Republic or, Democracy or, both?

From our childhood studying days due to subjects like ‘Physical Education & Social Services’, ‘General Knowledge’ etc. we keep hearing about two key terms regarding to our nation – Democracy and Republic. In Bengali, it greats trickier though – the corresponding words for those two English ones are – Gonotontro and Projatontro respectively. ‘Gono’ means people and ‘Proja’ means people too, though in a different context.

For a person among the people to be a ‘Proja’ there has to be a ‘Raja’ i.e. a king who lords over a them. But, being a democracy means no king right? Then how can we be both? We were already declared as a democracy back in 15th August 1947. Then what was the need of making our nation a republic too, back in 26th January 1950? Does this mean, that after those initial 25 and ½ months since the British monarchy left these shores, some other king took over us? This is rubbish. Am I dreaming? How can Britain of today be a democracy? They have a Queen now right? And many more of her heirs? There were just too many question pooping up in my mind. I was feeling like an idiot suddenly that how come I never thought about these questions anytime during the last 20 years (giving myself credit here, assuming my logical thinking kicked in when I was 12).

Answers in Brief

Let's have a quick overview first:

• Democracy:

- Government must be elected by the people directly.

For India - Panchayat/Municipal Corporation election, State Assembly

elections, Parliament's lower house election.

- People can participate with Government's activity (Referendum vote).

- People can ask government most questions (For India - RTI act).

• Republic:

- Head of the country should be elected by the people directly or indirectly.

For India - MPs are elected by peoples directly, then the party with majority

MPs selected the Prime Ministers (MPs are also people, but only some of

them so PM election happens indirectly by people)

- Monarchy system is totally absent.

For India - Made sure by the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India in

1971.

Country-wise Examples

1. China is a republic country but, not a democratic one

- This country's President is elected by the party members of the ruling party, i.e. indirectly

by people.

- No monarchy, current presidents biological heir is not his/her default successor.

- No concept of RTI or referendum equivalent, people can't involve in any Govt. activity, can't ask most questions to an elected Govt.

2. England is a democratic country but, not a republic one

- Here Parliamentary election happens, in which the people votes to to elect the Prime Minister, leader selection semi-directly by people (like Indian PM).

- People can ask the government most of the questions via The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (equivalent to India's RTI)

- Supports direct involvement of people in some Government activity via referendum vote.

- It has established monarchy. Currently lead by a Queen. Whose biologic heir will be the next King/Queen.

3. India is both a republic (since 1950) and a democratic country (since 1947)

- As discussed in 'Answers in Brief'.

The Battle of terms, with me rubbishing historians once

We have Democracy, i.e. our government it called democratic as for this nation, its people choose their representatives and legislate them. The full form of MLA is 'Member of the Legislative Assembly', focus on the term 'Legislative'. To be included into modern dictionary the word 'Legislation' had to do a long journey starting from late Latin 'tollere'.

Legislators are lawmakers, they have to propose law (done in our country by introducing new bills in sessions of state assembly).

Having democracy famously means having a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863). It is a form of government where the people have the authority to select the leaders to make legislation on their behalf. Most commonly it is said, Athenian Democracy in Greece is the oldest known democracy (6th century BC).

On the other hand, A Republic country means that the country itself is considered to be a 'Public Matter', i.e. citizens may ask the government questions about anything which is happening in their country. Legally speaking we are allowed to do that through PIL (Public interest litigation) or RTI (Right to Information Act, 2005) in almost all they cases (except anything related with defense secrets or, related with events which may hamper our foreign relations). Apparently, the Roman Republic is the earliest known of its form (510 BC -27 BC). Obviously the western historian didn’t think it is necessary to check eastern world history too before claiming such things. As, then they would have found out about the 16 Mahajanapads (6th–5th century BC) of Ancient India. Two of these Mahajanapads were oligarchic republics. Ancient Buddhist texts like the Anguttara Nikaya confirms this.

According, The New Oxford American Dictionary - 'A constitution is an aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity (an identifiable political entity), organization or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed'. Excavations in Iraq (1877) suggests a code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash (2300 BC) to be the earliest known prototype of constitution.

How come democracy is not enough?

We became a democracy in 1947. People had the power for the first time. But not ‘all the people’. One of the burden of our history is discrimination. Which we are still carrying forward. The very presence of the word ‘reservation’ in our constitution means we as a nation are yet not successful to come to a humane level to respect every individual on basic of their humanity. We associate cast, creed and color to segregate certain class. With this ever existing classification, the need for reservation for the backwards came into picture. Though now greatly misused and misunderstood, the premise of introducing such a concept of ‘reservation’ is thoroughly justified.

If we had been only a democracy, the democratic system of Government would have allowed all laws to be made by the majority (representatives/ people). As initially after independence the majority belonged to upper class only (still mostly true), they could have introduced new laws or changed existing law to always drive the narrative in such a way that the backwards would have never been able to come into any seat of power or, have representation. Then the true intention of democracy would have failed. Democracy would have become an oxymoron in itself.

So came the need for constitution. In constitution we were declared as a Republic nation. It means, the Constitution started acting as a safeguard to protect the basic rights of people so no one can override or, change them even when the majority agrees (countering the weak point in democracy). A majority democratic government in this way cannot become omnipotent. It is still constrained as a Republic and bound by the Constitution. As a republic’s most unique feature, a constitution enables it to protect the minority from the majority by interpreting and, if necessary, overturning laws made by the elected representatives of the people.

Great Examples (albeit from America)

• (1954): Brown v. Board of Education – The USA Supreme Court declared all state laws establishing separate racially segregated public schools for Black and White students to be unconstitutional.

• (1967): Loving v. Virginia ruling – The USA Supreme Court overturned all remaining state laws banning interracial marriages and relationships.

References:

1. Explanatory YouTube videos.

2. Wikipedia articles.

3. The preamble of the Indian constitution.

4. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln.

5. The New Oxford American Dictionary.