Views and Words - Dr. K S Radhakrishnan
Democracy does not mean that it is the rule of the
human beings alone. The definition that democracy is the government of the
people for the people and by the people is an obsolete one. Such a democracy
can be termed as anthropocentric democracy where we are concerned only with the
right of the human beings alone. We are totally unconcerned with the right of a
granule of dust or the whole of vegetative kingdom. Democracy can never be a
good system of government if it exploits nature, because it affects the free
movement of the individual in one sense or the other in a different manner. So
in a democratic set up what happens is that one has to expand the definition of
democracy. Democracy has to include not only the human beings but also the
biotic and the non-biotic entities of the universe as a whole. So a democratic
government must be able to respect the right of a particle of dust and also it
must extend a possible regulated mechanism to protect such a right, maintained
by the non biotic world. It can never be confined to the biotic world alone but
to the non-biotic levels also and then we must be able to protect the right of
one and all. So democracy in this sense is not the rule of one or a few over
the majority or the minority or the rest who are not part of a particular
ideology but democracy means it is the rule by one and all in the sense that
everyone must be able to regulate himself. Such a self regulated activity alone
can be treated as the basis of democracy.
Then a question can be raised about the nature of non-human
beings which are not concerned with the discriminatory power which is not
applying the discriminatory power. How can we say that they are also part of a
democracy? The answer is that no being or non- being in the universe except
human beings will never be able hurt the rights of the other entity. Take for
the example of a lion. A lion eats only when it feels hungry. No lion kills
another animal as part of their sporting experience. This is not the case of
human beings. No being in this universe ever collects anything for its family
or its future generation. What they are doing is that they want only what they
need at that particular moment of time. Human beings have got the habit of
collecting and keeping things for a long time. They expect that they can keep it
forever because they falsely believe that they must be able to lead a very long
life on earth or probably till the end of it. Such a concept is too dangerous.
What is possible is that in a democratic set up the people must be able to
understand the fact that non-biotics are strictly following the rules of Nature
and the Universal law that governs the macro and the micro, organic and the
inorganic in manifestation. But human beings due to their ability to apply discriminatory
power have got the habit of collecting and keeping. That is why Jesus once
asked his disciples to learn the principles of right living on the earth not
from the human beings but from the birds of the sky. No bird hoards anything
for the future. It gets enough to satisfy the present. Humans are not able to
follow that dictum but the spirit of that dictum should be practiced and
maintained by every human being.
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