Political Regimes: Democratic and Authoritarian

Political regimes are broadly categorised as democratic or authoritarian. The democratic regimes hold regular, free and fair elections to elect their governments, whether that be led by a president or the leader of the parliament, a prime minister. In the parliamentary system, the head of state is either a hereditary constitutional monarch or an elected ceremonial president. The United States has a presidential system with the separation of powers between the three branches of government. The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy - a combination of a constitutional monarchy, a democratic parliament, and responsible ministers. India is a parliamentary republic with an elected president, parliament and council of ministers. The authoritarian regimes are of many types - dynastic monarchy, one-party dictatorship, military dictatorship, theocratic supervisorship or elective autocracy. Saudi Arabia and most other Gulf states have a single family-run monarchical government. China and North Korea are examples of one-party dictatorships, with the latter combining dynastic and party dictatorships. Myanmar has a de jure military junta, while Pakistan has a de facto military-supervised parliamentary government. In Iran, a presidential government is under the supervision of Twelver Shia clerics, led by the Supreme Ayatollah. Russia and Turkey are examples of elected governments headed by strongmen who have eliminated all genuine opposition through exile, assassinations and imprisonments. 

There has been an observable trend of democratisation since the beginning of the 20th century, termed by Samuel Huntington as the three waves of democratisation, because of which most countries of the modern world have democratic systems. As the people of the world become more educated and travel around the world, their awareness of democratic values increases, and they begin to demand democratic rights for themselves. Sometimes, such demands are suppressed brutally, e.g., the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China. Sometimes, the local culture cannot sustain democratic values, e.g., Afghanistan, Syria or Egypt. Sometimes, democratic movements are used as tools of regime change to destabilise a country and install puppet regimes, e.g., colour revolutions, but they often bring calamity to the country, e.g., Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, Libya, or Yemen.

Published as “Political Regimes: Democratic and Authoritarian”, VideshNeeti, 16 May 2024, 1 (3):4.

India, a Beacon of Democracy for the World: Diversity, Argumentation and Mutual Respect

For a democratic system to thrive, there must be the prevalence of democratic values in society, viz., diversity of ideas, culture of argumentation and tolerance of criticism. India has been a beacon of democracy, even after several centuries of resistance to foreign aggression and the fight against colonialism, because of (i) its diverse darshanas - Charvaka, Buddhist, Jain, Samkhya, Yoga, Advaita, Dvaita, etc.; (ii) a culture of shastrartha - openness to purva paksha (opponent’s view) and readiness to engage in rigorous intellectual disputations; and (iii) mutual respect (that goes beyond tolerance) of different sampradayas, including readiness to absorb criticisms by correcting one’s mistakes in uttara paksha (defence of one’s tradition). Thus, India has always been oriented toward democratic values. In contrast, the European countries adopted diversity, argumentation and tolerance, only after a lot of bloodshed, at the end of World War II in the West and the Cold War in the East. India granted universal adult suffrage in its constitution in 1949 and implemented it in its first democratic election in 1952, while the US did so only in 1965 and Switzerland in 1971. In this way, India has a better tradition of democratic values than either Europe or America, and this self-confidence is reflected in our regular, free and fair elections.

Published as “India, a Beacon of Democracy for the World: Diversity, Argumentation and Mutual Respect”, VideshNeeti, 16 May 2024, 1 (3): 1.