India and usa are two large democracy. Examine the basic tenants on which the two political system are base.
Answers
There are 2 kinds of democracies.
India
Other democracies of the world.
Consider the most significant democracies other than India that come to mind - Japan, USA, Britain, France, Germany, Australia and South Korea. These all have one thing in common. Their societies are homogeneous. The majority(>90%) of their population celebrate the same festivals, speak the same language and have the same physical characteristics.
While the US may lay claim to being diverse in terms of religion, colour and language, it is nowhere comparable to the way that India is diverse.
In the US, the major festivals/holidays are the New year’s, Independence day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. These are shared among people of different ethnicities and languages; be it those of English, German, Irish, French, Italian, Spanish or African origin. Everyone celebrates these festivals. Different immigrant cultures bought different customs with them which merged into one to become the present American culture.
Compare this to India, where each state almost looks and behaves like a separate country in terms of ethnicity, language and culture. A Tamilian is as different from a Kashmiri as an American is from a Japanese. The Tamilian and the Kashmiri worship different Gods, speak different languages, use different scripts for writing and have different skin colour and physical characteristics.
This diverse nature of India is what led many experts of the years gone by to believe that democracy won’t work in this country. And one couldn’t blame them for thinking on these lines. After Independence, almost every part of the country faced secessionist movements. Each driven by the demand of the localities to be governed by a more homogeneous government and live in a more homogeneous country. Eventually better sense prevailed and people realised that “United they stand and divided they fall” was not a saying just for children’s books.
The ironic thing is that democracy in India worked because of its diverse culture. In the nascent stages of the country, each subculture was worried about an authoritarian despot from a different subculture taking over. But the fact that there are so many subcultures meant that no one person or political outfit could win the unconditional support of the majority.
Ultimately each subculture within India realised that to survive and thrive in this salad bowl democracy, they had to organize themselves into political outfits to ensure that they have some power in deciding the country’s direction. This is the reason why India has so many political parties. In most other democracies, political parties are predominantly formed along ideological lines and there can be only so many different ideologies. But in India, political parties are formed along cultural and linguistic lines. And considering the number of sub cultures and languages within the India, it makes sense that there are so many major political outfits.