The Conditions Essential for the Success of Democracy

In one line

A democracy needs an educated and participating citizenry, a measure of economic security, tolerance and the acceptance of dissent, independent institutions that hold rulers to the rules, and an opposition ready to take office.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the success of democracy requires social conditions, principally an educated citizenry, a spirit of tolerance and a willingness to accept dissent and the verdict of the electorate; economic conditions, principally a level of security and a limitation of inequality sufficient to make political equality real; and institutional conditions, principally free and fair elections, an independent judiciary and election commission, a free press, the rule of law, an organised opposition, effective local government and a neutral administration.

The social conditions

Education. A voter must be able to obtain and assess information about candidates and policies, which is the practical form of the right to know at chapter 820. It is why article 21A now makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right, and it is what Mill and Ambedkar both insisted on.

Tolerance and the acceptance of dissent. A democracy asks a defeated group to accept a decision it opposes and to continue to work within the system. That is only possible where disagreement is not treated as disloyalty. Where it is, elections become contests to be won at any cost.

Acceptance of the electoral verdict. The single most important habit, and the least noticed. A democracy survives because losers concede.

A sense of common citizenship. Where the divisions of a society are so deep that a group regards a government drawn from another group as illegitimate in principle, the arithmetic of elections cannot hold the society together.

Public spirit and participation. Voting, joining associations, attending meetings, and the willingness to hold office.

The economic conditions

Security of subsistence. A person whose next meal is uncertain cannot deliberate, cannot afford to offend a patron and cannot risk the loss of work that political activity may bring. This is chapter 590's positive liberty applied to democracy.

Limitation of inequality. Political equality does not survive severe economic inequality, because influence follows resources. Ambedkar's warning at chapter 600 is the sharpest Indian statement of this, and it is properly placed here rather than treated as a slogan.

And the honest qualification. India adopted universal adult franchise at once, in a poor and largely illiterate society, and the experiment worked better than almost anybody predicted. Any answer which says that prosperity and literacy are preconditions must confront that fact, and the correct formulation is that they make democracy easier and are not conditions precedent.

The institutional conditions

Free and fair elections, held at fixed intervals, on a universal adult franchise, by secret ballot, conducted by an authority independent of the government.