The latest Pew Research Survey, summarised in columns of The Hindu today dt. 4 March 2024, reports that more than a third of the world in terms of number of nations — and much more than half in terms of population size— has already lost faith in Democracy as a system of governance.
Zoom in and quickly read this report below and try to register the visuals therein inside your mind .
If the Pew Research Survey poll is verifiably true then the world at large must brace itself for a new popular rebellion called The People Vs Democracy. It will probably break out anytime soon across large parts of the world. It might well signal the end of Abraham Lincoln’s dream — a dream that in his famous Gettysburg Oration in 1863, after the American Civil War, the President had spoken about in soul-stirring words:
“…. that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
The Gettysburg Address
When I look at Chart 1, it startles me with some stark and telling facts of History that I’m able to recollect. They seem to tell me that Abe Lincoln’s government eventually might perish from earth.
Democracy as a system of governance as we know it today in the 21st century — in form and substance we are all familiar with — is only about 2500 years old — a mere blip on the vast timescale of human history that stretched before ancient Greece and the Magna Carta.
The Athenians first formulated the idea and the model of the People’s Assembly in C. 508 BCE. It lasted for only 180 years before the Greek nation descended into war and then plunged into chaos and decay in the Peloponnesian War (431-404BCE).
Thereafter, in all of Europe it took almost a millennium of many savage wars, barbaric tyranny and untold miseries of slavery, oppression, decades of dynastic and papal abuse of power before People Power was able to again assert itself through the Magna Carta of 1215 CE.
The Magna Carta was the precursor of many other People’s Manifestos which later came in History , such as for example, French Social Contract, The Communist Manifesto, the American Declaration of Independence etc. Magna Carta was redolent of Lincoln’s government of the people, by the people, for the people and it certainly changed the future course of not only European history but world history as well.
For the first time in Europe — the old world as it came to be called — the Magna Carta put into writing the sacred overarching principle of governance that the king and his government was not above the law. “It sought to prevent the king from exploiting his power, and placed limits of royal authority by establishing law as a power in itself”.
The Magna Carta set the new standard or benchmark for Democracy. It was symbol of a momentous victory of the People for Democracy revolution … the common man’s aspiration worldwide. In the following 1000 years in human history, it stood firmly as the most enduring best practice in the politics of Democracy. It inspired the Republican Constitutions — written and unwritten — of many generations of governments in many new nations and societies all across the world —-and yes, including the young Indian Republic too in 1947/1950 .
What’s happened then to the universal spirit of the Magna Carta today?
As the Pew Research Survey suggests, why are People in several countries now tending more and more towards rejecting Democracy and hearkening back to more or less kingly, “strong-man” forms of governments which the Pew Survey identifies them as “nations where fewer individuals regarded democratic values as crucial, and there was a greater inclination towards favouring governance by an authoritarian leader or military rule”?
Clearly, the People are unhappy with old Democracy. And it’s for only one unmistakable reason. They are finding themselves being rendered increasingly powerless, frustrated and stymied in their attempts to “ prevent their own representative government from exploiting its power; from being able to place limits on governmental authority; and from being able to establish the Law or the Constitution as a power in itself”.
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Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain during World War-2 was a very percipient political thinker and observer. Many of his Parliamentary speeches on Democracy are today part of the standard curriculum in Universities teaching post-graduate Political Science.
One of his speeches seems to quite accurately explain the predicament of the peoples (surveyed in Pew Research) in People Vs. Democracy.
QUOTE: How is that word “democracy” to be interpreted? My idea of it is that the plain, humble, common man, just the ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, goes to the poll at the appropriate time, and puts his cross on the ballot paper showing the candidate he wishes to be elected to Parliament—that he is the foundation of democracy.
And it is also essential to this foundation that this man or woman should do this without fear, and without any form of intimidation or victimization. He marks his ballot paper in strict secrecy, and then elected representatives and together decide what government, or even in times of stress, what form of government they wish to have in their country. If that is democracy, I salute it. I espouse it. I would work for it.” —House of Commons, 8 December 1944. UNQUOTE
Today, right across the world, the People — the same “plain, humble, common man, just the ordinary man who keeps a wife and family” that Churchill had in mind — no longer are able to tell for sure that the vote they cast into the ballot was cast by them utterly “without fear, and without any form of intimidation or victimization”.
Fear, intimidation and victimisation are now the universal attributes of Democracy. Most elections today, if you look deeply, are all only about Fear: fear over war, or fear about racism, fear over ethnicity, immigration, caste, the spectre of economic decline, climate change, or fear of technology disruptions etc. and even angst over loss of personal hope for the future. Then there is intimidation and victimisation too, of course, that private and state capitalism have both woven into the very warp and woof of the political system everywhere: as oppressive taxation, curtailment of rights and freedoms, corrupt bureaucracy, as highhanded law enforcement, rampant environmental degradation… etc.
As Churchill himself presciently warned about it, if the People ever became unable to prevent their own representative government from exploiting its power , they would then rise and revolt against Democracy itself.
QUOTE: If I had to sum up the immediate future of democratic politics in a single word I should say “insurance.” That is the future—insurance against dangers from abroad, insurance against dangers scarcely less grave and much more near and constant which threaten us here at home in our own island. UNQUOTE . —Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 23 May 1909
QUOTE: “At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.” UNQUOTE — House of Commons, 31 October 1944
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Chart-1 in the infographic above in The Hindu clearly reveals the following:
1. Peoples of the Global South in Asia and Africa are tending towards the rejection of Democracy and veering towards strong “elected autocracy”. It’s the New Democracy.
2. The people of the BRICS countries (China not shown in the chart and Indonesia considered as a potential candidate for inclusion soon) are all strongly favouring less Democracy and more strong Benevolent Autocracy. BRICS now holds a total of 32 percent of the world’s GDP. BRICS members encompass about 30% of the world’s land surface and 45% of the global population. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are among the world’s ten largest countries by population, area, and gross domestic product (GDP) nominal and by purchasing power parity.
3. The Global North — which is really nearly all of the OECD and whose Members are high-income economies ranked as “very high” in the Human Development Index, and regarded as developed countries — has a collective population of only 1.38 billion. These countries are seen in the Chart as still favouring old Democracy. That’s because they still account for about 40% of global GDP. The old system still suits them and their rapidly ageing demography. Old habits die hard. There are 30 individuals aged 65 and over for every 100 persons of working age (ages 20 to 64) on average across all OECD countries while there were only about 20, 30 years ago. Population ageing has been accelerating as this average old-age to working-age demographic ratio – computed by keeping age thresholds constant – is projected to reach 53 over the next 30 years.
So, what the above facts tell us is that in the years to come when the conflict in People Vs Democracy becomes more pronounced, it is the influence of the non-Western, non-OECD and BRICS bloc of countries that is going to shape the contours of Democracy and Politics more impact-fully than ever before in history.
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If the Pew Research Survey is true , then clearly the world is turning very weary of Democracy as was practised in the last 1000 years. The ageing democracies of the western world are entering a period of geriatric atrophy. On the other hand, the peoples of younger democracies of the new world —- BRICS, Africa and Asia— are rejecting old Democracy and are experimenting with the new. What form, structure and substance these new forms of democratic autocracy will take is still unknown. No one can predict what historical outcomes will yet emerge from them….
Winston Churchill in yet another of his speeches to the British Parliament accurately reflected that very uncertain future of Democracy: .
QUOTE: Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not matter so much to old people; they are going soon anyway; but I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and ardour and, most of all, to watch little children playing their merry games, and wonder what would lie before them if God wearied of mankind. UNQUOTE — 1 March 1955..
After reading the Pew Research Survey, I had to ask myself , “Is God wearied of Democracy?” How and Why did this world of ours go from People for Democracy to People Vs Democracy? And all that I could offer myself by way of a feeble answer was another thought that Churchill himself had offered to the British House of Commons :
QUOTE: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. UNQUOTE — House of Commons, 11 November 1947
Sudarshan Madabushi