that makes people up and dignified are sustainable. This duality of being not what others make us feel and being able to transcend that feeling and embracing others is the real conundrum.

I am fascinated by the way people following the footsteps of Babasaheb Ambedkar congeal into one community and into one family as look after the interest of each other. This needs to be multiplied, and multiplied manifold. This is the only way to go. The efforts will be made to break the community, actually, no efforts from the outside are needed because we get easily get closed into our caste cocoons. It is time to free our individualized sense of caste and really relate to each other. We need a class of people that will exemplify this. It is emerging and signs of it are visible all over the places, but that class is not yet fully consolidated. Our forefathers started the consolidation of this class to the great advantage of the community and nation, but need to be re-consolidated and revived, this time, not only directing it as the enemies of the democracy but also creating democratic systems and processes. They will come after such systems and processes with all might. They will crush it. They have crushed it in the past the great social revolution started by the Buddha in India. If history is to be used a decision making and this time the situation is complex than in the past we have to have many strategies in our arsenal, but one of the strategies and the essential one is are we really creating that democratic community within. I think it is possible. It begins with people leaving the older structures of caste and embrace new value system and the new way of being brothers and sisters to each other and creating that culture of cooperation and association which is the hallmark of Buddha’s teachings. We need the Buddha’s understanding of selflessness (Anatta) and nature of interconnectedness (metta) to channelize our social movement at this moment.

Jai Bhim!

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale

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