1. WEL-COME
TO
TWO DAYS’ NATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON
“NEED OF TRUE
PARLIAMENTARIAN SPIRIT IN
RESTORING INDIAN
DEMOCRACY”
(Feb.8th & 9th, 2014)
Organised by Department of Law, Shivaji University, Kolhapur

2. Problems and Prospects of Indian
Democracy: An Analysis of working
for designing processes of change
A Presentation
By
Shri. Vivek Y. Dhupdale
Assistant Professor,
Deptt. Of Law, Shivaji University, Kolhapur

3. Contents
• Introduction
• Objectives of the study
– To study and analyse the existing democratic
setup in India.
– To study and analyse various challenges that are
being faced by the Indian democratic republic,
and
– To suggest measures to meet the challenges
effectively and help restore Indian Democracy in
its true spirit.
• Structure of Paliament and its position in
Indian Polity

4. Contents
• Functions of Parliament:
– Political and Financial role
– Supervising administrative work
– Maintain transperancy through guaranteeing right to
information.
– Educational and advisory role
– Conflict solving and preserving national integration.
– Law making and social development.
– Amendment of the Constitution to keep pace with the change in
the society.
– Overall leadership role.
• Political Parties and their roles in India

5. Contents
• Issues in India:
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Overpopulation
Poverty
Sanitation
Corruption
Education
Violence
Terrorism
Naxalism
Poor voter turnout

6. Contents
• Democracy in India: its Problems and
Prospectives
• Findings
• Suggestions
• Conclusion

7. “We, as conservative intellectuals,
should not be in the business of
making excuses for bad
parliamentary decisions by
Republican leaders….”
- David Frum

8. Introduction
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•
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Democracy means rule by the people
India is largest democracy in the world
Citizens participation - through elected representatives.
Last more than 6 decades – worked successfully to
some extent
• But in modern India there are many challenges still to
be addressed.
• Law – imp. role – but not enough – ruling and
opposition must work together with a trure
parliamentarian spirit – try to restore the true
democracy

9. Objectives of the study
– To study and analyse
the existing democratic
setup in India.
– To study and analyse
various challenges that
are being faced by the
Indian democratic
republic, and
– To suggest measures to
meet these challenges
effectively and help
restore Indian
Democracy in its true
spirit.

10. Structure of Parliament and its
position in Indian Polity
• True Democracy – every citizen is capable of
managing his affairs by himself
• People are their own masters
• In ancient Greek City-States and Vedic period
of India people themselves used to decide the
issues.
• But in modern India people rule themselves
though their representtative

11. Functions of
Parliament
• Supervising administrative work
• Maintain transparency through guaranteeing
Right to Information.
• Educational and advisory role
• Conflict solving and preserving national
integration.
• Law making and social development.
• Amendment of the Constitution to keep pace
with the change in the society.
• Overall leadership role.

12. Political Parties and their roles in India
• Democratic setup – peoples rule – representatives –
Elections
• Due to population explosion – people cannot come
together and solve their problems – forced to rely on
ministers
• Since independence – ruled by two major parties –
INC & BJP – others – Regional Parties
• Then came – coalition era – outside support – Threats
if demands not met.
• Blame game politics started
• Political parties – must respect the mandate – work
for welfare of the people – with a true parliamentarian

13. Challenges and Issues
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Overpopulation: Indian population in 2014 estimated to 1.27 billion.
Poverty: Huge gap between rich and the poor.
Sanitation: United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
records - only 31% of India’s population is able to utilise proper sanitation facilities.
Corruption: Corruption is widespread in India – although it ranks 95 out of a 179
countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index - its score is
improved consistently.
Education: One of the priorities of the Indian government since independence.
Violence: Constitutional speaking, India is supposed to be a secular - but large-scale
violence have periodically taking place since independence.
Terrorism: The areas where a lot terrorists activities take place are Jammu and
Kashmir, Central India and Seven Sister States and Punjab, etc.
Naxalism: Naxalism is a communist group that has been emerged out of the SinoSoviet split in the Indian communist movement – threat to national integration.
Poor voter turnout: Opinion Polls – lack of trust and confidence in political parties –
voting is not compulsory duty it is a right - people prefer to stay home – fail to
exercise their right.

14. Democracy in India: its
Problems and Prospectives:
• The democratic system has been
established as an indispensable part of
Indian political life; yet we have to
recognise that in practice as there have
been serious shortcomings which have to
be addressed sooner or rather than later.
•

15. Findings:
• Challenges - creating an hindrance in functioning of
democracy in India.
• Lack of awareness about the true values of democracy - makes
the minds of the people prejudiced towards exercising their
participation in the formation and functioning of the
Government.
• Most politicians venture into politics - to maximisation of their
personal wealth by whatever means they can – eg. scams such
as 2G Spectrun, Acommon Wealth Games, Coal Block
allocation, etc.
• This shows that - political leaders make many claims
during their election campaigns but fail to exercise
their duties in true parliamentarian spirit.

16. Suggestions:
• The electorate - knowledge of political consciousness of their
rights and privileges.
• Illiterate masses - education - sensibly vote for the right
leaders.
• USA, Britain, Germany and Japan are successful democratic
countries because the masses are literate.
• Ban on Opinion Polls as they cannot be scientifically relied
upon.
• Media must also play its important role - true facts and - true
spirit of right to speech and expression.
• Politicians should respect true spirit of democracy - role not as
a master but as servant of the represented.
• Refrain from corruption caste and communal politics.
• The citizens should elect leaders with good moral values and
integrity.

17. Suggestions:
• Individuals should learn tolerance and compromise and
understand that freedom is not unbridled but dependent on not
harming another individual's well being.
• Democracy demands from the common man a certain level of
ability and character, like rational conducts, an intelligent
understanding of public affair, independent justice and
unselfish devotion to public interest.
• The Directive Principles of State Policies must necessarily be
made justiciable rights just like fundamental rights in part III
of the Indian Constitution.
• People should not allow communalism, separatism, casteism,
terrorism, etc to raise their heads. They are a threat to
democracy.

18. Suggestions:
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Government, the NGOs and the people together should work collectively
for the economic development of the nation.
Changes should come through peaceful, democratic and constitutional
means.
The talented youth of today should be politically educated so that they can
become effective leaders of tomorrow.
Legislatures and Judiciary should keep track of what is going on around
the world as far as some of the sensitive human rights related issues are
concerned such as same sex marriages, abolition of death penalties, etc.
and try to keep pace with the changing world around us.
Finally, it is the duty of the elected representatives be it ruling or opposing,
to be a role model for the youths who are going to take over their
responsiblities in future.
They should do away with the practice of blame game, indecent and
violent behaviour in the four corners of the Parliament and Legislatures
towards each others.

19. Conclusion:
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Finally it can be concluded that it is very sad that our democracy after 66
years of independence has given us some illiterate and corrupt ministers
who are ready to do any kind of scams for their welfare.
Some politicians have also tried to divide our country on religious grounds
only to full their vote banks which have gave rise to various communal
violence.
These and many more activities have caused the Indian democracy to loose
its respect in the world.
However, at the same we must be also fortunate enough to live in a
democratic country like India because it is only democracy that can
provide us equal rights and duties.
It is equally true that Indian is the only country in the world where people
are united together inspite of the fact that we belong to many religious,
cultural and traditional backgrounds.
So, finally I can be said that that no government or country is perfect.
There is nothing wrong in the Indian Constitutional Law, in fact it is the
responsibility of citizens to make efforts to actively participate in the functioing of
the government and make their country perfect.

20. • JAI HIND!
JAI BHARAT!
MERA BHARAT MAHAN!