PremiumPeople who are free to pick their leadership for fixed terms and hold it accountable are also expected to exercise their critical faculties freely in ways that can sharpen minds and create conditions for the emergence of ideas that spell human progress
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As India matures as a republic, one would assume acceptance of democracy would also have taken firm root. But the latest results of the YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey shatters any such certainty. As much as 51% of the 12,900 respondents across 206 cities were found to support authoritarianism and the idea of dismantling not just Parliament but also elections in favour of a strong leader, technocrats or the military taking charge. All the more piquant was the survey’s finding that supporters of all our political parties lean that way. The sample of digital natives included pre-and post-millennials as well, and those who favoured the Congress were a tad likelier to express undemocratic views than supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The attitude uncovered by the survey is unsettling, to say the least, and should be a matter of introspection for every citizen of this country. Since the time of our freedom movement, the emancipation offered by democratic self-governance has been the underlying theme of efforts to meet our collective aspirations. People who are free to pick their leadership for fixed terms and hold it accountable are also expected to exercise their critical faculties freely in ways that can sharpen minds and create conditions for the emergence of ideas that spell human progress. China-envy, however, might have raised the appeal of dictatorship in India. At some point, though, China’s lack of liberty will probably get in its way. Intuitively, blending everybody’s views should work better eventually than single-origin diktats. As with markets
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