Introduction ‘
Democracy’ in Abraham Lincoln’s opinion is ‘of the people, for the people and by the people’. It is the sole objective of the democracies across the world. As a result, in the democratic ministry there are representatives from diverse background and of course with different objectives and mind-sets. So, there must be tolerance of dissent as it is crucial to the democracy. ‘Dissent’ and ‘tolerance’ are two integral part of democracy, except these the democracy cannot exist.
The word ‘Democracy’ is originated from the Greek word ‘demos’ which implies ‘the people’ i.e. the whole population of a country, especially the adult population. Practically, the entire population or the collectivity consists of a large number of individuals as a unit. No two individuals in a collectivity—either mechanical or organic—can be alike, since their requirements and aspirations vary even with regard to their physical and mental compositions. Obviously, their views, beliefs, notions and habits are dissimilar and yet the concept, rule and practice of or by those people, however disparate, are significantly acceptable and much in existence.
Reasons for the Existence of Democracy
The philosophies and ideologies of politics as well as religions have successfully hold human beings together in different parts of the world for ages, both by their advantages and disadvantages, and also by their strict laws of punishment according to the interpretation in their constitutions and holy books respectively. Some of the rules are unchangeable as they are the decrees. A democratic constitution is in fact much more significant than a writing on a piece of paper since it conceives of the cultural and moral loyalty to certain values that the law of the states incorporates. Citizens interact in their daily lives to the work procedures that are led by the power of this meta-juridical ethos. This principle is the sovereignty of each individual as well as the sovereignty of individual political judgement. The majority of the people are meant by the phrase, ‘by the people’ and the entire population execute what the majority decides. But it does not mean that the majority is entitled to dominate over the minority; rather the enthusiastic cooperation of the minority and the protection guaranteed to the rights and freedoms, and tolerance of—though not in agreement with—the views and beliefs of the minorities help the democracy thriving. As a result, there may be people with different thinking from the ideas of the majority and official ideas. Dissent offers an alternative to the existing ideas, institutions and system, and prevails even in non-democratic systems. So, dissent is not a negative concept.
Importance of the Expression of Dissent
During the dominant and established principles of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Boris Yeltsin’s views that expressed dissent are worth-mentionable. People often voiced their dissents against the monarchical government of Nepal. Though the decision of the government is taken by the majority, in a healthy and working democracy, the minority voice against it and their dissents are considered by the majority. Debate and discussion makes the air transparent as well as creates a situation of compromise and despite the opposition there exists a certain amount of accommodation. People will be dissatisfied and raise growing anger provided the positive phenomenon of dissent is attempted to subdue. Subsequently, this resentment would result in the revolt against the established system and a revolution would break out causing violence, bloodshed and destruction. Therefore, in the larger interests of democratic setup it is much better to tolerate voices of dissent with a view to ventilating pent-up feelings and different views. However, extremes of dissent can jeopardise democracy, so the permissive limit of dissent is fixed. People enjoy freedoms of expression, association, economic pursuit, belief in political, religious and others matters, etc. in a democracy. These freedoms of an individual or a group of people, however, are restricted so that they may not be the cause of injury to another individual or the collectivity, or may not even affect the social or national fabric adversely. All possible measures are taken against fascism and is not allowed a little room to grow although people passionate to apply it as an alternative to the existing democratic government system. So, anything that goes against democracy is against people too. Hence, the dissent of people must be checked as the most vulnerable aspect of democracy is freedom which makes people avail its advantage and ultimately overturn the existing system by controlling the voice of dissent that goes against them.
Reasons for the Existence of Dissent in Democracy
There are two vivid sides of dissents: Inter-party (that is, one party against another) and intra-party (that is, within the same party) in the domain of politics. Despite the principles and the particular modus operandi, sometimes, the members of the same party express their guaranteed dissent against the malfunction of the leadership or taken decisions that appear to be inappropriate based on the situations. Then these cases should be immediately controlled by strong hand by the top leaders, and must be restricted within the party-platform not allowing it to be public, otherwise the party will get an authoritarian image among the mass or split into bits which is not at all yielding to the party. Democracy, similarly, permits the foundation and continuation of political parties with diverse views. The several modus operandi of the democracy allow parties to express their voice of dissent; moreover, the system itself leads the parties not to allow any strong party attack and subdue the weak because the strong party always aims at suppressing the weak and subverting the system, and also has tendency to establish its own dominance which has the maximum chance of destroying democracy and giving birth to dictatorship. In case of Indian politics, it was seen the political parties showing an intolerance of dissent and either breaking up by themselves or the people being forced to experience a bitter period of authoritarianism. In 1969 and 1977, the Indian National Congress Party broke several times and it resulted in the authoritarian emergency rule in the country from 1975–1977. But today, the tolerance of dissent in the Congress Party leads it to remaining united and controlling the unrest among the members in different times. The existence of various parties like Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS), the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Communist party and other national and regional parties plays a major role in Indian democracy to allow the successful existence of the tolerance of dissent in different situations. In a democracy people enjoy the freedom of choosing occupation and economic pursuit in order to earn their livelihood. As a result, there are various occupations and this variety may cause dissent rise, especially in respective of the macroeconomic policy. For instance, some may speak deliberately for mixed economy, others liberalisation or capitalism while a few others voice in support of the socialistic approach or nationalisation. These diverse dissenting views must be given a patient hearing, though not supported from the official viewpoints. This response shows the respect for these diverse viewpoints which encourages official spokesmen as well as ministers to clarify or in some cases even to modify policies and programmes with the intention of facilitating a broader plan of action. In a democratic society, it is common that a group or class may vary in respect to its form and pattern from the majority. But the majority should not intervene in that form or pattern, or even resort to value judgements. Each and every form and composition of any social group is comfortable with its members, and in case of any outside forcible attempts to bring changes would certainly destroy the aim of democracy. It is against democracy to ask some ethnic groups like a group of Kerala or the North-East to change its matrilineal form of family with the issue that it does not follow the practice of mainstream. The value of democracy will be marred if any group tries to impose their social norms upon other. In this regard, ‘Live and let live’ must be the fundamental motto of democracy.
The world has diversity in the dimension of culture. India too is not an exception; rather it is a multilingual and multiethnic country. Some of the cultural groups are smaller minorities and as a result, they may seem to others as backward or ridiculous. In such cases, instead of making fun and keeping them in the same status, we should respect them and undertake measures to improve their standard. Temples, mosques, churches and gurudwaras are the sacred shrines where God is believed to exist are of equal value to their respective religions. So, a person from any group cannot vilify or utter demagoguery words against any of these shrines because it will hurt the religious sentiments of the stated religion and break the favourable norms of democracy. The freedom of speech can then be valued in the democratic sense and enjoyed by the by its people. Based on the nature and philosophy of a democracy, it can be deduced whether its people are enjoying democracy where the dissent is discernable in its absence.
Freedom to dissent, pluralism and tolerance are limited by the constitutional morality of democratic society. The constitutional democracy guarantees the legal freedom to each individual challenging its fundamental principles. Since the constitution defends the right to dissent, the citizens as well as the society must maintain civil sentiments that help developing the social fabric. Tolerance and moral limitations of individual freedom are essential to the ethos permeating democracy itself and centres round the individual as a predominant wealth which denotes necessarily Socratic habit of the mind. The person in its main focus is simply a rational agent moved by preferences as well as an individual to ask for explanations for the obedience owed to the laws of the state. Contemporarily, democratic deliberative institutions are founded on the premise of free debate and their training to the public’s free will and judgement are widely appreciable for the free flow of ideas and pluralism of information, and above all through freedom of alliance and the right to express personal views. The democratic citizen is called upon to argue using his own knowledge to vote as an individual as well as in solitude, to cooperate and interact with others, to change his or her mind and then change it again. Ultimately, the democratic citizen is asked to come face-toface to those in power. Democratic deliberating institutions are predominantly formed in order to educate citizens gradually so that they can make out that they are able to change their mindset and give value to their right to question authorities and enquire why they should obey or share or believe. They can also render accountable to those who in their name govern or perform their duties in the parliament.
The sovereignty of individual judgement justifies that democratic government is the government by debate and the fixed point which holds democratic society together, and it does not need any discussion regarding its acknowledgement. The sovereignty of individual judgement is also the principle of private morality as well as a value giving democracy its own ethical specificity. In a word, it is neither a metaphysical rule nor an abstract principle; rather is the gradual acquisition of civilisation and inherent to human history in its fundamentals. It is, thus, deeply rooted in the depths of the psyche as it were a commonsense or moral garment.
As in the democratic society, there exists the relationship between individuals as the symbol of codification relationships of equality between different people, the value of individuality gains moral legitimacy and judicial. It is demonstrated in two forms: Ethical i.e. as feelings of cooperation and partiality and legal form i.e. as the right to political and social equality as well as individual freedom. These two dimensions comprise democratic moral constitution which pervades and orients the deliberative competence of the citizens in a representative democracy. In the same time, it preserves political and legal order from the fundamentalist propensities of the powerful and conceited majorities and anti-egalitarian tendencies which are grounded on the economic and corporative interests.
The sovereignty and dissent of an individual are inextricable within a democratic society because of the anti-authoritarian or the reactive role of the majority to power of dissent; self-culture being a public and private virtue for individuals and the Socratic kind of democratic ethics. Dissent is a constitutive virtue of democracy as the base of democratic legitimacy is reciprocal respect of ideas, consensus and autonomy of judgement. Dissent strengthens favouritism and cooperation between citizens instead of eroding the social ideas like authoritarians and conservatives. We are aware that beliefs of individuals and commitment are strengthened by dissent and a free public discussion as we discuss about our favourite things linked by bonds deeper than rational principles and assent. Moreover, dissent reveals a primary loyalty to a community, society or country. Even a religious community based on the compliance to principles and no option to appeal the hierarchy, an interpretative authority, like the Catholic Church, preferably allows active and spiritually effervescent believers instead of apathetic and passive believers.
Dissent strengthens the acceptability of majority rule as a means for taking decisions on the basis of acknowledgment of the equal unreliability of citizens and on the contrary, diminishes the inclination to cultural uniformity fundamental to democratic society. Equality to review opinions and decisions is similar to acknowledge none as infallible and demanding irrefutable opinions. There is no serendipity in Albert Hirschman’s definition. The attitude of those attempting to ‘win an argument rather than listening and discovering that one can at times learn something from others’ as that of someone with a susceptibility for authoritarian rather than democratic policies.
Conclusion
Dissent does not indicate undermining or disharmony; rather it humbly acknowledges every decision that can become the object of revision, even accepted and voted by a vast majority since the foundation of democratic measures is opinions of the people not the truth. The unique form of government is democracy which is devised with a view to yielding a constant process of the amendment of laws or decisions taken without endangering the stability of civil and legal order. Hence, dissent is at the base of decision-making process and is one of its fundamental elements. In this regard, John Stuart Mill can be supported that ‘formidable evil’ is not in ‘conflict between parts of the truth’, but instead in the ‘quiet suppression of half-truths’. However, the critics of democracy have often stressed on the conservative temptation of the political model, where the principle of the sovereignty of individual hardly endorses the ideal of a harmonious society rather a society that learns how to synchronise dissent using methods for solving conflict through a free debate instead of using force. Tolerance of dissent, last but not least, is the foundation of democracy in all dimensions