Democracies though permeated into most of the nations of the world, it has not been able to grow in its creativity and maturity. The large scale absenteeism witnessed during current elections, such as the last poll in France, the birthplace of democracy, is indicative of disconnect between the public and system.
The voters’ rage is giving rise to far right political thinking, which is not a solution. Societies, which were opening their arms yesterday to multiple religions, races and nationalities, are closing their doors to them today. Yesteryear’s euphoria of global village is paving way to the surprised idealism of the island national systems. The loss of jobs of the commons and the concentration of wealth in hands of a few, is leading to public frustration against corporatism and the State.
People are faced with trust-deficit syndrome towards the spectrum of political parties in the world. The global super-national structures like the UN and the UNSC are not able to stop civil wars, wars, terrorism and nuclear-arm race. On the whole, the public is feeling frustrated with democracy and the way it runs today.
Democracy is a system of ruling the State by the people themselves. It is just the process of setting the ruler, not the product of the ruling. Again, the process of ruling is divided among the three institutions such as the legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary to diffuse the concentration of power with one body. The political parties and the legislature are the backward and forward linkages with the people to build consensus on priorities of governance before the poll and to legislate and implement the governance output plans after the poll after the government is formed.
The system is failing because democracy is not evolving and getting stagnated. The Government’s traditional role has been limited to territorial defence, policing, ensuring production of goods and services and a few welfare measures. The State expects citizens to solve their problems themselves and the State shall play the limited role of helping them through welfarism. Is this a correct outlook of the StateIJ
Adam Smith’s capitalism and Karl Marx’s socialism, followed by Constitutions of many countries, are related to the production and distribution of goods and services. Where is a social direction in the ConstitutionIJ Yes, some nations have added the old baggage of religion or secularism to the Constitution such as Islamic republic or secular republic .But this is no goal of a State. It is just an identity of the citizenry .What are the goals of a democratic StateIJ It could be betterment of farmers, small businessmen, unemployed people, villagers, women, children, workers and so on. Has any democracy declared itself as X-Farmers’ Democratic Republic or Y-feministic Democratic Republic or Z- Chlidist Democratic RepublicIJ No. Why soIJ This is because the modern global academic institutions and the political parties are comfortable with traditional pedagogy. let the academicians develop political ideologies such as Childism, Feminism, Farmerism, Parentism, Workerism and so on and let the political parties buy any ideology from the pack.
What is the motivation of the ordinary people for lifeIJ Men and women live for themselves as well as for their children. Therefore, child-development is the main priority of a society. Most of the earnings of the parents are spent on child-upbringing. The cost and time demand is so huge that many low-income men and women are showing unwillingness to marry. Besides, the intra-spousal problems like the divorce and the re-marriage, lead to disruptive child-rearing process.
The problem gets compounded when the parents face unsecured employment environment. In this situation, what is the role of StateIJ The State has traditionally given the child-rearing task to the families, supporting and monitoring them in certain areas with limited budgetary allocation. Though, the State takes more care of the children in the\ socialist countries, there is absence of free-thought environment.
At a time, when the parents are finding financial hardship and time scarcity to grow up their children due to employment risks, when the divorce and remarriage systems are emerging as new social systems, the State has to step in to take care of child-upbringing. The responsibility of development of future generation has to shift from the family to the State. The parents or mothers should be assisted to develop the child up to 3 years of age and then hand over the child to the State for the rest of the child development process up to 18 years of age. It will also unburden the parents from their child care task and enable them to pursue their life and career goals in a fully liberated manner.
The mothers and fathers can save their youthfulness and will neither be forced to live in drudgery with an unpleasant spouse, because of the child rearing responsibility nor face the risk of rejection from a prospective spouse during a second marriage proposal. The liberated parents can contribute more to the nation building process. On the other hand, the State will save money from child right monitoring.
The UN observes November 20 as the Universal Children’s Day. It has to move one step further. It has to promote “Childism” as a political ideology. The budgetary pressure shall be only in terms of residential facilities, healthcare, education, leisure and sports activities etc.
When nations spend billions on nuclear and conventional war crafts, why cannot they invest peanuts to make their nations a “Childist-Republic”IJ
The process should begin now. As a starting point, the UNICEF, should ensure all national Governments to put in place an “Independent Child Ministry in Governments which many nations including India does not have at present. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik should immediately create an independent Ministry of Child Development.