Horses for courses!

A state that is home to the so called Silicon Valley of India has been witness to the dance of democracy the last 48 hours. The dance has been all but graceful, plunging the constitutional pundits into a huddle.  Though this is something we Indians have got used to irrespective of who is in power, sadly highlights the grey areas of democracy in a diverse and populous country like India.

We thump our chests with pride when we are referred to as the largest working democracy, largest yes, but working I am unsure. We sure are diverse and thanks to our colonial teachings on leveraging the multiple  cast / tribe / regional and religious divides, it makes the working of democracy all the more difficult. That is why a fragmented mandate turns the dance of democracy into a bacchanalia.

As a citizen of the largest democracy I have heard this term Horse Trading from the time I was old enough to read a Newspaper and follow politics. The origin of the word goes thus - courtesy the wiki.

Horse trading, in its literal sense, refers to the buying and selling of horses, also called "horse dealing.” Due to the difficulties in evaluating the merits of a horse offered for sale, the sale of horses offered great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to use of the term horse trading (or horse-trading) to refer to complex bargaining or other transactions, such as political vote trading.

We the people are the protagonist in the theatre called democracy and it is we the people who should choreograph the dance of democracy, but sadly with our numerous differences we are unable to evaluate the merits and elect our representative who later turns a horse to be traded. They end up being traded at exorbitant sum which is always proportional to the complexity of the fragmented mandate. The masters who trade them are extolled for their political acumen and compared to Chanakya sadly this comparison maligns Chanakya’s famed political dexterity.  

Democracy is all about people and not about horses. Thorough bred horses fetch a fortune and let’s not compare the illiterate opportunistic elected representatives to those lovely creatures of pedigree.  Let’s ensure when we exercise our franchise next, to house the political stables with horses for courses and not horses to be traded.