Analysis of Democracy from a Layman’s Viewpoint

Democracy is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose
their governing legislature. Democracy is generally associated with the efforts of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, who attempted to leverage these early democratic
experiments into a new template for post-monarchical political organization.
Nevertheless, the critical historical juncture catalysed by the resurrection of democratic
ideals and institutions fundamentally transformed the ensuing centuries and has
dominated the international landscape since the dismantling of the final vestige of
empire following the end of the Second World War. Another claim for early democratic
institutions comes from the independent "republics" of India, sanghas and ganas,
which existed as early as the 6th century B.C. and persisted in some areas until the
4th century.

Even though democracy seems to be a perfect fix, the only alternative to monarchies,
anarchies etc., but still there are many glitches which are often unique to democracy,
and new to us. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why democracies which do fail,
usually fail due to poor economic performance, and inappropriate economic reform.
Moreover, presidential democracies are more vulnerable to authoritarian leaders than
parliamentary democracies.
Secondly, this system is quite complex. Thus, the members are often not fully aware
about the current happenings. Voters may not be educated enough to exercise their
democratic rights prudently. Politicians may take advantage of voters' irrationality, and
compete more in the field of public relations and tactics, than in ideology. Often, this
becomes a game of wits, when loopholes of the judiciary are taken advantage of,
before amendment
In a democracy, opposition is as important as the ruling party. But since the human
instinct of greed prompts people to use corrupt practices to curb the opposition from
doing its job. These methods include politicisation of media, affecting the rights of
people belonging to specific creeds, etc. Thus, the competition is not as healthy as it
should be, with people running after power, with nobody really working for the
mankind. Sometimes, to the common man, it seems as if democracy is losing its
purpose.
And even if everything works right, still there are problems that can arise. It is quite
normal that is a government works according to the needs of the people, it will work
according to the needs of most people. But if there are minority sections in the pool of
people affected, they often remain unheard. Thus, care for the minority does not come
very naturally through the working system of a democracy, and needs special
attention.

The most challenging thing is the fact that these problems are interconnected. There
are more problems present, some of which are beyond the scope of a common man.
Thus, suggesting solutions for this highly complicated machinery of governance is very
difficult.

References:
https://listverse.com/2015/07/28/10-problems-with-modern-democracies-and-their-institutions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-major-problems-in-democracy

as of 20/10/2019

"democracy, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 November 2014.

Thapar, Romila (2002). "Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300". Google Books. University of
California. pp. 146–150. Retrieved 28 October 2013.