Is democracy all about just electing leaders???

This is a question that has been lingering in my mind for quite some time. Is democracy all about electing people to rule us? Elaborating on this, is democracy a form of government where elected representatives rule based on what they personally think is correct? OR is it a form of government that rules us based on the elected representative's ideologies and opinions after duly taking into account what the ruled thinks is correct? And does the citizen's responsibility end with just electing the leader to rule him/her? This article is about discussing if the opinions / views held by the elected representatives mirror the views of the voters and about ways to reduce the differences without undermining the power of legislators.

To give you a brief background, all the major democracies in the world have setups to ensure free and fair elections. And all the aspiring leaders come out and communicate with the masses. After the election is over, the "elected representative" starts voicing his/her opinion over a host of matters in the "House". The interesting things to be noted here are:

- The Elected member is supposed to be Representative for the Constituency. Yet, our Parliament or State legislature doesn't have any mandatory time allotted / specific forum for discussion of problems faced by every constituency individually. We are definitely not expecting our elected leaders to deal with only matter of "national significance" only in the house. And it will be even more foolish to expect our elected leaders to compete with each other to get a "chance" to voice the concerns of their electorate. The House is definitely not a market place where the seller with the most enticing offer or loudest voice gets noticed. Every representative should have equal opportunity to discharge his basic responsibilities. It is common sense to have some formal process with a mandatory time allocation to discuss and resolve some of the common problems people in constituencies face.

- Apart from the time of election, where the popular vote decides the winner based on the manifesto, there are rarely cases when any elected leader goes out into masses to know the public pulse. The thing that intrigues me is the fact that our constitution has left out this "knowing the pulse of population" to the personal choice of the elected representative. In my view, this is of paramount importance because if the elected leader has no formal mechanism of knowing pulse of the people, how can his / her view be touted as the view of public he / she represents? The legislator has a fiduciary relation with the voter who elected him / her and it is his responsibility to consult him / her on important issues before acting. A case in example is a Financial Advisor. Lets assume that I have opened a Wealth management Account with HSBC. I will be having a Financial advisor whose responsibility is to consult me, advice me and act on behalf of me to multiply my wealth. Suppose that he has identified Franklin templeton as the fund that returns maximum investment, even though he has Power of Attorney, he should consult me before he makes a sizable investment and brief me about the risks. Same logic has to be applied for a legislator

- Thirdly, we need to have an appointment to meet our legislators or go in groups to mention the issues we have in a petition. I understand that they are busy guys literally juggling various responsibilities. But, their primary responsibility is to represent us and hence it is important that they have at least a formal mechanism where in they hear my concerns and I am told of the status on it.

- Finally, when the house is passing bills of national importance, legislators vote based on their opinions. And most of the times, there is a conflict of interest as the legislator has to choose between his political / business interests vs the interests of the voters. Practically, this conflict of interest cannot be eliminated. Lets take the case of 123 nuclear deal or the bill to set up National Investigation Agency or the current movement to grant a statehood to Telangana or the Climate change related stuff...

People say that Media performs takes up these responsibilities by acting as the intermediary between the government and the public. Media helps people voice their opinions and make their voices heard by the government. Further, it helps in disseminating information from various departments of government so that public are up to date on various policies and their implications. Had media discharged all these responsibilities properly, there would have been no need for this blog!!!!

The very fact that media houses run businesses means that they have an interest that is different from the above stated noble service. One of the primary activities of the media in the real world is to take up some stands and lobby for those views rather than acting as sources of unbiased information. And they do get paid for that!!!

In the current form of democracy, there is a high chance of having a disconnect between the ideas / opinions of the elected representatives and the electorate. It is reasonable to assume that the elected representative is a subject matter expert. But, his / her views also need to take the opinion of masses (in a binding / non binding fashion depending the issue) before making decisions. To do this:
- Have a grass root level system where voters can provide guidance to the legislator in areas where wants opinion.
- Provide a forum / setup dedicated to listen to the concerns of every constituency.
- Make room for referendums in issues of national importance to allow greater transparency.

The following are some of the specific details about how the above ideas can be implemented with ease:

- To help the elected representative to stay in touch with the electorate desires, there should be an online voting system in the local panchayat office / post office. All the elected representative needs to do is, post a poll like:

- Do you think India should accept legally binding Emission cuts in Copenhagen?

a. Yes
b. No

And the above poll should be kept open for a small period of time, say 4 weeks. The fact that responses are being collected should be aptly publicized be printing the current poll questions in a small section in the regional / national newspapers available in that region.

The advantages are simple... People who think that they should vote on a serious issue, they can pass their opinion to the legislator... This is an age old form of democracy called "direct democracy" or "referendum". All we need to do is just have th system in place to have a non-binding referendums. This increases transparency with minimal costs

- In the same system in panchayats / post offices, the govt can also have the option of letting a person raise an issue directly to the legislator that needs to be discussed in the house. It is the equivalent of a Public Interest litigation that is filed be an individual in a Court. The nitty gritties of such a system need to be thought out to account for the possible inundation of legislator's office with trivial issues. But, the bottomline is the freedom for voters to initiate a matter to be discussed in the house via his/her legislator.

- To deal with the issue that every legislator speaks about the concerns of his constituency, a forum should be created where the legislator from every constituency speaks about the issues raised by the voters via the system mentioned in the above point and gets the government's response to it. Further, the legislator should also be given the freedom to discuss about any other issues about his/her constituency though not raised by any voter. The entire objective of this forum is to limit the discussion to the issues of a constituency. In my view, providing an assured opportunity to voice the concerns of a constituency (though it may not be of national importance) is the spirit of having democracy. If a legislator elected from Bangalore never speaks of the issues his electorate faces in the house, there is no point in electing him. And there are such cases. If you have a system where in electorate can directly raise the issue and a formal set up where such things have to be discussed, the legislator will be under greater pressure to deliver results.

- Finally, Indian constitution should be amended to introduce compulsory binding referendums in certain areas like deciding foreign policy changes, taking substantial foreign loans, increasing taxes, impeaching key officials etc.... These aer the areas where the legislators can literally have conflict of interest and pass their own opinion as public opinion though the ground reality can be different.

The bottom line is: A true democracy is a form of government of elected representatives who rule citizens of a country after clubbing their personal wisdom, the insights from the governmental departments and the views of the Citizens of the country. And the primary responsibilities of the citizens of a democratic country are two fold:

- Electing the appropriate leader.
- Communicating their views to the elected leader when asked for / proactively in some cases

The last point is the thing that is missing in most democracies in the world. In the current form of democracy, people convey their dissent / satisfaction over a leader in elections. It is not issue specific. An efficient system always has a real time feed back loop and a Democratic system is no exception!!!!