The Hindu : Front Page : Democracy no monopoly of West, says Amartya Sen

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 16, 2005

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Democracy no monopoly of West, says Amartya Sen

Staff Reporter

"Public discussion and public interaction have a role in democracy... ."

FIRM THEORIES: Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen flanked by Ted Turner, Chairman of the Board of Directors of U.N. Foundation (right) and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the West Bengal Governor at a public forum in New Delhi on Thursday. — Photo: V. Sudershan

NEW DELHI: From literature to history, economics and problems facing the world and India, it was a lesson in democracy by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen here on Thursday. Delivering a lecture on "Democracy and its Critics" organised by the United Nations Foundation, Dr. Sen said it would be incorrect to believe that democracy is a Western or European phenomenon.

Founded this year, the U.N. Democracy Fund aims to provide financial, legal and technical advice to new and emerging democracies.

Traditions in India

While crediting Athens with democracy, he said it was not a European tradition only. History was witness to elected councils and traditions of democracy in Iran and India around the same time.

"If Iran does not have a non-sectarian democracy now, it is not because there has been no evidence in history. If we turn away from the tradition of voting and understand democracy in the broader public reasoning, the earliest meeting in India was in the 6th century B.C in the Buddhist Council to argue problems," he said.

Pointing out that public discussion and public interaction have a role in democracy, Dr. Sen said that in Iraq the occupying power only arranged polls to be held in a system where there was no public discussion on divisive religious and sectarian issues. The dissociation of public discussion across communities made balloting more sectarian, he said.

On the success and failure of democracy in India, he said the rise of casteist politics was a failure.

"There is a need for caution, however, for those who believe that invocation of caste in any form in democracy is an evil force. As long as caste is invoked in speaking for a lower caste or uniting it, it is good," Dr. Sen said.

He also rubbished the school of thought that democracy hinders development. "There have been arguments that say that democracy slows development compared to authoritarian regimes."

It is important to pay attention to the interpretation of democracy and what is called development to deal with these issues, he said.

"Political freedom and democracy are part of development," he said.

The forum, which has on its panel eminent people, started off with an address by U.N. Foundation Chairman Ted Turner. West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi moderated the interactive session that followed the lecture.

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