The state assembly elections of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and some of the by-poll elections are over in India and the results are out. In 2023 more state assembly elections in states like Madhya Pradesh etc., are going to be conducted. Not a year passes by in India when some or the other election is not being held somewhere. In democratic (sic) countries around the world elections are known as the festival of the highest order celebrating the god of democracy. Political leaders and their allies don’t get tired of telling people how sacred their vote is and how their one vote can change the destiny of their country, etc. Voting is considered in India – a country where no one donates anything without expecting to earn some brownie points with a myriad of deities – as the highest form of donation. Elections are everything because they give a (false) sense of feeling to the otherwise slave citizens that they are living in a free country.
But do elections matter? Have they or will they change anything in India?
The theory and history both tell us that elections don’t matter and they will not change anything in India for the better. With every election the situation continues to deteriorate. Now, some political leaders are cunning enough to create a perception amongst the voting public that their country is improving or is becoming a world leader in this or that alleged field. But that perception – created by the use of a costly and elaborate propaganda machine – isn’t going to change the sad reality of India where daily life is a misery for one billion plus people.
Elections are allowed and celebrated precisely because they do not change anything for our rulers. The only thing elections change every year is the person or party that will now rob and kill us. Getting robbed and killed remains the same for the ruled public. As Emma Goldman rightly said,
If elections changed anything they (the authorities) will make it illegal.
The reason why nothing changes is because the Indian constitution doesn’t allow implementation of any other economic system other than socialism and socialism is a system that can never produce wealth. Misery is written right in the first page of India’s constitution. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution reads,
WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. (Emphasize mine)
To lift Indians out of their misery requires resource generation at a mass scale for which the socialist economy is simply incapable. Anyone who understands basic economics knows this fact. As Ludwig von Mises demonstrated a hundred years ago, the socialist economic calculation is an impossibility. As I have said in my past article, socialism is a system of scarcity, misery, and death. The national socialist policies being followed by the present BJP government in power is even worse as it combines two of the worst economic systems of nationalism and socialism. Nationalism also means death.
With every new election the Indian government keeps on getting bigger and bigger. Its controls and interventions into the economy and society keep on enlarging. This socialism will only stop when it will break the whole country as the history of most former socialist countries show. The extreme socialism practiced by Jawaharlal Nehru in the beginning decades of Indian nation state broke the economy and then Indian government was forced to implement market reforms. Narendra Modi government has reversed these reforms and his government is taking us back to the Nehruvian era of full fledged socialism with full authoritarian government controls of everything. This economic mistake will break the Indian nation in the future. The breaking up of the Indian nation state was baked in the cake right at the beginning when its leaders adopted a socialist constitution. Socialism always ends in disaster and India is moving towards that final disaster.
As long as the constitution remains socialist do not expect any changes for the better from any elections. Every new (authoritarian) leader will make you feel nostalgic about every other past dictatorial leader until everything will break and fall apart.
