As the toppling of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt spreads the contagion of democracy to the hitherto untouched ones of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries, a new file of facts is taking shape revealing the disheartening state of human rights in the region and the commendable manner in which normalcy was maintained by the ruling regimes (till date) with the allowance of world’s most ‘proclaiming’ democracy – the United States of America.
Violent suppression of protesters follows the anti-government protests demanding the ousting of the respective dictators in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and most recently Morocco as well. These nations have seen the same rulers for more than three decades with state emergency in place in some. These being developing countries, huge inequalities persist in here with degrading labor rights and inhuman working conditions. And now when popular protests are demanding the change in governance they are being met with arms and army. The fact that every one of these dictator happens to be a US ally, though for easily imaginable reasons, makes the mockery of the ideology of democracy.
It has become imperative for the world today to relearn the ideals of democracy and to have the same definition in all ‘democracies’, for modifications destroy the spirit of an ideology altogether. Literally democracy is defined as ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people.’ And ‘people’ is an inclusive term unaffected by the social, cultural, political and economic status of the people. Yet this doesn’t seem to be the case given the impact these very attributes of political parties and their associates have on almost every elections round the world. Concept of lobbying mars the concept of fair elections; still, a debate is on in India whether to legalize lobbying in the wake of Nira Radia case.
Democracy ensures its citizen a right to express discontent with the working of the government and the ‘development’ course it takes for him. Yet this very right gets curtailed under the draconian rules of sedition. Democracy ensures egalitarian society in terms of equal opportunity but even this facet gets nullified when development is projected as growth in GDP rather than improvement in the critical indices such as IMR, MMR, HDI, unemployment rate, poverty index etc.
And shouldn’t standing to the ideals of democracy mean supporting the human rights in the countries one is associated with, at least the minimum as defined by the International Human Rights Commission. Yet as the world’s largest democracy, India remains silent on the violent suppression of the peaceful protesters against autocracy in their nations. No official statement condemning these atrocities being committed by state on its pupil has been issued. There can be many reasons to it. One- we don’t want to skew our relations with oil exporting majors in the event of the present regimes surviving the protests. Two- we don’t want to give the dissidents at home a reason to amplify their voices. And most importantly we don’t want to fret our ‘Big Brother’ by doing so, for he happens to an ally of almost all the dictators. India one of the founding members of an association as bold as NAM is fast becoming indifferent.
Diplomacy is certainly at the heart of business, international peace and cooperation, but for a country aiming for a permanent membership in UNSC (United Nations Security Council), it becomes essential to take an uninfluenced and individual stand on issues affecting the general well being of nations and their people. Until the world powers unite for the cause of human rights and see to their adherence, violations as those happening today will continue.
