With power definitely comes great responsibility and when the balance of the union is disturbed, chaos ensues. And that is what is happening in India at present, as soon as one gets the power, the responsibility part is almost forgotten

NONE EVER imagined that Uncle Ben’s statement, “With power comes great responsibility”, in the movie, ‘Spiderman’ on power and responsibility will be epitomising the current democratic situation of India. The statement made by Uncle Ben was true to the core. With power definitely comes great responsibility and when the balance of the union is disturbed, chaos ensues.

Democracy, as it gets epitomised by the famous words, “Of the People, By the People, For the People”, is in shackles in India at present.

Analysis of the situation points out to a very interesting linkage between democracy, autocracy and the marital relationship between power and responsibility. We will get to the actual analysis later. A quick look of the current situation of India paints a very grim picture.


i. Every quarter of an year on an average two terrorist attacks are taking place in the country, leading to severe and unwarranted loss of innocent lives.
ii. Political leaders are openly caught in horse-trading over serious issues like the 123 Agreement for nuclear deal.
iii. Upcoming political aspirants hijack linguistic issues and create a mess out of it resulting in loss of innocent lives in the political cross-fire.
iv. For the sake of vote bank politics and in the name of women empowerment men are being discriminated against, leading to the unleashing of legal terrorism onslaught on them, which leads to abysmally high suicide rates amongst married men.
v. Women appeasement goes on to benefit the affluent women lobbies who misrepresent the situation to the governing agencies and staunchly anti-male draconian laws are passed to extort money from men and treat them as free ATM machines to the extent that all over India affected and aggrieved citizens have formed support groups under the aegis of the Save Indian Family Movement, to create awareness about the ongoing injustice and to help the families of falsely implicated men.
vi. A fatherless society is in the making in the increasing age of divorces with children trapped in broken marriages being routinely deprived of their right to meet their fathers and paternal grandparents and vice versa, due to which juvenile crime is on the rise.


And many more such happenings are taking place, as this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ironical, as it may sound but countries having autocratic governments are doing better than a democratic country like India. Though one may go by the argument that in an autocratic government, the people do not have any say in the government, whereas in a democracy the people have a right to choose their own leader and have a say.


But there comes the glitch. Autocracy reflects a conjugal union of power and responsibility as whosoever comes to power has the responsibility to maintain it and justify it. This sense of responsibility not only induces an inherent sense of accountability but also guarantees good governance as is evident from the GDP levels of countries.


In a democracy, as it is the people who choose their representatives through general elections, there is an automatic divorce of power and responsibility leading to utter chaos and non-governance as depicted in the current picture of India. Since the representatives are given power by the citizens of the country, they shun responsibility and become non-accountable loose cannons and power centres sans responsibility who work not for the country and the citizenry but for themselves and as per their own whims and fancies.


The citizens, who take the responsibility to enthrone the power-mongers lose their power once given. And this is the norm of the day as various support groups have come up to fight the deficiencies in the system be it the Campaign for Right to Information or the drive to save men from harassment.


It’s a matter of great shame for the stakeholders of democracy, that various groups as mentioned above are coming up to break the shackles created by its stakeholders and participants. Only time will tell the future of the divorce between power and responsibility. It’s high time that some inherent sense of accountability is introduced into the system for larger interest of the public.