University of Democracy
(A Research on Unifying Wisdom for a Better Democracy)
Democracy is the dream and the destiny of all of us, the Indians, the stake holders, and the consumers of it, to create an egalitarian society and to deliver promises that were not possible under other forms of governance. We are crossing 77 years of living with such democracy, the philosophy of governance by the people, of the people, and for the people. A system is best designed for the results it produces. The claim that the system of democracy has delivered its promises is often challenged by the prevalence of political turmoil, corruption, black money, silent anger, inequality, injustice and difficulties of common man in the society. If it is true that the results of the practice of democracy have not created a just society in our country, University of Democracy is born as a people project, designed and driven by people, to take on the task of scientific and systemic social inquiry to unearth truth behind what is working and what is not working in democracy. Truth is driver of democracy and such democracy shall create a society where people are socially conscious, dutiful, and claim their right to evaluate the truth freely by sharing their experience with democracy. Untruth and injustice continue to prevail and spread until they are challenged by the righteous and the dutiful.
It is the application of Ubuntu philosophy that motivates each one of the consumers of democracy to care for other consumers in getting the dividends of democracy. The project is thinking from a different box when thinking out of box is not working, to invoke and unify wisdom transcending knowledge to make our democracy better.
The People Project
- The project is by the people, of the people, for the people, and in the people. It lives the spirit of democracy.
- The people are the story tellers and they preside over the necessary change in democracy through the project.
- A project for social cause will be successful if there is no claim for any credit. Initially it is put in motion by University of Democracy. The project is owned and run by all people later on.
- The project provides platform for all the people to share their best ideas on democracy which were kept dormant for any reasons. The ideas are further nurtured by the collective wisdom of the people.
- The project rolls on the philosophy of one to one, one to some, some to many, many to more, and, more to everyone. The people participate in the project and trigger a journey of sharing and learning. They share their experiences, brainstorm, add value, agree, disagree, and finally build consensus towards realizing the objectives of this project.
- A Social Research Project: University of Democracy is a social research project which facilitates looking backwards to envision and design a way forward. This research project is a social auditing by the people to evaluate the democracy in terms of its operational efficacy, performance efficiency , honouring compliance , and ethical performance.
- Thought Experiment: University of Democracy is a thought experiment that explores change and reform in the theory and the practice of democracy by reasoning, doubting and questioning the status quo. The thought experiment transcends from reality of facts to realization of truth. The thought experiment ventures into what is not explored because of want of collective leadership of people.
- Think Tank : University of Democracy is a think tank to unify the wisdom to take on the herculean task of designing change, which the wisdom in silos and scattered is not able to do so far. Such a change can make democracy deliver the outcomes for which it is designed.
- The Research Tool : Our experience with democracy is used as a research tool of evidence to evaluate and measure the serviceability of our democracy.
- Fire and Smoke : If there is smoke, there is fire. The smoke can be present everywhere, but the fire can be present at one place only. If the smoke represents the symptoms, the fire represents the disease. If we relate this to the presence of problems in democracy, and our efforts to solve them, what we in fact do is we fight smoke rather than fire, and we prescribe medicine for symptoms rather than disease. The result is that the problems persist as fire and disease. The project brings all the people living in democracy onto a platform to harness their collective leadership to figure out not only the presence of smoke and symptoms, but also the fire and the disease in the practice of democracy in our motherland.
The Vision
On this beautiful and wonderful planet, there are many organizations, think tanks, schools of thought, civil societies, NGO’s, social activists, leaders, politicians and individuals in India and elsewhere, who have been exploring and advocating a change in the practice of democracy so that it serves the humanity holistically and harmoniously on this planet. The democracy in Indian has been in the service of its people for 77 years with a credit of being the biggest democracy on earth, and a claim of organizing election on a massive scale.
The vision of the project is to enshrine the onus of us living in democracy to figure out its service delivery though systemic inquiry and social audit. The vision capacitates us to question the status quo, think beyond conventions, figure out who or what is failing the democracy, and innovate to make democracy more servile to the society. The vision of the project is to unify our wisdom to transcend our democracy from being good to being better, and transition our society from being educated to being enlightened.
The Mission
An idea that cures symptoms of a disease dominates until the discovery of an idea that cures the disease itself.
The first mission of the project is people preparing a white paper on the serviceability and functioning of democracy. This is through facilitating ourselves, the stake holders and the consumers of democracy, to participate in a social audit exercise to share user experience and figure out the absence or presence of problem in the working of our democracy.
The second mission is to brainstorm, share and discover ideas and solutions that address problems in democracy.
The third mission is to design an action plan and implement it to derive dividends from the solutions.
The Process
The thought experiment of the project is on envisioning a better democracy. As such, in the first stage we look backward to look forward. All the people in democracy share their experiences on different functions of democracy through inquiry based reflective exercise. The shared experiences go through mutual validation, scrutiny and scientific analysis to produce a repository of experiential learnings in the practice of democracy. These learnings throw light on the absence or presence of problem with democracy. The collective agreement on the presence of problem will create the need to find the solution. These learnings also unearth truth, explore reason, and facilitate thinking about solutions.
In the second stage, all the people will brainstorm the experiential learnings and the established knowledge on democracy to propose solutions, by clubbing different ideas, answering hard questions, lateral thinking, alternative views, and wisdom beyond conventions.
In the third stage, all the people contemplate actions of different kinds to be implemented to bring in paradigm shifts, change, reform in the practice of democracy to make it a better version.
The Objectives
- The first objective of the University of Democracy is making the people to preside over the social change in democracy guided by experiential learning, reasoning, and the need.
- The second objective of the project is to facilitate and empower all of us, the consumers of democracy, to figure out what is working and what is not working in democracy.
- The third objective of the project is to protect the reason, the logic, the truth, and justice in the democracy.
- The fourth objective of the project is to facilitate thinking for reforms, refinements and alternatives to democracy.
Democracy Research Laboratory
The Research Methodology of the thought experiment of the project is creating a virtual Democracy Research Laboratory with three software platforms. They are designed as the means to accomplish the missions that lead to realizing the vision of the project. They are
- People Learning Platform
- People Solution Platform
- People Action Platform
People Learning Platform: This platform enthuses the people about the role they play in the project and prompts all people to share their experiences with democracy. The aggregation of experiences translates into learnings that reveal absence or presence of problem in the practice of democracy. If the problem is present, the learnings further indicate the gaps, the short comings, and the pitfalls in the practice of democracy. The platform yields white paper on the serviceability and functioning of democracy.
People Solution Platform: This platform facilitates all the people to propose solutions to address the problems identified in the practice of democracy in the first platform. This platform yields the solution which addresses all the problems, which makes democracy more serviceable, which has highest consensus, and which is practicable.
People Action Platform: This platform prompts all people to articulate actions to implement the solutions proposed in the second platform to make democracy a better democracy. This platform yields action plan which is acceptable to all and which motivates all to act on.
The Outcomes
University of Democracy, the people driven project, delivers a framework of a better democracy in place of a good democracy. The thought experiment of the project further prescribes cures not only for the symptoms but also for the disease that are probably present in the practice of democracy. The following paradigm shifts are the outcomes.
| No | The status quo of system | Envisioned system |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Vicious democracy | Virtuous democracy |
| 2. | Conflict society | Egalitarian society |
| 3. | Dysfunctional democracy | Functional democracy |
| 4. | Top down system | Bottom up system |
| 5. | Politics centric system | People centric system |
| 6. | System of loud voice | System of right voice |
| 7. | Unequal playing ground | Equal playing ground |
| 8. | Educated society | Enlightened society |
| 9. | Abstract democracy | Empirical democracy |
| 10. | Deductive democracy | Inductive democracy |
Ethos & Disclaimers
- University of Democracy is a project, academic in nature, to create a platform for all the people living in democracy to share their experiences, ideas, and expertise towards addressing problems in democracy.
- The project celebrates difference and divergence in ideas to create innovative reforms in democracy.
- It is an open forum for collaboration, sharing, and nurturing of ideas with absolute consensus for social good.
- The course correction and respecting disagreement are core values integral to the project.
- The project is apolitical and has no political intent in any manner.
- The focus of the project is on exploring what is right or wrong in the functioning of democracy, not on who is right or who is wrong.
- The project is not prejudicial to the state, or any political entity either directly or indirectly.
- If any aspect of this project is sensible by omission or commission to any party, or the state, it is inadvertent only. Any objections of any nature will be duly addressed by all the participants of the project.
