Kashmir elections after 10 years

[aupmanyav]

"15 Muslim BJP Candidates In Kashmir":

'15 Muslim BJP Candidates In Kashmir'

'Article 370 is now dug 70 feet deep in the ground. It cannot come out.'

www.rediff.com

 

[bilby]

Why should not the elected people have power, if they have been elected in a free and fair manner? You mean that the American President or the British Prime Minister should not have power?

Because giving power to individuals sucks. Which is exactly what democracy is intended to prevent.

Insofar as your democracy gives power to individuals, you are doing it wrong.

 

[aupmanyav]

Because giving power to individuals sucks. Which is exactly what democracy is intended to prevent.

If we make some one a President or Prime Minister of a country, and a country like India with a population of 1,454 million, we need to give him/her power.
We have perfect faith in the man to whom we have given power. When he leaves the seat of power, he will go with a plastic carry bag with two sets of clothes and nothing else. I think Modi will give his meager assets in charity (USD 360,000, no house, no land, no car) when he leaves. He has no need for them. Modi is not an ordinary person.

 

[bilby]

If we make some one a President or Prime Minister of a country, and a country like India with a population of 1,454 million, we need to give him/her power.

No, we really don't. You're thinking of a King or Dictator.

Presidents and Prime Ministers should be required to compromise and to build consensus. They are servants, not masters, and power in a democracy by definition resides with the people, not their elected lackey.

We have perfect faith in the man to whom we have given power.

Then you are 1,454 million fools. Nobody is deserving of perfect faith.

 

[aupmanyav]

No, we really don't. You're thinking of a King or Dictator.

Presidents and Prime Ministers should be required to compromise and to build consensus. They are servants, not masters, and power in a democracy by definition resides with the people, not their elected lackey. Then you are 1,454 million fools. Nobody is deserving of perfect faith.

We are thinking of a capable administrator.
He will compromise if and when necessary for the welfare of the nation. So, in your opinion, the person elected by people in a democratic nation is a lackey?
Are the Presidents and Prime Ministers in West, lackeys? Whose lackeys?
Of course, Modi is there to serve the nation. We have given the power to him. And he is doing his job efficiently, better than any of his predecessors.
I do not understand your problem.
This is because you do not have a person like that. Once you find such a person, you will give him all power. The power is never without constraints. In case of India and according to our Constitution, the Indian Supreme Court is the watchdog. They can stop any government decision if they find it contravening the Constitution. Even a State High Court judge had the power to nullify the election of an Indian Prime Minister as strong as Indira Gandhi. India is not a 'banana republic'. Read it here:

The Emergency (India) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bilby]

Are the Presidents and Prime Ministers in West, lackeys?

They should be.

Whose lackeys?

The people's.

 

[aupmanyav]

They should be. The people's.

I would not want my Prime Minister to be a lackey of anyone.
You do not think that they have a mind of their own or that they should use it for the betterment of their country?
Many a times people want things that may be harmful to the nation in the long run.
Farmers in India want the MSP (Minimum Support Price) of their produce to double every year. Is that possible?
A responsible far-seeing President or Prime Minister should not succumb to such pressures.

 

[bilby]

I would not want my Prime Minister to be a lackey of anyone.

Then you are an authoritarian and not a democrat.

Don't worry about it; Most people are. Humans love dictatorships, and always have. Democracy is a very recent fad, and seems to be passing.

Personally, I thought it was quite a good idea, and I will miss it. But it seems that the majority want strong leaders to tell them how to behave, and are happy to debase themselves in front of a king (while maintaining the pretense that they don't have one, for example by calling him "Prime Minister" or "President").

 

[bilby]

Many a times people want things that may be harmful to the nation in the long run.

And many more times, people IN CHARGE want things that may be harmful to the nation in the long run.

Why would we let them do such things, without first at least getting the agreement of most of the citizenry, or even most of the elected representatives of the citizenry?

Farmers in India want the MSP (Minimum Support Price) of their produce to double every year. Is that possible?

If it isn't, it won't happen no matter who wants it.

You don't need a dictator or a king in order to prevent impossible things from happening.

A responsible far-seeing President or Prime Minister should not succumb to such pressures.

If anyone ever sees such a rare and mythical beast, they should put it in a zoo for us all to gawk at.

Responsibility is corroded by power; If you want someone to act responsibly, you need them to be beholden to others.

Far-sightedness is rare in those who seek power. They are too focussed on their own influence to really care about other people.

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

 

[aupmanyav]

Don't worry about it; Most people are. Humans love dictatorships, and always have. Democracy is a very recent fad, and seems t

I also like my car to work the way it is supposed to work.

 

[aupmanyav]

Douglas Adams said:
"To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Absolutely rubbish. But then, Douglas Adams was a humorist.
That way you will never get a President or a Prime Minister. No one contests without wanting to be. Some do not want to be a President or a Prime Minister for any benefit to themselves but for the betterment of the country.
The trappings of being a Prime Minister are nothing for Modi. He will leave them in a second when the time comes. All his 13 year as Chief Minister of Gujarat, a prosperous state of India (Patels), and 10 years of being the Prime Minister of India, have not made him or his family rich. All money that he that he ever got as his salary has been/will be donated. His normal food is a bowl of kedgeree. All that he owns (fixed deposits and cash in hand, he own nothing other than that) is not enough to buy the middle-class duplex flat that we live in.
Modi cannot be compared to any person other than the Chief Minister of our largest state, Uttar Pradesh (population 257 million, exceeds the population of Pakistan), Yogi Adityanath, who is already a monk and heads an important sect of Hinduism. Although I would perhaps not be there to witness it, I do wish that some day Yogi gets to be the Prime Minister of India.