On Falling Standards of Democracy

Of all the many reasons for the sorry state of our democracy, I think,  education is of paramount importance to run a successful democracy. 

Education has long been regarded as one of the prime drivers of  economic growth and making the democracy a success. Over time, many growth theories have developed relating human capital and economic growth, thereby underlining the importance of education in the growth process of democracy. The belief that education promotes growth has led governments of many developing countries to invest in the education sector linking it with skill training with assured job opportunities. 

Education also helps people in democracy to rationalise their duties with  responsibility. Education helps eradicate superstitions, take personal initiative for population control and sensible use of their democratic rights. 

The Government of India too acknowledged the role of education in development immediately after independence in 1947. Education was made an integral part of development planning from the very first five year plan (1951-56). Yet the quantitative expansion of the Indian education sector has not been so impressive. The expenditure share in GDP started off at 0.64% in 1951 and slowly rose to 3.36% in 2011. For FY 2022, it is estimated to be 3.1%, ie, less than what it was in 2011.

There has been a significant increase in the share of the state private universities as part of total universities from 3.43% in 2008-09 to 34.82% as of April 2018. Also as of April 2018, India has 384 state universities, 123 deemed to be universities, 47 central universities and 296 private universities. Hence India has a total of  850 operational universities as of April 2018. 

As of 2020, India has over 1000 universities, with a break up of 54 central universities, 416 state universities, 125 deemed universities, 361 private universities and 159 Institutes of National Importance which include AIIMS, IIMs, IIITs, IISERs, IITs and NITs among others.

These figures seem impressive but still not sufficient to reach education to the last denominator of our country. Education without job or self sustainability will again not have the desired effect to instill a sense of responsibility due to frustration of being a non-achiever. Hence education with inbuilt scope for skill development and assured job absorption opportunities contribute to the healthy growth of democracy. 

Our education system severely lacks  even today the labour market characteristics that do not allow the effectiveness of education spending.

Such a situation discourage proper creation and utilisation of the work force and hence the education expenditure did not exhibit the desired growth effects. With the onset of reforms, IT and service sectors expanded creating more job opportunities and thus there was better utilisation of the educated professionals but the labour pool in  the informal industrial sector always remained a distant attribute of a job seeker. Degree oriented curriculum without training in skill development defeated the purpose of education. As a result, lack of effect of education expenditure started to be felt as the human capital was not put to better use. This is one part of the story to affect our democracy.

The other part to make the democracy work is to hold fast the constitution. Adult franchise is part of the constitution that gives the sanctity for  electing our  representative to allow the democracy to function. And the constitution provides enough scope for amending and creating laws for effective functioning of democracy. The basic tragedy of the day is we see blatant attempts at devising ways to take liberties with the constitution. The result – the fundamental rights of a Democrat is under threat.

Education will only instill a sense of pride and confidence in a Democrat to understand the importance of the constitution and their fundamental rights and duties.

Take it from me that economic independence is of paramount importance to fight against injustices. Economic dependency kills one's courage to fight and makes one a victim of exploitation.

Hence education and that too skill training oriented education, assured job openings, economically self reliant encourage a democrat to respect the constitution and grow as a responsible citizen.