Democracy-- the rule of majority

Mankind and his societies have come a long way through different forms of leaderships. As a group, the tendency to lead and be led is innate with not only human beings but animals too. Apart from real and natural leaders emerging out of the unknown and unexpected corners only at very few instances of history, man was forced to follow some sort of system that he thought would establish truth and justice in the society.

We had monarchy in which truth was what the King believed. We study about good kings in history who were married to justice, but what about hundreds of them for whom life was an indulgence in excesses. People had no choice other than moving along with the whims and fancies of the ruler. There was oligarchy where law meant what a handful of prominent heads in the society thought.

We also have seen theocracy or the rule of the religious authority. If God is the supreme authority of truth, religion is a path towards God. Obviously people who followed one path belittled those following other paths. In an intolerant theocracy justice is a far cry.

Socialism claims to be inclusive. It is a form of rule where the state has the control over the classless society. But what if one wants to be different for the good? How tolerant is the system for the odd one?

Then we have largely acclaimed democracy—a system where the majority rules. If two out of three claim it is night, it should be night. If the three happen to be blind and claim that it is night, is there a way out? Democracy has some fanciful instruments like referendum which seeks to arrive at a decision on major reforms and policy changes through vote of the people concerned.

What if, all the people residing near a forest land agree to clear the vegetation and drive away the animals for cultivation? Who will vote for the animals and the trees?

In democracy we have a system to ensure justice—the court of law. The court judges individual situations of the basis of a pre-set tenet. The tenet has been formed by experts who thought about the well-being of the people, precisely the majority population. So what happens when a eunuch or a gay stands up for his rights? For the largest democracy in the world it took over 60 years to hear the voice of this minority.