There is much hype about Democracy being the best way to govern a country. Other forms of governance like communism, dictatorship, feudalism (king rules) are all against the basic rights of an individual.
So is Democracy the best?
Let’s start with identifying how to measure which is the best?
– Should we take the economic power of a country to find if a form of governance is good for the citizens of the country? If yes, then doesn’t China with it’s Communist Government rank high on the economic front?
– Should we take the economic equality i.e., none of the citizens are poor, as a parameter? If yes, wouldn’t USA & India rank low considering the economic inequality existing in these countries.
– Should we take the wealth of the country? Gulf countries with their monarchy will beat the so-called democratic countries on this front.
– Should we take the freedom of speech as the criteria to say it is the best form of governance? If yes, don’t we have many democratic countries which officially restrict the information that flows to the public and also the issue of “paid news”. Take example of Tamil Nadu, India – the public TV network will always beam news that are favourable to the party in power and the TV channels of the parties will beam news that are favourable to their respective parties.
Also does everybody gets the right to speak/voice their opinion about an issue? No will be the answer from majority of the citizens – only the connected find their voices being published.
If you mean ‘freedom of speech’ at the ground level where people can openly voice their opinion – even at this level the bullies win over innocent citizens. How many have been able to protest against their local councilor or official?
– Should we consider the law & order in the country as a measure? On this only probably the Scandinavian countries (with their constitutional monarchy) will score high and most democracies will far poorly including USA and most Western European Countries.
Ideally the best measure of how good the governance of a country is “how peaceful and happy the citizens of the country are?” – By peaceful & happy I mean how much the needs (both material & psychological) of the citizens are taken care and the freedom they enjoy within an ethical, moral & legal boundaries. Government should be a proactive facilitator for the needs of the citizens maintaining a balance between all segments of public.
to be continued…