Demography in Democracy

Speaking or writing about the many aspects of the land and its people in times of a distant past with expressions of glorification using superlative adjectives is both a practice and a habit of leaders marked by their ubiquitous presence in society by virtue of both their high decibel harangues and publicity in the media. The fact that it is the same flock who are at the helm in the current dispensation taking the nation’s masses for granted while making merry with public funds even as people are mute witnesses to their wily ways of fooling the masses and garnering votes in successive polls. The dramatic change from monarchy and colonial rule that the country witnessed to democratic system that is yet to stabilise prompts one to feel that the land’s people continue to be unprepared and even unqualified to govern themselves. Those whose fiat runs in successive governments are living testimony of that feeling. The script of the land’s epics and writings of the historians portray the past generations with adoration on at least one count of creating rich culture of literature, music, art and so on, not to forget refined tastes in life that have endured for several centuries. Today’s chroniclers are not obliged to write about the plight of the country and its diaspora in glorious terms if they are honest in their profession. While demography, as commonly accepted, studies population dynamics including factors of birth, death, migration, aging in numerical terms, the journal Demography, since its founding in 1964, has mirrored the vitality, diversity, intellectual standards, anthropology, biology, economics and so on. An objective appraisal of the present profile of the land in the backdrop of the above extended meaning of the term demography, enables one to get a complete and clear picture of the country’s democratic dividend, which is none too flattering. The ongoing battle between the two-wheeler riders of Mysuru and the law-keeping machinery involving an order on wearing helmet for rider’s safety is a glaring example of both an unrewarding demographic dividend and disorderly democracy. Pitching the two Ds (Demography and Democracy together), the hollow slogan of casteless/classless country voiced by the loud-speaking vote-seekers holds mirror to the deceitful drama in the democracy and its downgraded demographic dividend.