Is democracy going dud?

It seems power is increasingly running in the families. Even though Sonia Gandhi decided not to become the Prime Minister, that does not mean her daughter Priyanka or son Rahul shall not seek power to rule India in future. In the United States George Bush, the son of a former President became President in a controversial election. Hillary Clinton, the wife of former US President Bill Clinton, is eyeing the presidential office in either 2008 or 2012. In our own country, the daughter and the wife have ruled so far, while their sons are said to be waiting in the wings. In Pakistan, Bhutto's daughter became two-time Prime Minister of her country, still haunting its future like an evil charm that does not go away.

All in all, democracy is showing the dynastic signs as power changes hand, not because of political experience, but because of birthright. In most cases, the change is taking place with popular consent, people voting for their modern-day queens, princes, or princesses, thereby somewhat reviving monarchy within the democratic process. The government of the people, by the people, and for the people is still valid, except that people are not so much with their governments any more. In most countries of the world, including the United States, hardly half of the registered voters go to the polls. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, people are looking tired and harassed.

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What is happening to the popular will, which is the power of the people to choose their government? It took many centuries and sacrifice of countless lives before the power to rule people would be ultimately vested in their own hands. Dennis Diderot epitomised that struggle when he proclaimed in the run-up to the French Revolution that freedom was not possible unless the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

The inquisitions of the Middle Ages, the burning of heretics at the stake, the gladiators of Rome, the immolation of brides at their husbands' pyres, the wedding of a spinster to a tree, the lashing of women for infidelity, the superstitions and the prejudices, which plagued humanity, and impounded and still continue to impound human freedom, centuries after centuries, came in the long tradition of complicity between the court of the kings and the church of the clergy. The winds of the Reformation and the Renaissance brought a new awakening. Neither the kings nor the clerics were necessary to act as intermediaries between man and his God. The sculptures, paintings, music, and literature extolled the beauty of the human body and placed man at the helm of his own destiny. Democracy came afterwards to create governments as institutions to instill and facilitate that sense of freedom and ownership.

So the ordinary man finally got the extraordinary power to pick and choose who should rule him. Thus the oppressed man got his chance to become the master of his destiny, because those who would rule, must now rule by his consent. Government was no longer a destiny, but a destination, freedom ringing in its duty and obligation to guarantee equality of man in the eye of law, while giving him the opportunity to exercise his inalienable God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Lest we forgot, democracy was created to save man from tyranny, and tyranny is nothing but consolidation of power in one hand, clan, or family. Saddam was a tyrant, because he ruthlessly ruled his people without any respect for their rights and consent, concentrating power in his hand, in his sons, cousins, clan, and cronies. Tyranny makes power a private ambition, while democracy makes it a common aspiration. Tyranny is acquisition of power by one man, whereas democracy is its distribution amongst many. Tyranny turns power into brutal force, and democracy turns it into collective strength.

Freedom and ownership are the key elements of democracy and absence of them is tyranny. People must be free to exercise the power given to them and they must have the will to guard that freedom at any cost. But that does not happen when the sons, daughters, and wives of charismatic leaders are voted to power. Perhaps it is for the same reason that the US presidency is limited to two terms. Repeated power, whether in the person of a ruler, his wife, son, daughter, or any other member of his family, has the tendency to create the arrogance that diminishes democracy.

Needless to say, the power to rule people is neither legacy nor inheritance. A ruler can be popular, but his popularity is not transferable. That is where democracy is different from autocracy and monarchy, which predicate on the assumption that popularity is transferable down the bloodline in perpetuity. It is not right for the same reason the peasant philosophy is wrong, the son of a President does not necessarily have to be a President if the son of a peasant does not necessarily have to be a peasant.

But this is not to say that democracy does not allow two or more rulers in the same family. Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt were related, so were the two John Adams who became U.S. Presidents. If there can be many doctors, lawyers, actors, and other professionals in the same family, so can be leaders, presidents, prime ministers, and ministers. But they must come through the due process and political discipline in their own right, instead of being chosen for blood connection with charismatic leaders.

That was the way of the dynasties, the Bourbons of France, the Romanovs of Russia, the Mings of China, the Palas of ancient Bengal, the Mughals of India or the Pahlavis of Iran. Most dynasties marked their succession line in alphanumeric order like the Bourbons who ran from Louis I to XVI as if power was like movies, which could run in sequels from one generation to another.

Democracy's greatest gift to people is that nobody can take power for granted, and it gives people the ultimate power to decide whether a leader should return to power after finishing his term. This is the right that has been earned for them after many discourses, revolutions, bloodsheds, and tears. This is their only hope against other alternatives, which create monsters and tyrants, who use power like a blank check.

For all practical reasons, only a handful of people will continue to run governments because every citizen cannot hold public office. But one of the greatest challenges of humanity has been to determine how many should be effectively ruled by few while the power of government remains with them. Democracy is the dynasty of the people. They should resist by all means if anybody tries to take it from them.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.