Suggest any four political reforms to strengthen democracy.
- IT is very tempting to think of legal ways of reforming politics, to think of new laws to ban undesirable things. But this temptation needs to be resisted. No doubt, law has an important role to play in political reform. Carefully devised changes in law can help to discourage wrong political practices and encourage good ones.
Democratic reforms are to be carried out mainly by political activists, parties, movements, and politically conscious citizens.
For example; many states have banned people who have more than two children from contesting panchayat elections. This has resulted in denial of democratic opportunity to many poor and women, which was not intended. The best laws are those which empower people to carry out democratic reforms. The Right to Information Act is a good example of a law that empowers the people to find out what is happening in government and act as watchdog of democracy. - Democratic reforms are to be brought about principally through political practice. Therefore, the main focus of political reforms should be on ways to strengthen democratic practice.
- Any proposal for political reforms should think not only about what is good solution but also about who will implement it and how. It is not very wise to think, that the legislatures will pass legislations that go against the interest of all the political parties and MPs. But measures that rely on democratic movements, citizen’s organisations and the media are likely to succeed.