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Democracy, ONOP, governance

Democracies are withering everywhere and require constant reform. In India, one-nation-one-poll is a good idea, but it cannot work as a standalone reform

one-nation-one-poll, election
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one-nation-one-poll, election (Illustration: Binay Sinha)

R Jagannathan
Democracies are struggling to stay democratic. This is the best one can say about the state of democracy in those parts of the world where politicians and public intellectuals still swear by it. Democracies can survive only if they are constantly in conversation with themselves on how best to reform and improve governance. Else they risk slow suicide. As John Adams, the second president of the US, once said, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” This statement is as true today as it was two centuries ago when Adams made this gloomy observation.

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