The adjective, democratic, can be used to cover a multitude of sins. It can be used, for example, to justify a bandh that holds an entire state to ransom for a day. The people who are affected are supposed to endure it since it is called in their name — and is therefore democratic. Similarly, the adjective can be used to uphold the blockading of an industrial plant. That too is democratic since the ostensible aim of the blockade is the protection of poor farmers. The political formations that are calling the bandh and the blockade claim that their movements are pro-people and therefore democratic. There is some irony in this since the concerned political formations are actually opposed to one another. Yet in one respect they are profoundly similar. Both the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Trinamul Congress are not averse to taking to the streets in the name of the people and of democracy to disrupt normal life and activity. This kind of show of muscle power and street-fighting has become a feature of Indian politics, but its more obnoxious aspects are particularly visible in the state of West Bengal. At a very serious level, there is a contradiction here between the model of democracy and its actual practice in India. The contradiction is powerful enough for the model to be torn asunder by the practice.

The practice of democracy assumes the existence of certain institutions like the parliament and other elected bodies. These are the fora where all critical issues are supposed to be debated and discussed by the elected representatives of the people. But it has been noticed that matters which should be debated in the elected bodies are actually taken to the streets by political parties. This makes irrelevant discussions that take place in parliament and other such bodies. Often such discussions are not even possible since the politics of the street are carried over into the floor of the House and its proceedings disrupted. In West Bengal, the CPI(M) used this method in the Sixties to come to power. The Trinamul Congress is now using the same tactic. Democracy has deepened in India, but it has not matured in terms of the respect politicians show to the Constitution, to democratic institutions and to their established procedures. Till this happens, democracy will remain half-baked in India, and will give the impression of being perpetually fragile.