What is to be done
By Justice Katju
What India requires is a modern minded dictatorship determined to rapidly industrialise and modernise the country, e.g. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who rapidly modernised Turkey in the 1920s, or the advisers of Emperor Meiji who rapidly modernised Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
They did not do this democratically. The majority have reactionary, backward feudal mindsets and do not want modernisation. If their consent is sought, they will oppose it tooth and nail, and there will never be any modernisation, and the country will remain backward and feudal.
In India, we adopted the system of parliamentary democracy. But this runs largely on the basis of caste and religion vote banks. Casteism and communalism are feudal forces, which have to be destroyed if India is to progress, but parliamentary democracy further entrenches them. So it has to be replaced by a system under which the country rapidly moves forward.
What will this alternative system be is a matter which requires seriously consideration by the patriotic modern minded thinkers in the country
Author Justice Markandey Katju is former Chairman , Press Council of India and former Judge , Supreme Court of India.
