ZULFIKAR Ali Bhutto, in his moments of necessary reflection as the twilight of his life drew closer, spoke of the beauty ingrained in the noise and din of India's democracy. That, perhaps, was the ultimate tribute to a nation, especially from a man who had spent nearly all his political life trying to humiliate what he thought was a hegemonistic India. In the 1970 election campaign in Pakistan, Bhutto went around accusing Indira Gandhi of all sorts of conspiracies against Pakistan. And yet in July 1972, Indira Gandhi and Indian democracy impressed him to no end. Indian pluralism had, after all, beaten Pakistani militarism black and blue in all the wars the two nations fought between 1948 and 1971.
Democracy in India has certainly had its difficult moments. The Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in June 1975 certainly did not do it proud. And it surely made Mrs. Gandhi pay the price. And, yes, democracy in India has largely been hostage in the hands of the Nehru-Gandhis. The ramifications have been there: smaller dynasties have sprouted all around. Democracy has thrown up such sycophants as DK Barooah, he who saw in Indira in all of India. It has produced pliant presidents like Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. It has manufatured fearsome elements like Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The Emergency brought Sanjay Gandhi into the picture, before democracy put him in his place at the 1979 elections.
Democracy in India has been no laughing matter. When Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw casually informed Indians, through a media interview in the early 1970s, that had he wished, he could have taken charge of the country after the 1971 war, he was ridiculed from one end of the country to another. Indians have little patience for men like VK Singh, who could not impress the country with his assertions of his real age. And, if you have noticed in recent days, India's political system does give room to upstarts to make a beginning but soon makes it clear that upstarts must not dwindle into being jokers. You have Arvind Kejriwal as a shining instance of how a promising career can bite the dust through a commission of blunders and tomfoolery.
There are lessons that can be learned from the noise and din of Indian democracy. India's history has given it a secular, cosmopolitan Nehru eminently qualified to place the country on a high pedestal among the nations of the world. It has had self-effacing prime ministers like Lal Bahadur Shastri, who have never forgotten their humble beginnings and have lived in simplicity right to the end of their lives. Given that tradition, it becomes easy for you to understand why Narendra Modi has reached the heights he has. Only in India (and in places like America) can you expect a chai wala to symbolize the power and glory of the nation someday. India has had a place for bitter men as well. Read Mani Shankar Aiyer here. The diplomat-turned-politician did himself no favours by ridiculing Modi's childhood poverty. The recent election has shown why Aiyer is the man trapped in intellectual poverty. Modi has reached out to the world. And the world is coming to him.
Only in India can you have a Jyoti Basu rule a state for ages and then have his successor go out of power swiftly. Indian democracy has always kept its doors open for people from other professions to come into it and keep the system going, despite the shocks some of them have caused among observers of politics. Jayaprada, once described by Satyajit Ray as the most beautiful woman in India, has had a fruitful stint in politics; and Vinod Khanna has been minister of state for external affairs. Now you have Moon Moon Sen coming into the picture. Scores of such stories are out there for you to read and reflect on. MJ Akbar, Bappi Lahiri and, in another day age, Bhupen Hazarika and Victor Banerji may have shocked us by making it into the Bharatiya Janata Party, given that our secular values have consistently defined our view of life. But who are we to complain?
India's democracy makes it possible for a Tarun Tejpal to pay for his sexual peccadilloes. It sends ministers and thespians to prison and its Criminal Bureau of Investigation does not wait for the country's prime minister to issue directives for the arrest of highly-placed individuals accused of criminal conduct.
In India, political pluralism has created the conditions that have an Election Commission hold absolute sway over the right of India's people to make their choices at the polling stations. No politician or political party, no government will dream of trying to influence the commission into genuflecting before its wishes. In India, a Meira Kumar will not complain of rigging at the ballot booth if she loses the election. The opposition will not stay away from parliament when it does not win the polls.
Indian democracy has the courage to put entrenched dynasties to electoral flight. It gives you a poetic Atal Behari Vajpayee and a cantankerous Morarji Desai. It has place for a Jagjivan Ram. It honours an Abul Kalam Azad and a Zakir Hussain and an APJ Abdul Kalam.
India has shown, and shown decisively over the years, that for all its poverty and its iniquities and its divisions, it has room for diversity. It can catapult the Hindutva advocate Narendra Modi to high office, without making people forget the secular Gandhi and the philosophical Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and the agnostic Jawaharlal Nehru.
India gives you Amartya Sen.
Indian democracy, warts and all, remains an edifying instance of what political modernity and cultural heritage are and ought to be.

The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.
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