As a young student of political economy, I was surprised when Amartya Sen categorised the South Asian identity with our impulse to reason and argue. After all, as a novice in the field, I felt the eminent scholar would identify us as the land of "Kautilya or Arthashastra," but I was pleasantly surprised to see how he chose such a simple virtue while conceptualising our identity. On the basis of this identification, he argued that democracy is not a product of the West, even though it might have received institutional recognition in Europe, since the informal ingredients necessary for democracy to function – ie a society’s willingness to engage in, and mitigate, the pertinent issues of their time – were even observed in early civilizations of the East, especially within the contours of South Asia. However, current Bangladeshi politics must put Sen to shame. His pride in our ancestors for harnessing the virtues of social cohesion is probably challenged by our lack of capacity to consolidate the basic pillars of democracy. Today, Amartya Sen must be upset while observing this tragedy. We too should be upset while experiencing this injustice.
Democracy as an idea has long captured the human imagination as an arrangement for attaining collective prosperity. The origin of its beauty lies in its function of how it distributes power within a political society. To be precise, the concept of fair distribution of political power across all actors, is of both intrinsic and instrumental importance, since equilibrium policies and institutions in a given polity is often a product of preference of groups with greater political power. Furthermore, it is these equilibrium institutions that determine how greed within a society is channeled in our respective polities. In this context, Professor Daron Acemoglu at MIT stated an important issue: "Greed is neither good nor bad in the abstract. When channeled into profit maximising, competitive and innovative behaviour under the auspices of sound laws and regulations, greed can act as the engine of innovation and economic growth. But when unchecked by the appropriate institutions and regulations, it will degenerate into rent-seeking, corruption and crime. It is our collective choice to manage the greed that many in our society inevitably posses.” Thus, the power of democracy lies in its capacity to channel greed into an engine of creativity and innovation by shaping the distribution of poltical power within our society, so that the returns from innovation outweigh exploitation for any economic or political agent. More importantly, this function of democracy – of allocating power in an equal manner – also makes it fundamental for us to scrutinise the ingredients of social arrangements that are conducive to democratic governance.
From an evolutionary perspective, for millions of years power resided in the hand of the "mighty." That is, physical strength of individuals or groups determined whose dictum finds realisation in any social order. The dogmas or principles of these physically powerful groups prescribed how power was allocated, and this in turn determined how resources available were channeled for various objectives. Yet, over the last 5,000 years, the innovation of a "state" for maintaining a social order created the scope for a mechanism to arise that shaped political decision-making. In this regard, it is essential to pinpoint that the idea of democracy is not so recent. Its origin can be traced back to early first century Athens where a portion of the plebs engaged in "reasoning" and "collective decision-making" to shape the direction of their respective societies. Of course, in those days, women and slaves had no participation, but historical records show that the informal attribute of "willingness to engage and listen" among various political actors played an instrumental role in forming the early pillars of democracy.
Hence, in contemporary times, if such informal attributes – of having a mindset to engage and mitigate social tensions - are absent, then no matter what formal institutions we possess, the society as a whole will not be able to control violence or act as a unitary body. Our journey towards developing a true democratic state is dependent on such "informal attributes" of our political society.
So far, what we have witnessed in our society is a political equilibrium that provides no room for behaviour that can amount to the socio-economic emancipation of our nation. In some sense, I find wisdom in Karl Marx’s concern that “traditions of dead generations weigh like mountains in the mind of the living." The question is, can the best of minds available within our society create sufficient uproar for our existing political tradition to change? Or, they are too going to be consumed by the dirt of our everyday political life? Only time can give verdict on such inquiries. But, I hope that Sen's contention that we are all democrats is not proven untrue.
