More than six decades down the lane, democratic governance of the State of Jammu and Kashmir has been steadily trudging to reach the destination of good and just governance in an egalitarian society. The path is strewn with thorns and every step is to be taken with utmost caution and care. Nobody should imagine that secular democracy is an easy choice though, of course, long experience in statecraft has proved it to be widely pragmatic and acceptable. In particular, in our country and the State, so diverse and as intertwined as the society is, persisting with democratic dispensation is most challenging job.
Democracy is not only a way of governance as many would believe; it is also and perhaps more importantly, a way of life. The essence of democracy, notwithstanding a plethora of definitions and interpretations of the academia, is tolerance. We could say that tolerance is the other name of democracy. Mankind is divergent in thought, perception, reaction and approach. It is not that easy to reconcile diversities of various hues and create a social system that provides space to divergence as a matter of principle. Tolerance is a simple word but embodies profound meaning and implication. Tolerance, in political lexicon means having the patience of understanding view point of others, particularly when it is at variance with our own. There is nothing that can be called gospel truth in the affairs of men. The essence of a parliamentary democracy is to place an issue before the lawmakers and give them the freedom of expressing themselves on its aspects and dimension. Out of this great churning, surfaces the sane and sanguine opinion that determines the course of action of a state.
Law makers are not superhuman; they are as fallible as an ordinary man is. What makes them distinguishable is the burden of responsibility which society has placed on their shoulders. The axiom is that appetite comes with eating. Wisdom comes with shouldering the responsibility. That should make a law maker somewhat different from an ordinary person. Each law making Assembly is governed by specific code of conduct resting on moral and ethical foundation. If a lawmaker breaks that code of conduct, he loses part of his representative credentials with his constituency and his voters. Nothing can be more damaging for him. Lawmakers have to understand that society entrusts to them a very pious and virtuous role. They are the architects of the future of the nation. Realization of this role must divest them of human weaknesses and angularities, aberrations and eccentricities.
The law making institution has to work with complete trust and conviction that nothing wrong will flow from the deliberations of the House. The sordid incident that has happened in the lower house of the Legislative Assembly indicates how juvenile and immature our democracy still is. Six decades is just a small fraction of time in the history of democratic experience. In fact, democratic process is perennially in a state of evolution. British democracy is more than a thousand year old institution. With each session, the British Parliament is bagging new experience and new situations. Nobody can say here is the final roadblock and democracy need not go beyond that point.
The Legislative Assembly is fully aware of the difficult and forbidding task lying ahead — the task of building the nation. A nation is really built materially and morally when all sections of people are carried along. The slogan of “sab ka sath sab ka vikas” is the crux of democracy. If our legislators have the conviction that the State can progress only when they join hands to pull it out of numerous debilities and deprivations, they will have rendered a great service to the nation and to their conscience. We strongly believe that our Honorable legislators will divert their potential towards the development of the State and its people and that each of them will show magnanimity and large heartedness neither to hurt the feelings of others nor disappoint the people who have great expectations from their sagacity and wisdom. People want to see them engaging themselves in great absorbing debates in the Assembly and not exchanging fists like quarrelsome schoolboys.
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