How to bring about Ram Rajya or God's Rule?

[Guest guest]

Let us face the facts. In the name of so-called

democracy, the strong industrialized countries get

what they want to impose their hedgemony over all poor

nations.

Even the UN had admitted that in the name of so-called

globalisation, only the rich nations have become more

rich, that too, at the cost of poor nations.

Let me give you a concrete example. Due to

globalisation and free trade, when the wheat crop was

harvested in India, some American giants purchased the

wheat at Rs. 6 per quintal. That ultimately created

shortage in India and prices of wheat got doubled.

Poor people started crying. Then the government of

India imported wheat at double the price around Rs. 13

per quital for distribtion through fair price shops.

In the bargain, those giants who had purchased Indian

wheat at about Rs. 6 and odd made Rs. 8,000 crores

while the govt. of India and the poor people got

poorer by importing wheat at Rs. 13 per quital.

So, that is the real face of democracy and

globalisation.

That is why Ram Rajya is preferable where good people

elect the best and most helpful man as the president

and then the president rules the country with the

advice of experts in different fields.

So, please don't get confused by the words 'Ram

Rajya'. That simply means governance by godly people

in a godly way where even the poorest of the poor is

looked after by the state and gets the same facilities

of education, health and social welfare as the rich.

If Loksatta wants to usher in good democracy. then let

us debate how to bring Ram Rajya (God's Rule) into

practice.

The human intelligence is growing. Then why not use

that intelligence for a good cause and not by pushing

in ideas of a democracy that no one knows what it

means or globalisation that means rich man's rule to

amass wealth at the cost of the poor; isn't it?

 

S. M. Acharya <smacharya

--- Fmayraj wrote:

 

> http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36967

> LATIN AMERICA:

> Direct Democracy - Progress and Pitfalls

> Marcela Valente

> BUENOS AIRES, Mar 16 (IPS) - Constitutional

> mechanisms of direct democracy became widespread in

> Latin America in the 1990s. But sometimes they are

> used cynically, sporadically and perversely, experts

> say.

>

> Public consultations, referendums, citizens'

> initiatives, and recall votes are instruments of

> participative democracy already available to people

> in most Latin American countries.

>

> But have these instruments fulfilled the

> expectations of greater participation? The answer is

> complex because of the enormous diversity of actual

> experiences, researchers say.

>

> Academics from Latin America, Canada, Italy, Spain

> and Switzerland took part in the Mar. 14-15

> International Conference on Direct Democracy in

> Latin America, held in Buenos Aires, to assess the

> ways in which instruments of direct democracy have

> been used.

>

> The conference was convened by the intergovernmental

> International Institute for Democracy and Electoral

> Assistance (IDEA), based in Sweden, as part of the

> preparations for the first World Conference on

> Direct Democracy, to be held in Lucerne, Switzerland

> in May 2008.

>

> Similar conferences have also been held recently in

> Africa and Asia.

>

> The University of Geneva, the Argentine San Martín

> National University (UNSAM) and the Argentine

> Undersecretariat for Public Administration also

> participated in the organisation of the Latin

> American conference.

>

> Virginia Beramendi, a Uruguayan who works for IDEA

> as a project manager, told IPS that the aim of the

> conference " is not to promote these particular

> mechanisms, but to study how they have worked in

> practice and learn lessons about their design in

> different contexts. "

>

> In recent years, there have been referendums on

> disarmament (Brazil), the use of natural resources

> (Bolivia), privatisation (Uruguay), and whether a

> president should remain in office (Venezuela).

>

> Regional experience -- or lack thereof -- with

> mechanisms of direct democracy are evidence of a

> reality which is in general very different to that

> of Switzerland, where these mechanisms have a

> tradition of over a century of efficient practice,

> Swiss ambassador to Argentina Daniel von Muralt said

> at the opening of the conference.

>

> IDEA's director for Latin America and the Caribbean

> Daniel Zovatto said that in countries without solid

> institutions, instruments of direct democracy " lend

> themselves to perverse ends that differ greatly from

> the original good intentions. "

>

> This could erode people's willingness to participate

> in these kinds of mechanisms, he said.

>

> In Latin America, since the rule of military

> dictatorships in many of the region's countries in

> the 1970s and early 1980s, the transition to

> democracy has occurred in two stages, said Zovatto,

> who has a degree in political science and a

> doctorate in international law.

>

> In the 1980s there was a move towards democracy,

> although in economic terms it was a " lost decade " .

> And in the 1990s there was a period of crisis and

> disillusionment with politics in representative

> democracies, he said.

>

> An attempt was made to overcome this credibility

> crisis by means of reforms that opened the way to

> mechanisms of direct participation, in order to

> maintain the stability of political systems. These

> had widely varying results, Zovatto said.

>

> " In Latin America, a given mechanism may promote

> participation, or it may result in the delegation of

> functions to the executive branch, " said UNSAM's

> Alicia Lissidini, a Uruguayan with a doctorate in

> social sciences.

>

> A paper presented at the conference by Lissidini,

> titled " Direct Democracy in Latin America: Between

> Participation and Delegation " , said that

> participatory mechanisms – which were already in

> place in Colombia, Chile and Uruguay -- have become

> widespread throughout the region in the last 15

> years, but have emerged in very different political

> contexts.

>

> " Only in Bolivia were these mechanisms incorporated

> because society demanded them, " she said, referring

> to the popular unrest that led to the 2004

> referendum on the future of the country's natural

> gas reserves.

>

> In an interview with IPS, Lissidini said that these

> mechanisms " are alive, and will remain as important

> as they became in the 1990s, " for both positive and

> negative reasons.

>

> Among the positive reasons she emphasised the

> " greater autonomy of social organisations, " and

> among the negative ones she mentioned " the rejection

> of political parties " as mediators and

> representatives of people's concerns.

>

> " These instruments are useful for putting

> controversial matters on the public agenda, such as

> the decriminalisation of abortion, and to force the

> political élites to debate issues that they might

> otherwise prefer not to address, " Lissidini said.

>

> But she pointed out that " there is a risk that these

> mechanisms may be used by the executive branch, "

> which undermines the purpose of direct democracy

> methods. This has occurred in at least seven

> countries, she said.

>

> In her presentation, Lissidini said that referendums

> were introduced in Argentina and Peru in the

> mid-1990s when constitutional reforms to allow

> presidential reelection were being proposed. These

> cases gave rise to " very little social

> mobilisation, " she said.

>

> Perhaps because of this initial flaw, participative

> mechanisms remain relatively unknown in both these

> countries and are used only sporadically at the

> national level said Emilio Laferriere, of the

> University of Buenos Aires.

>

> In Chile and Paraguay, paradoxically, these

> instruments designed to expand democracy were in

> fact used by the dictatorships.

>

> But the plebiscite called in 1988 by the late then

> dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which he

> lost, marked the beginning of the end of his 17-year

> regime.

>

> The fact that the authoritarian regime made the

> plebiscite its tool might explain why direct

> democracy mechanisms have not been used in Chile

> since 1990, when democracy was restored, said

> Chilean Marcel Gonnet Wainmayer in a paper presented

> at the conference.

>

> Uruguay has the greatest experience in direct

> democracy mechanisms. According to a paper presented

> by David Altman of Chile's Catholic University, this

> small South American country first introduced such

> instruments in 1934, and has been refining and

> extending them ever since.

>

> Lissidini made special reference to the 1989

> plebiscite in Uruguay, which put an end to trials

> against military personnel accused of violating

> human rights during the 1973-1985 dictatorship. In

> her view, that event marked the start of a phase in

> which referendums are used to dispute or contest

> government policies, for example to prevent

> privatisations or to prevent pensions being reduced.

>

>

> " Until the 1990s, plebiscites in Uruguay were used

> by political parties to settle differences,

> including internal differences. But in recent years

> that has changed, and now politicians tend to

> support referendums only after the issue has been

> raised by social movements, " she said.

>

> In Venezuela, referendums were introduced after

> President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999.

>

> In Lissidini's view, the new constitution adopted

> that year, which introduced direct democracy

> mechanisms, is perhaps the most ambitious of any in

> the region.

>

> Venezuela's constitution is the only one that allows

> voters to recall the president, and one of only a

> few that include the obligation to submit any

> constitutional amendment or reform to the popular

> vote. It is also the least restrictive in terms of

> the

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