Of many imitated concepts of Indian democracy, consensus based decision making is a rather humble one.After centuries of decisions being imposed by the autocratic rulers, when Indians got their independence and with it power to write their own destiny, they understandably wanted to take everybody on board while taking all major decisions.
On the face of it, consensus is a rather noble phenomenon in model liberal democracies where people have a major say in the process of decision making, more so in some Scandinavian countries where even small decisions are put to referendum. Since India borrowed the concept of democracy intoto, consensus came along. India, however, is a unique case with multiple religions, zillions of castes, languages, cultures and what not. So it is practically impossible for Indians to build a consensus on major issues, especially because the diverse forces in play against each other result in a zero sum energy.But we are still obsessed with consensus building..
History of independent India tells us that whenever an issue is postponed till ' a broad consensus is evolved', it keeps orbiting in the endless universe of Indian politics for eternity. Even if finally a decision is taken by accommodating all opinions, it gets so diluted that the original purpose is defeated..
In our heterogeneous society, if everyone is to be kept happy, we will never move forward.This is precisely why our politico-administrative system has become status-quoist. Hard decisions are bound to ruffle a few feathers, but the political leadership does not have the guts to be visionary, look beyond what common people can see.
The need of the hour is, therefore, to re-asses our obsession with consensus. Lets build a consensus on consensus building!
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