Are Indians democratic at heart?

There has been a deep sense of hurt after the Mumbai attacks. Much of this has converted to anger that is directed at political leaders. This has meant that the immediate release of tension and blaming has allowed people to feel better in themsleves. But what will this achieve for them. I think the time is upon us to introspect and take the fight to ourselves and our own sense of inadequacy and disempowerment which prevents us from achieving anything more than moral outrage and silent rages. We need to revisit the basics of what our powers are to understand what power we weild as civilians. To do so, I'd have to reiterate some real basic tenets of democratic processes. There is an electorate, an executive and a judiciary in that particular order - the electorate is over-ridden by the executive which in turn can be overriden by the judiciary. Many of you know this and can teach me a thing or two. But without splitting hairs and getting caught up in the samll details, the point i'm making is that there are multiple checks and balances to prevent, regulate and monitor corruption. In this system of governance the poeple elect their reps (politicians), who form the executive structure which is lead by politicians but managed and processed by the bureaucracy - the civil services, law and order/police agencies, and medical services (to name a few). To ensure that the leaders do not use the democratic institutions as their courts (which may be fine for a monarchy or indeed even the politburo of a totalitarian state/communist party), there are many checks and balances put in place. When any of these checks and balances are breached, not followed, or muted through abuse of power or ignorance, the judiciary steps in at the behest of the any civilian, usually a government official ( a bureacrat or an opposition politician). If we perpetually observe our leaders to abuse power and feel disempowered and toothless, we ought to ask ourselves this question: 'Chor ka charitra yehi hai ki woh chori karey. Usey rokna aoro ka kaam hai kyunki woh khud nahi apnay aapko rok payega' (this is dialogue from a routine Bollywood masala but contains immense wisdom for all of us). How many of us have lodged PILs, how many have asked the bureacrats of the relevant departments to explain why they did not whistleblow when they would have been carrying out the dirty deeds of their political masters, how many of us have asked the local MLAs, or MPs, especially if they belong to the opposition parties what they are doing legitimately and procedurally (rather than calling bandhs or shouting in the parliament or going to the media), how many of us have formed pressure groups, collected signatures and ldoged a collective protest, when we beleive our leaders are abusing power? The reality is that we are not taught the basics of democracy, our basic human rights as well as responsibilites to the state and I only learnt many of these after coming to teh UK when I found that the individual has such a lot of power in a democracy. We cant remain ignorant for democracy was imposed on us by Panditji and congress without any preparation of the populace in its nuances. Europe and Britain itself took nearly 400 years to develop the norms, standards and institutions of democracy such that the individual learnt the process through direct participation rather than experience it thruogh passive imposition. NO wonder democracy is so difficult to impose on Iraq today and has been so for many Islamic countries, including Pakistan, as there is no knowledge of the process amongst the common men and women who form the fabric of democracy. Let us educate ourselves of what our powers are. and then take the fight to our reps rather than moaning powerlessly. there's a saying in American midwest : 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". We've been fooled so many times that the foolish are us and not anyone else. And I second Sandeep's point - to what extent do all of us participate in a corrupt process when we give bribes, get files moved through contact and coercion and if we do so, we cant have the moral courage lest we are made 'benakab' ourselves.