GANATANTRA DEMANDS

Democracy, a Latin word, in our Indian perspective it is translated as ‘ganatantra'.Ganatantra is a combined word -- which are opposites and at the same time mutually dependent with each other—gana and tantra. Gana means people, democracy demands equalities for the people, but people always are a group of people –they are differ from one another by age, education, sex, caste, economy etc. People who live in the villages differ from the people who live in the cities; educated and uneducated people have different world-views, demands, and consciousness and so on. Here come the necessities of tantra. Tantra is what is called in English --'system' .In the one hand ganatantra opens the possibilities of the participation of the people and on the other it wants to confine these possibilities into a system, into a centrality. We can demand equalities of rights in economy, education, sex, in the election process to elect our government etc. But there is always a possibilities that some of us play some prominent role, they become our leader, they determine our questions, channelize our demands. This kind of infallible centrality opens the possibilities of dominance by a group of people –the groups whom we elect/select as our spokesman or who declared themselves as so. But in democracy marginal constantly present as a threat. The central always feel anxious that the marginal will have power over them.

We may say various kinds of democracies, for example, democracy in the field of economy, political democracy, educational democracy, sexual democracy etc. For example, we can raise the demand of democracy in the relation between men and women, teachers and students or officers and general workers .We can ask what kind of economic mobility we need for our betterment .But our politicians always oblige us to consider only a kind of democracy i.e. political democracy. All other kinds of democracies in their consideration seem to be least important. Like the theme of ganatantra here also lies a contradiction: from the demand of many kinds of democracies, only a kind of democracy, political democracy, gets the central important.

Ganatantra is the most valuable word. It always asks some kind of equalities. Though we will never obtain a full-fledged democracy, it always has an original possibility to raise the demands for the equalities. In the future if we will get equalities in economy, education, in sexual relation etc, there will obviously raise other kinds of differences among the people. But don’t worry: from the ALWAYS-FUTURE democracy demands to us to consolidate, to take oath for the removal of inequalities, to walk forward.