Here are different opinions about what made India a democracy. How much importance would you give to each of these factors?
(a) Democracy in India is a gift of the British rulers. We received training to work with representative legislative institutions under British rule.
(b) Freedom Struggle challenged the colonial exploitation and denial of different freedoms to Indians. Free India could not be anything but democratic.
(c) We were lucky to have leaders who had democratic convictions. The denial of democracy in several other newly independent countries shows the important role of these leaders.
(a) Though I would acknowledge many good things were learned from the British rulers and democracy being one of them, I wouldn’t say that democracy was a gift given by them. Indians had to struggle a lot and make many sacrifices to attain freedom from British rule. These circumstances helped people to gain experience and training in the working of the legislative institutions.
(b) Yes, Free India could not be anything but democratic because the people had already suffered a lot under British rule. This made them realise that for people to have a say in ruling the country, it was necessary to make India a democratic country.
(c) It is indeed true that we were lucky to have leaders who had deep democratic values. It is because of these ideals that India’s freedom struggle can be considered as the only example of a bloodless freedom struggle in contemporary history. Therefore, absence of such ideals has made many countries undemocratic.