Once, Dr Manmohan Singh (September 26, 1932 – December 26, 2024), the 13th Prime Minister of India who passed away on December 26, 2024, had said that the people of a country should have the confidence that their government cares about them. He made the comment in 2016 while criticising the role of the Narendra Modi Administration in safeguarding the rights of the minority communities in India. Although his rebuke was a mild one, the language was sharp. There is nothing new in hatred against minorities in the South Asian country. However, the socio-economic well-being of the majority has largely become a non-issue for the Modi Government in recent times. In 2024, the Indian politicians made it clear that they would only think about winning elections in order to stay in power, without caring much about the masses. Therefore, the distance between the ruler and the ruled would certainly increase!

The year 2024 was basically a Year of Elections across the globe. With more than 60 countries holding polls in 2024, the outcome reflected public anger almost everywhere! In other words, people threatened the ruling regime in various countries. While the ruling party lost elections in Britain and the US, the ruler returned with a smaller number of votes in India, South Africa and France.

One of such prominent faces of 2024 was Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the ousted Prime Minister of Bangladesh. The Students’ Movement suddenly turned into a tsunami, prompting Hasina to leave her country and to take political asylum in neighbouring India. It may be noted that Hasina won her third consecutive term (and fourth overall) when her Awami League Party won 288 of the 300 Parliamentary Seats in the 2024 General Elections! However, the public anger against her regime ultimately triggered the fall of her elected government. The incident reflects the helplessness of common people, as Hasina ruled her countrymen, but not represented them.

We can move away from the discussion of democracy and think about Syria that experienced dramatic political changes in the last month of 2024. Two bloody wars have been going on in Ukraine and Palestine over the past couple of years. On December 16, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) launched a powerful airstrike on a weapons depot in Tartus, Syria, destroying a Scud missile facility. However, reports suggest the damage might be far more extensive, with speculation that a small nuclear weapon could have been used in the attack! Surprisingly, the global community has remained silent so far on this issue. Perhaps, the international community has started considering the Syrian crisis as a common phenomenon.

However, the scenario was completely different in the last half of the 20th Century. At that period of time, Damascus was a shining example of the cosmopolitan civilisation (in West Asia) as Syria used to maintain cordial ties with many other countries. Then, the misrule of the supreme ruler, the competition for glory, the severity of the repression and the anti-government protests crumbled the civilisation to dust. Finally, the Syrian rebels, under the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani (or Abu Mohammed al-Golani; born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa), captured Damascus on December 8, 2024, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee the West Asian nation. Political analysts believe that the proxy wars of the Superpowers, as well as the Arab Spring, also played an important role in the fall of the al-Assad Regime.

Incidentally, both Hasina and al-Assad made a serious attempt to establish an authoritarian regime under the guise of democracy! And, both of them upset their countrymen because of this. In this context, we can return to the topic of democracy, with a special emphasis on political leadership that was the most important issue in 2024. Along with the fall of authoritarianism, the international community also witnessed the rise of so-called liberalism in 2024. The victory of Donald John Trump in the 2024 US Presidential Elections shows that the Democrats failed to gain people’s trust. Outgoing US President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr and his Vice President Kamala Devi Harris might have thought that they would win the elections with the help of propaganda even after harassing the pro-Palestine students, providing Ukraine and Israel with weapons, and destroying the work environment in the US.

Currently, the Crisis of Democracy is one of the most-discussed topics. However, thinkers have rarely discussed the structural problems of a democratic system. Leaders, who run the system, often face functional problems. They have developed a tendency to ignore the people after winning elections in recent times. Hence, these leaders have failed to gain people’s trust. Through this, the danger of the functional leadership problems becomes quite evident.

In her latest publication, US historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat has called this problem a Democratic Emergency. According to the scholar on Fascism and Authoritarian Leaders, the road from democracy to fascism is actually quite straight. However, it has some certain definite stages! Ben-Ghiat has claimed that leaders in democracy have started controlling the media as propaganda has become a tool of their success. She further claimed that leaders were encouraging corruption as they wanted to purchase social opinion and to manipulate the bureaucracy in order to serve their own vested interests. Thirdly, leaders have started using violence to exercise power! They also display Machismo in an attempt to create a larger-than-life image. It may be noted that women can also be masculinised under certain circumstances. Hence, these leaders have coined some new terms, such as ‘Man above all men‘, ‘Saviour of the Nation‘, ‘America first‘, etc., for their personal gain!

Those who had created the system, called Democracy, were well aware of the fact that the world would face this sort of crisis one day! Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755/7 – July 12, 1804), one of the pioneers of democracy in the US, had reportedly said: “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing Demagogues, and ending Tyrants.” (The Federalist Papers) He was correct. Time has come for the ouster of these power-hungry demagogue-turned-tyrant democratic leaders.

Only more democracy can solve the crisis created by democracy!

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das