Whither The Republic In South Asia?
By Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon -January 14, 2014
Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon
South Asia has been facing a crisis of waning republican values for long. An invigorated discourse on the idea of the state as a Republic is an imperative need requiring immediate attention. It seems these states have confronted with an impasse beyond which the life of the Republic cannot be prolonged, as the social contract has lost its original meanings. Unless an otherwise the social contract finds new interpretations through restoring and redefining republican values, the possibility of more chaos in the region cannot be ignored. As we see, the available stories of state failure keep increasing at an alarming rate across the region. In this context, at least in the case of most established democracies in South Asia, we have to focus on this major issue of decimating of values in the public sphere, as we believe that democracies could still be open to right changes.
India and Sri Lanka are the foremost democratic countries in the region. Both of them have unbroken records of elected governments since their independence in the late 1940s. Nevertheless, the legacy of long held democracy of these countries has not saved them from being failed in several spheres of governance and social organization. Today, several countries in the region have become failed due to internal crisis and external interventions of diverse nature. Pakistan and Afghanistan have faced acute problem of fundamentalism. The recent reports of election violence in Bangladesh frustrate our hopes even of electoral politics in the absence of sound institutions. The situation of political life in Maldives and Nepal could not be better as their polities have deep ruptures in their democratic processes. When most of the other states in the region still struggle to establish democracies, particularly Sri Lanka and India as the longest democracies have to redraw their attention on the idea of Republic and values entailing the concept. Because, people of these countries have shown greater distrust on the existing system of governance; this is true, mostly in the case of Sri Lanka, where there is a clear monarchical tendency and highly fragmented social system. Democracies, unlike tyrannies, should have belonged to the people, however, paradoxically, here in South Asia, the case has been different.
One major problematic the system of democratic government faces lies in the restricted way the democracy is defined in practice as a mere electoral process. The idea that democracy entails a set of liberal values which the people require to live a free and just life is often forgotten. Sri Lanka has turned into a majoritarian democracy which is solely controlled by an executive, disregard of the existence of a legislature. Most of the indices of democracy – media freedom, human rights- have left only a negative impression of the state of democratic state process in Sri Lanka. Read More
