Author explains why democracy failed in Pakistan while it succeeded in India
Psychology of democracy India and Pakistan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C09%5Cstory_9-2-2006_pg3_3
A lot of people have reflected upon, written and talked about the contemporary political scenarios of sustained democracy in India, and lack of it in Pakistan. Here is a psychological viewpoint. The region that now comprises India, that is, after the partition of 1947, was more industrialised than the region that is now Pakistan. The Indian National Congress that was the political arm of the struggle of independence of the people largely represented the views and aspirations of the Indian industrialists.
That was one reason why the Indian National Congress was committed to introducing massive land reforms after independence, and facilitating and hastening industrialisation. That was also the reason why the Indian National Congress carried out its avowed agenda after independence and put the country on the path to rapid industrialisation. In the 1950s, and the 1960s, we saw the abolition of feudalism in India and the laying of the groundwork of the industrialisation of the country. These steps moved society away from agrarian feudalism and towards industrialisation, sowing the psychological seeds of the democratic mindset in people. This later sprouted and grew into the strong tree of democracy in modern India.
No force has been able to uproot the tree of democracy planted in industrialised India. The roots of democracy have become so strong that not even the political leader whose father was one of the main leaders of the struggle for independence and who was the prime minister when the Indian army won a war in 1971 could adopt an undemocratic, dictatorial posture. When she tried to stifle the democratic voice of the people by proclaiming emergency laws in the country she and her party were voted out.
Later when she and her party modified their approach, and adopted more tolerant, accommodating, magnanimous, cooperative and hospitable attitudes and norms they were again voted in.
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Industrialisation of India is obviously the root cause of why the spirit of democracy prevails in the country and why no one has been able to derail it. It is therefore not mere chance that the president of the country is a Muslim, the leader of the house a Sikh, the leader of opposition a fundamentalist Hindu, and the leader of the ruling party a Catholic Christian.
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This is the manifestation of the tolerant spirit brought forth by industrialisation that is also manifest in the democratic political edifice of the country. Can we, in Pakistan, dream of such political tolerance under the given feudal, tribal infrastructure? Not without abolishing feudalism and introducing industrialised infrastructure, and not without setting the country on the path to industrialisation.
Humair Hashmi is a consulting psychologist who teaches at Imperial College