First Do Not Confuse.

PBM’s (Pratap Bhanu Mehta, not Paneer Butter Masala) latest column befuddles me. Not because I begrudge his right to coin neologisms, nor do I have any major objection to the one coined in article, all in all, Quotacracy is a clever one. What confuses me is that somehow he finds all these virtues and attributes them to democracy. Problem is, these virtues are not integral to definition of democracy which is in fact very simple viz. majority rules. The virtues that he attributes to democracy are simply his wish list, virtues that he will appreciate in the governing principle. Unfortunately world is not here to please PBM, and he can not just redefine terms. Now the simple principle of majority rule is not flexible enough to handle the complexities of real world politics. Which is why, we have all kinds of innovations and modifications to this rule, the general purpose being the same, to mitigate its disadvantages, there is representative democracy, subsidiarity, separation of branches, bicameral legislature etc. More important than trying to redefine democracy, it is better to understand its limitations and investigate the ways to work around it.