When United Nations was formed in 1950s, it was meant as a forum for technologically powerful countries to avoid war between themselves; you could call it as a convention of the mafia. However, this idea became popular and other third world countries wanted to join in. Former President of India, S. Radhakrishnan spoke eloquently about the undemocratic aspects of United Nations, especially the veto power being vested with few countries. United Nation exists today in this unmodified form. United Nation now exists as an apparatus that gives legal sanction to American and European expansionism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other oil rich countries in the Arbaian peninsula.
In both the United States and India, in order to win the elections, the party that comes to power gives lots of free promises to the people, and none of these policies are implemented once the party comes to power, thus perpetuating undemocratic processes. It is quite easy to insist that once the party comes to power that these promises should automatically become the law. It is exactly this loop hole that makes democracy feasible in an undemocratic setup wherein the private companies, military and technology mafia dictate terms to the politician.
At a level, the electoral processes can be seen as a way forward to institutionalize populist governments and it is indeed an improvement on the old feudal practices of the kings and their military vestiges. In Arabia, the over-throwing of the feudal monarchs will make it conducive for commercial enterprises to thrive and expand the global economy. However, it is precisely the feudal monarchs and their military vestiges that makes it possible for the American and European enterprises to retain them as colonial enterprises. In these countries, democracy can be seen as a threat to American and European enterprises, as the development of local national-level enterprises could work against them in the free market.
Constant occurrence of market earth quakes and squabbles of the enterprises makes it difficult for Multi-National Corporations to put forward a strong enough case for democracy in feudal Arabian states, especially with the great Iranian revolution as the main example that didn't turn favorable to the west. The Americans and Europeans clearly indicated to the Palestinian people that if they vote for Hamas then they will be punished, but despite that the Hamas got elected. So, these failed experiments meant that democracy in Arabia will no more have the sanction of the Americans and Europeans.
In India, the ruling Congress party and other parties are by now used to doing alliances with regional and other national level parties before the election. They also give a lot of poll promises to win the election. In the winner takes it all methodology of electoral process, after the elections all the poll promises and alliances are broken and then during the formation of the government heavy horse trading and cross-alliances are formed. This method is in away a fundamental violation of democracy as the alliance agreements are not kept after the election, so it is not clear if the majority of people actually approved the newly formed alliances and policies.
The minority sections and their parties always get a bad deal in the Indian electoral process, just like the Americans of African origin in the United States elections. The fact that democracy is an alliance evolved through a consensus for the common good of the people is forgotten in the brutal show of strength of the parties which are nothing but a collection of business interests and their cronies. In India, it is common currency to talk negatively of free goodies being distributed to poor people by the state, what is not so well known is the fact that this money actually comes from the taxes of the liquor industry, whose main customers are the men from the poor families. The city people talk derisively of the agricultural subsidies and upper class people talk derisively of free goodies given to poor people. Each graduate who studies in the Indian Institute Technology and Indian Institute of Management is given subsidies to the tune of millions, however, this is never projected as a subsidy, despite of the fact that these graduates usually fly off to the United States for greener pastures.
Subversion of democracy happens by creating a middle layer of power structure that constantly denies people direct access to political power. A constant nexus between the politicians and private profiters subverts it even further and so the actual implementation of democracy always remains a far away dream in an electoral democracy. Electoral democracy brings an art of negotiation and redistribution of wealth that was never possible in the feudal era of kings and their military vestiges. However, it is also very clear that further progress of democracy is not possible in the present form electoral process practiced both in United States and India.
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