Parallel representation in a democracy

India being a democratic country has a process of electing the members to the legislative assembly  through  elections. These elected members are the representatives of the civil society. In the recent past there is birth of a new class of civil society representation mostly consisting of social activist. This representation is though for a special purpose, it seems like special purpose  company. This new class of civil society representation though was not elected, but commands a huge support from the public especially from middle income group and younger Indian generation. The purpose for the new class of civil society representation is to fight against corruption and first step being to draft a strong lokpal bill. Government due to intense pressure from the public accepted the new form of  civil society representation and agreed to give limited power in the drafting committee.

Focused civil society

Now in India there are two class of civil society representative, one is of course making an issue based representation.  The newly formed representation from the civil society is more focused on the issue and takes all rational and possible step to  achieve the special purpose (in the current case it’s lokpal bill) but the elected government remains uncommitted for a strong lokpal and often causes lot of distractions. on this we can say unelected representative are more focused and committed compared to the elected representatives.

Difficulty in working together

The elected representatives by accepting the new civil society representation feel very unsecured and want to suppress the civil society representation and on the other hand the focused civil society working towards a successful mission and also wants set a strong precedent for the future. there is clearly an great difference of intension. It would be difficult for both to work together, it’s clear mismarriage between the two.

Necessity for parallel representation

Of course necessity are mother of all invention, now what is the necessity for the parallel people presentation in  a democracy. The only reason could be that the people have lost the faith in the government so much that they have supported a group to form a new civil society representation. Government in the recent protest by baba ramdev, did explain the country about it intention and it’s action for recovering the black money but cry conspiracy. This ia very clear sign that government is inefficient and lacks trust so it’s nature that any group or person raising the voice against the government would be supported. It’s the failure of the elected representative has led to the birth of a new class of civil society.

Can Civil society deliver

The current issues that are taken up by the civil society are larger issue like corruption, black money etc. The elected government would do everything to stop the civil society from achieving it’s goal because if civil society achieve it then it would expose the inefficiency of the government so the government could very well prolong it so that nothing really happens and but will certainly show as if it’s serious and working towards it. The civil society representative can help for change of guard at the centre but Presently in India is a literally have no good alternative so therefore even if there is change in the guard, there could be very less action. special purpose representative is good and effective for smaller issue like construction bridge, demanding reliefs etc and can see an immediate solution. when  a larger issues like corruption and better governance taken up the solution cannot be reached in a short period and also a lot of elected representative will be badly affected  so a immediate or solution cannot reached and civil society representation will mostly fail.