Pre-debate vote: For: 117 Against: 155 Uncertain: 175
 
The Royal Geographic hummed with curiosity on Tuesday evening for an issue hugely important in the democratic world, and yet buried underground.

Suhel Seth, the Indian marketing guru, businessman, actor and columnist opened for the proposition with a re-telling of the Achilles myth. Just as the Greek hero’s dodgy tendo calcaneus was the death of him, Seth reasoned, so too will India be crippled by the over-centralisation, nepotism and endemic corruption inspired by her system of liberal democracy. With a confidence and flare learnt from extensive experience behind the podium, Seth ended that Indian democracy has allowed poor governance to thrive under a facade of democracy.

But surely the only other alternative is tyranny, countered the author William Dalrymple. India’s neighbours along - Burma, Sri Lanka and, until 2008, Nepal - highlighted how dictatorships where. The only solution to governing such an ethnically diverse region as India, stipulated Dalrymple, is through a devolved democracy where individual states like Jaipur are given partial autonomy. And besides, he went on, if the Arab Spring tells us anything it’s that democracy will always be fought for by repressed peoples.

Speaking for the motion, Patrick French brought the debate back round to systemic corruption at the heart of India’s democracy. Thirty three members of the INC, he said, have accusations ranging from three counts of murder and ten of attempted murder to unlawful detention and burglary. He added that crime lords now routinely buy local government positions to bypass the law. And almost every MP younger than 30 has inherited their position from their parents. Be middle class or rich, French concluded, and you may see some benefits, but in almost every other sense (upholding the rule of law, making government accountable, allowing the state to function) Indian democracy is failing badly.

Mani Shankar Aiyar propagated the idea that ‘India did not have enough democracy’. He relished pointing out the proudest accolades of Indian democracy, that half of all those living in a democracy are Indian and are spoken for by 3.2 million representatives, of whom 1.8 million are female. He stressed that democracy was a prerequisite of good governance, and that although Indian democracy may be “eccentric” he argued that all forms of democracy all deviated from the ideal. He ended by speaking of the ‘anti-incumbency’ in India, highlighting that two thirds of MPs are overturned at each election.

The debate was tenacious, and due to the personal connections of the speakers, the dialogue became humorous and quick-witted.

Post-debate vote: For: 159 Against: 266 Uncertain: 19

Democracy is India’s Achilles’ heel by intelligence2