Khap democracy and Vote Democracy – a comparison

In continuation with my previous post, my random thoughts on the concept of democracy.  Particularly on the comparative analysis of both, where i feel, the traditional system of panchayat is far more people oriented than the vote based modern one.

Modern Vote based democracy:

In the modern western concept of democracy, the centralised party system is followed, where the party chooses candidates for each constituency, and people has to just offer their vote in support of their favorite party candidate.  The candidate with majority of votes is selected as winner, and given the power.  Here, at the worst case scenario (as in case of Bush), 49% of people’s vote had failed, and succumbed to 51% of the people.  Thus we can say, this concept of western democracy does not represent the whole population, but only half of the population.  The winning half, dominates and dictates the losing half.  In india, this is even worse.  THe candidate need not even get 50% votes.  But only more votes than other candidates.  So if there are 10 candidates contesting and votes are equally split, its enough the winning candidate has to get 12-15% of the votes to win.

Most modern democracy is totalatarian, although based on law and constitution.  which means, once a ruler is chosen, he is given with full powers to pursue with.  Since most countries have party based system, if the party gets the absolute majority, then it cannot be dislodged for the full term.  Since all MPs are bound by party diktats, they have no other option but to support their party high command.

And being totalatarian, the laws are enacted to make people subservient to the state.  Thus laws of modern democracy are more of dictating rather than regulating. They consider every individual as subject to state’s laws, which they need to abide. They go by textual laws and NOT by dynamics of human conscience.  Even now, we are facing lot of situations, where a judge has to suppress his conflicting conscience to abide by the law.

Modern democracy does not recognize people groups or communities.  It only recognizes individual votes.  And in one perspective it has led to acute racism and groupism, particularly in eastern countries, where diverse communities live in.   The people of these communities, instead of voting by individual decision, suddenly realises the cumulative power of their votes.  This leads to group voting, bloc voting, which further deteriorates the situation.  In india, we are facing caste based bloc voting, and religion based bloc voting, as major problems.

In western countries, due to influx of migrants (ethnic, cultural and religious), they are slowly witnessing the impacts of bloc voting, and how it handicaps the politicians.  Particularly, the acute polarisation is b/w Christian and muslim populations.  In netherlands, the muslim groups openly issues fatwa, death calls, and even execute the opponents, inspite of they being minority.

Another issue is that even in parliament, the decision of the government is based on majority vote of parliamentarians, and NOT by any consensus.  This leads to corporate lobbying, unleashing the money power to buy legislators, to manipulate government decisions.

Democracy in Traditional Khap Institution:

Each khap consist of 84 villages, and each village has a pachayat leader.  The panchayat leader is chosen NOT by individual votes, but by a council of prominent and successful men in that village, who often oversee the village affairs.  These panchayat leader, then choses the khap leader.  These khap leaders call for the assembly of sarva khap, which consists of khap area of a larger province.

A typical sarva khap in india covers Haryana, Rajasthan, parts of uttar pradesh, and parts of punjab.

The democracy of a khap institution exists right from village level.  Any villager can call for the village pachayat, if he has an issue.  The panchayat leader has to attend the panchayat, and atleast one person from each family has to participate in the discussion.  The issue is debated with Open Mind, without locking to any fixed dogmas or laws.  Inputs from all the villagers is taken in to account.  As the debate proceeds, different solutions emerge out of the villagers.  and the most optimal solution takes precedence, when more people start accepting and agreeing to it.  In the end, the debate leads to few most accepted solutions from the group, which is placed before the panchayat leader for final analysis and judgement.

Depending on the type of issue, the feedback of the accused and the accuser is taken in to account.  For example, if the issue is about partition of asset or land, then both contenders are asked about their acceptance of the proposed solution.  If any one of the contenting parties decline, then debate is continued further, with some kind of convincing and adjustments happening.  And finally, if the villagers are able to convince them of the solution, the panchayat leader finalises and issues it as his judgement before the people.  If the parties are still NOT convinced and does not accept the judgement, they can take their case to the khap level for further discussion of involve some other leaders for mediation.

But in case of any crimes, like murder or theft, the accused is provided with evidences collected from the villagers on the spot.  Since the trial happens before the public, the accused in most cases has no other option to accept his crime.  In that case, the panchayat leader gives his judgment on the type of punishment given to the accused.

But whatever the case is, extensive debate is carried out transparently, openly and instantly involving the entire village (as one person from each family has to attend), and the final judgement is issued based on mutual consensus of the entire villagers.

Why KHAP setup has received wide support from the people is that they provide quick and mutually accepted justice to the people.  For example, a typical property dispute taken to courts will take the entire life time of the people.  But Khap leaders mediate and solve it even within days or weeks.  And the justice comes almost free.

A brief comparative analysis of Khap democracy with modern one:

• In khap panchayat, the democracy exists in day to day life.  People participate in the entire process at the panchayat level.  And no panchayat is conducted without the villagers participation.  However, in modern democracy, the role of people starts and ends with just one vote.  After that, they dont have control over anything happening at the political or social level.
• There is no compartmentalization in the traditional khap panchayats.  ie, they dont approach issues categorically.  There is no pre-defined agenda nor pre-defined official notions.  Every issue taken to panchayat is placed before public discussion, and the optimal solution evolved based on the nature of the issue.  But in modern democracy, there is compartmentalization of legislative, judiciary, and every one has to act according to pre-defined constitution.  The judiciary is confined within enacted law, and has to function as dictated by the law,  and NOT by circumstances and nature of the case.  There is no free-will nor conscience based decision taken in the judiciary.  The law becames dictating entity instead of being a guiding and regulating one.
• There is no authority in khap panchayats.  People’s opinions are given high importance, because, the panchayat leader’s position is by virtue of people’s acceptance, rather than an appointed post (as we have in modern psuedo panchayats).  When a panchayat leader loses people’s confidence, people abandon him.  When people dont turn for the panchayat meetings, he ceases to be a leader.   However in modern democracy, everything is authoritarian.  The magistrate is appointed, the judges are appointed, the local officials are appointed.  Everything is done by authority.  ie, when order comes from above, it has to be implemented, no matter whether the people likes or not.  For example, in khap panchayat, if people loses confidence in the panchayat leader, they have the freedom to go to another leader for issues, or can choose new ones.  But in modern judiciary, the judges are fixed, and even if people loses confidence in a judge, they have no other option but take their case to him.
• Khap panchayats are based on mutual consensus.  That doesnt mean there is no debate.  The decision by majority are explained to those who oppose and their opinion sought.  The entire discussion is purpose oriented.  In modern democracy, the decision is based on majority.  ie, an authority places a proposal and seeks for majority support.  So the consensus is not even sought at any where.
• Khap panchayats are based on community and social capital.  They could function only within a strong social network, as they are informal but traditional institution.  However, modern democracy could function only within an individualised societies.  Because, their fundamental principle is based on voting by individual decision.  Hence, modern democracy fails in strong socially connected societies, because it would lead to bloc voting.
• And finally, khap panchayat courts are free for all without any cost and deliver speedy judgement by utilising its social networks.  Modern western based democracy is nothing but a big corporate enterprise owning a country, and everything has to be transacted only monetarily.  When people go to courts, they have to pay fees.  For healthcare, they have to pay fees.  Thus it leads to money power enslaving the society and that is what happening now.

Good Night. have sweet sunday

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