Strengthening Indian Democracy

Strengthening Indian Democracy Nirmal Mukarji The root cause of the sickness afflicting Indian democracy is the distance between power and the people. Power is lodged at the centre and in the states whereas the people are at the local level. People's power is thus not available to keep the wielders of political power under check. Electoral reform and judicial activism can at best deal with the symptoms. The disease needs the more basic remedy of bringing power down to the people through minimal central and state governance and correspondingly maximal local governance.