A smarter democracy - don't fool yourself

There was an article on The Times of India online which said India was a smarter democracy because the election results had proven everyone wrong. Just because you have been proved wrong does not make others smarter.

Consider this
1) The country still is one of the most illiterate in the world. Yes, there is almost no other place in the world where illiterates can overcome the litterates elect the government.

As some BJP guy remarked - "This is what happens if you let the illiterates vote". True. But, the solution is not removing the voting rights of illiterates but reducing the number of illiterates. Here the BJP minister Dr.MM Joshi's policies did not help. Here is a guy trying to subsidize post graduate specialized learning at the expense of primary education.

If you are concerned about primary education in India, consider supporting CRY http://www.cry.org or Asha for Education http://www.ashanet.org/

2) The percentage of people who voted was the lowest. A smart democarcy is a democracy where people participate.

3) Here is how we fare against other democracies on the Global Integrity Report