History of Practicing Democracy in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

I N D I A :

Population : about 1,155,347,700 - 2009
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators




After the creation of Pakistan and India, India has been practicing democracy ever since the constitution of India was framed. But Pakistan though started with the sprit of democracy but could not frame the constitution. The constitution in the name of Islamic Republic of Pakistan was passed in 1956 but there was Martial Law declared by the then President Eskander Mirza and the Chief Army staff Ayub Khan. So the democracy was stuck up from 1958 to 1971. Pakistan was divided into two parts namely :

1. West Pakistan,
2. East pakistan,



P A K I S T A N

Population : about 169,708,300 - 2009
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators





which was at a distance of 1200 miles in between India. There was discrimination in the administration and all other financial matters between East Pakistan and West Pakistan. Because of the discrimination there was an Independence movement of East Pakistan and it became independent after a fight of 9 (nine) months with the help of freedom fighters and Indian soldiers. After the independence on 26 March 1971, a Constitution was framed in the name of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1972.



B A N G L A D E S H

Population : about 162,220,760 - 2009
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators

The government in power started functioning under the democratic constitution but the legislature converted the democratic government into the government of one party rule. Consequently, democracy became dysfunctional. That thereafter, Martial Law came in 1975. In 1979 there was election in Bangladesh and democracy continued up to March 1982. That again Martial Law was imposed on 1982 and it continued for more than nine years. Being oppressed there was an upsurge of the peoples and the Martial Law came to an end. The election was held. But when the election was schedule to be held in 2007, an emergency was imposed by the Army on 11th January, 2007 and democracy could not function for 2 years. However election was held on 28 December 2008 to validate the acts done during the period of emergency; and institutionalize democracy. The People are looking forward for a free, fair and impartial election under the Constitution to run the country through democratic process.

Columbus drawn up a Constitution form of Democrary

= Columbus =

Born between 22 August and 31 October 1451 Genoa,
Republic of Genoa, in present-day Italy.




Died on 20 May, 1506 ( at the grand age 54 years) Valladolid,
Crown of Castile, in present-day Spain.



EARLY LIFE :

The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and in Spanish it is Cristóbal Colón. Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in Genoa, part of modern Italy. His father named was Domenico Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Christopher's mother named was Susanna Fontanarossa. He has three brothers named, (1) Bartolomeo, (2) Giovanni Pellegrino and (3) Giacomo . Bartolomeo worked in a cartography of workshop in the name of Lisbon at least part of his adulthood.





FRAMING OF CONSTITUTION FORM OF DEMOCRACY :

In Iceland in the year of 930 A.D., more than 5 (five) centuries before the discovery of America of Columbus, a constitution was drawn up in Iceland, which established an early form of democracy, with the General Assembly, as the central body of the government. From the middle of the thirteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, Iceland was under the rule of the Danish-Nor-wegian throne. In the year of 1874, Iceland's separate constitution was revived again. In the year of 1918, Denmark which still held sovereignty over the island recognized Iceland as a separate state nominally under the Danish king. The last link was dissolved on June 17, 1944, while Denmark was still under the Nazi Occupation, and Iceland proclaimed itself a completely independent Republic after a popular referendum.





DEATH :

That on 20 May, 1506 at age of 54 years, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. According to a study, published in February 2007, by Antonio Rodriguez Cuartero, Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Granada, he died of a heart attack caused by reactive arthritis. As per his personal diaries and notes by contemporaries, the symptoms of this illness (burning pain during urination, pain and swelling of the knees, and conjunctivitis) were clearly evident in his last three years.



POPULAR CULTURE :

Columbus, was an important historical figure and has been depicted in fiction, cinema, television, and in other media and entertainment, such as stage plays, music, cartoons and games.

IN GAMES :

++ Christopher Columbus appeared as a Great Explorer in the 2008 strategy video game, Civilization Revolution.

IN LITERATURE :

• In the year of 1889, American author Mark Twain based the time traveler's trick in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on Columbus' successful prediction of a lunar eclipse during fourth voyage to the New World.
• In the year of 1958, the Italian playwright Dario wrote a satirical play about Columbus titled Isabella,(Isabella, three tall ships and a con man). In 1997 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. That the aforesaid play was translated into English in the year of 1988 by Ed Emery and is downloadable on the internet.
• In the year of 1991, author Salman Rushdie published a fictional representation of Columbus in The New Yorker, "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, Santa Fe, January, in the year of 1492".
• In Past watch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus,1996, science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card focuses on Columbus' life and activities, but the novel's action was also deals with a group of scientists from the future who travel back to the 15th century with the goal of changing the pattern of European contact with the Americas.
• British author Stephen Baxter includes Columbus' quest for royal sponsorship as a crucial historical event in the year of 2007, science fiction novel Navigator (ISBN 978-0-441-01559-7), the third entry in the author's Time's Tapestry Series.

DERIVATION, PROCESS AND PRACTICES OF DEMOCRACY

( DERIVATION, PROCESS AND PRACTICES OF DEMOCRACY )


Ideas : Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

Date of birth : 30 November 1874 Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxford-shire, Date of death : 24 January 1965 (at the grant age 90) 28 Hyde Park Gate, London, England

Honorary degrees :

• University of Rochester (LLD) in 1941
• Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (LLD) in 1943
• McGill University in Montreal, Canada (LLD) in 1944
• Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri 5 March 1946
• Leiden University in Leiden, Netherlands, honorary doctorate in 1946^[227]
• University of Miami in Miami, Florida in 1947
• University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark (PhD) in 1950

INTRODUCTION :

Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, KG, OM (1874-1965), British war leader, statesman, painter and writer. Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, named Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, named Jenny Jerome, an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and through books he wrote about his campaigns.

Some have called Churchill the greatest man ever to speak the English language; many more think him the greatest Englishman of the present century. But for him, Britain, Europe, and possibly the rest of the world, might have given way to dominion by Hitler and his hordes of conquering Nazi soldiery, who in any case invaded and destroyed a large part of Europe during the Second World War.

Description :

Churchill was also a descendant of the great Duke of Marlborough. Like many men destined for greatness, Winston was not good student in school, did badly at it, and only just managed to ensure into a career, in his case the army with a degree from Sandhurst. He fought in Cuba, in India and with Kitchener in Egypt. Then he went to Sough Africa i the Boer War as a war correspondent. He had, while in India, taught himself to write good prose, and he had developed a grant, masterly style which captured the greatness fothe times in which he was living or about which he was writing. In South Africa he was captured, escaped on a train with a price on his head and returned to England a hero.

Then he went into Parliament, and by 1906 was a junior minister. In 1911 he became first lord of the admiralty and it was largely due to hi energy, foresight and persistence that the British fleet was ready, in 1914, to face any comers in the First World War. During the war, Churchill put up several ideas for shortening it, one of which was the bold scheme to take a fleet up the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and so knock Turkey out of the fighting. It failed, but not through his fault; he was blamed, and was driven from office. So he went to the trenches in France as a colonel.

Churchill returned under more favourable conditions when Loiyed Georage was prime minister, and he held various offices over the next few years. But he felt himself increasingly at variance with his colleagues over several matters, particularly over India, and then later, in the middle of the 1930s, over British failure to re-arm against Hitler and his aggressive policies. Time and again he warned Britain to be ready to deal with the Nazis, but no one listened.

In 1939, Britain declared war over Hitler's invasion of Poland. Churchill was brought back as first lord of the admiralty and again he organized the fleet so that it would play its rule. Then in May 1940, when France was about to collapse before the Germans, Chamberlain, the prime minister, was compelled to resign for his lack of leadership, and Churchill was sent for by the king, Georage VI, to form a government. His hour had come.

By his stirring inspiration and his magnificent speeches invoking all the best qualities of the British people, and his more practical direction of the nation's war effort, from grand strategic plans down to the smallest but still important details, he took the country through five years of hardship and loss to ultimate victory. Without his leadership, the British might well have given way and surrendered to Hitler.

After the war, Churchill was in opposition for six years. Then the Conservatives were returned to British parliament and he was prime minister again, until 1955. by this time he was 80 and he knew it was time to go. He had a wonderful innings and had left his mark not only on politics and soldiering, but also inquite different fields. His authorship developed enormously. His memoirs of the Second World War, in six volumes, earned him the Nobel prize for literature. He had also been painting for many years, with vigour and a strong sense of colour, and he had been elected an honorary academician extraordinary by the Royal Academy.

Loaded with honours and revered throughout the world, Winston Churchill died at the grand age of 90, and was given a solemn state funeral; the funeral procession was led by the Queen.

Churchill as artist, historian, and writer :

Winston Churchill was an accomplished artist and took great pleasure in painting, especially after his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915. He found a haven in art to overcome the spells of depression, or as he termed it, the "Black Dog", which he suffered throughout his life.

CONCLUSION :

Churchill thought that democracy was worse but he accepted it gracefully as there was no alternative to democracy.

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY, IDEAS "PERICLES"

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY, IDEAS "PERICLES"
(490 - 429 BC )




INTRODUCTION :

Pericles "surrounded by glory"; 495 – 429 BC was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically influential Alcmaeonid family.

Early years :

Pericles was born in 495 BC, in the deme of Cholargos just north of Athens. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus, who, although ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command the Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. Pericles' mother, Agariste, a scion of the powerful and controversial noble family of the Alcmaeonidae, and her familial connections played a crucial role in starting Xanthippe' political career. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes, and the niece of the supreme Athenian reformer Cleisthenes, another Alcmaeonid. According to Herodotus and Plutarch, Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles' birth, that she had borne a lion. One interpretation of the anecdote treats the lion as a traditional symbol of greatness, but the story may also allude to the unusual size of Pericles' skull, which became a popular target of contemporary comedians after the Squill or Sea-Onion).

Leading Athens :

Ephialtes' murder in 461 BC paved the way for Pericles to consolidate his authority. Lacking any robust opposition after the expulsion of Cimon, the unchallengeable leader of the democratic party became the unchallengeable ruler of Athens. He remained in power almost uninterruptedly until his death in 429 BC.

DESCRIPTION :

Athenian statesman had been dominating the ancient city of Athens. In Greece, there is a splendid temple called the Parthenon. It stands on a hill called the Acropolis, a permanent memorial to the man who built it. He was Pericles, the greatest of all ancient Greek statesmen.

This much-loved man, reputedly handsome, kind, firm when necessary, courageous in battle and generous in victory, rose to power as leader of the popular party in Athens in about 460 BC. He had been elected a member of the board of commoners, which governed the state in those days. Very soon he established a reputation for high political skill, for total honesty. Nobody could, under any circumstances, bribe Pericles, Within two years he was the leading man in the government. Thus he remained for the next thirty years. Even his rivals admitted that Pericles was impartial, fair and incorruptible.

Pericles' rule was noted for its peaceful achievements. However to maintain peace, he had to wage war from time to time. The Greeks had of course been experimenting with variations of democratic government for a long time. Pericles tried to make it work still better. Elected members of the governing councils had to have their backgrounds examined to see if they were qualified to serve. All those dealing with public money were carefully watched, so that the temptation to steal or to 'fiddle' the accounts was cut down Pericles really believed that all men were good at heart, and only needed guidance.

At that time, Pericles was determined to make his age a splendid one. He adorned Athens with beautiful buildings like the Parthenon. He encouraged arts of all kinds and among his many friends were the sculptor Pheidias and the playwrights Aristophanes and Sophocles. He encouraged philosophers to speak their minds, however controversial they might want to be, like Socrates, whose troubles only began after Pericles death.

After the death of Pericles, misfortune fell upon the right thinking men, in particular, the philosophers who fought for the right causes of the people.

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE GREEK CITY-STATES

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE GREEK CITY-STATES

Five of the most powerful Greek city-states :
1. Athens
2. Megara
3. Sparta
4. Argos
5. Corinth

D E S C R I P T I O N :

That after the Greek dark ages, exciting things began to happen in the ancient Greece. The villages were started to band/closed/void together to form strong trading centers. These groups of villages that were banded together called city-states. Soon, hundreds of city-states had formed in ancient Greece.

CITIZEN OF A CITY-STATE:

The ancient Greeks referred to themselves as the citizens of their individual city-states. Each city-state had its own personality, goals, laws and customs. Ancient Greeks were very loyal to their city-state.

The city-states had many things in common. They all believed in the same gods. They all spoke the same language.

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY :


The Greeks apparently did not like big Kingdoms or empires. They liked little City-States. Each city was an independent State. They were little republics, with the city i the centre and some fields round about from which the food of the city came. A republic has no king. These Greek City-States had no kings, but were governed by the rich citizens with consent in any term. So, average man had their say in the government. There were many slaves who had no rights in the government, and women also had no rights but their basic rights wee upheld by some wise citizens. So only a part of the population of the City-States were citizens, and as such could vote on public questions of governance. It was not difficult for these citizens to vote, as all of them could be gathered together in one place, the state being small and Population being identifiable. This could only be done because it was a small City-State and not a great big country under one government. The state gradually being larger, difficulty had to be faced and a solution was found in what is called "representative government". This means that instead of all the voters of a country meeting together to decide on a question or any problem, they elect their " representatives" who meet together and consider public questions and common problems of the peoples and the voters helped the government of the country in the impersonal functioning of state.

Greece embraced all possibilities and devised ways and means to easily govern the peoples within the city-states. The Greeks spread out all over Greece. The concept of a bigger city state extended to Italy and Sicily and other coasts of the Mediterranean later on. They did not try to have an empire or one government for all these places under their control. The peoples however formed their separate manageable City States. with the passage of time, to reap the benefit of greater nature, the peoples and their government thought of establishing a little more big state within the concept of city state with wider areas. This was particularly for mutual benefits, more exchange of liberal views from sudden attacks by the ambitious neighboring powerful states.

Before Alexander, Greeks refused to join their little City States together to form a large State, kingdom or republic even when they were confronted with small skirmishes and fights amongst themselves.

Despite the differences, they had tendency to keep lings with City States together. They had a common language, a common culture and the same religion. They believed in having healthy and beautiful bodies, and for this purpose organized games and races. Theses games used to take place from time to time on a big scale at Olympia, in Greece, and people from all over Greece gathered together there.
So the Greek City States lived separately, meeting each other at their games and fighting each other frequently. When a great danger came from outside, however, they united to resist it. It was the Persian invasion which was resisted by City States being united for common cause of maintaining democracy.

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY, IDEAS OF 'ARISTOTLE'

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY, IDEAS OF 'ARISTOTLE

Greek Philosopher, Aristotle (322-284 B.C.)

Born on 384 BC, Stageria, Chalcidice,

Died on 322 BC (age 61 or 62 )

Region Western philosophy

DESCRIPTION :

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath. He is a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, such as physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Aristotle was one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.






PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY :

Aristotle's father was a doctor at the court of Philip II of Macedonia. when Aristotle was about 17 years old, he left home and set off for Athens, where he wanted to study philosophy under the great Plato. He stayed in Athens for twenty years, studied all manner of subjects including biology, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, also taught pupils. In 342 B.S. he was invited back to Macedonia to become tutor to young Alexander, Philip's son. Aristotle taught Alexander for about 5 years, and he inspired the young prince with his enthusiasm for wisdom and for the free expression of ideas and all democratic norms. In 336 B.S. Alexander became king and his tutor went back to Athens. There he opened his own school of philosophy. The students used to walk around under trees, discussing this or that philosophical argument, and this led them to become known as the Peripatetics, for peritateting means walking around, in Greek.

HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS :

Aristotle's basic thinking was about how to solve the problems that men actually came across in their lives. Plato, on the other hand, had been much more concerned with what man's life ought to be like. Thus Aristotle was like a modern scientist. He looked at facts and tried to work out new ideas from those facts. This gave rise to the science of logic, or rules of reasoning. Aristotle had a profound influence upon medieval writers and scholars, and he is still an important influence to-day. From his ideas, the norms of democracy had been spread over the world.

Derivation and process of democracy

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY
=Solon, founder of democracy=
(560-640 BC)

DESCRIPTION :- Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is worked particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.

In 594 B.C. he was elected chief Magistrate of Athens at a time when the conditions of the indigent were very bad. Up to then the rulers were the rich farmers and businessmen who were known as aristocracy means rule by the best. These aristocrats had their own thoughts and did all in their own way. They even made and unmade laws to suit their own interests. So their government was basically aimed at establishing a government to facilitate their own cause, love and luxury.

Solon was determined to do away with its. He put an end to the system by which a debtor who could not pay became the slave of the man to whom he owed money. He re-ordered the constitution of Athens by dividing the population into four classes, each having defined rights. The most important was that members of all four could be elected to the popular assembly, which meant that more people could have a real say in government the real beginning of democracy.

Literature :

1. A. Andrews, Greek Society, Penguin, 1967
2. J. Blok and A. Lardinois (eds), Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches, Leiden, Brill, 2006
3. Cary, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. III, Cambridge Uni. Press, 1925
4. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens, Princeton, 1971
5. W. Connor et al. Aspects of Athenian Democracy, Copenhagen, Museum Musculature P., 1990
6. R. Develin, Historic, Vol. 26, 1977
7. V. Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates: Greek History and Civilization, Routledge, 1973
8. J. Ellis and G. Stanton, Phoenix, Vol. 22, 1968, 95-99
9. G. Forrest, 'Greece: The History of the Archaic Period', in The Oxford History of the Classical World, ed. Board man J., Griffin J. and Murray O., Oxford Uni. Press, New York, 1995
10 .Frost, 'Tribal Politics and the Civic State', AJAH, 1976
11. P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge Uni. Press, 1988
12. J. Goldstein, Historic, Vol. 21, 1972
13. M. Grant, The Rise of the Greeks. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 19881
14. E. Harris, 'A New Solution to the Riddle of the Seisachtheia', in The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, eds. L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes, Routledge, 1997
15. C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C., Oxford, 1952
16. K. Hubbard, Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook of basic documents, Uni. California Press, 2003
17. H. Innis, Empire and Communications, Roman and Little field, 2007
18. G. Kirk, Historic, Vol. 26, 1977
19.D. Lewis, 'Cleisthenes and Attica', Historic, 12, 1963
20. M. Miller, Arethusa, Vol. 4, 1971
21. I. Morris, The Growth of City States in the First Millennium BC, Stanford, 2005
22. C. Mosse, 'Comment s'elabore un mythe politique: Solon', Annalise, ESC XXXIV, 1979
23. M. Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of the Law: Law, Society and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens, Berkeley, 1986
24. P. Rhodes, A History of the Greek City States, Berkeley, 1976
25. P. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenian Politic, Oxford Uni. Press, 1981
26. K. Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece, Oxford Uni. Press, 1994
27. B. Sealey, 'Regionalism in Archaic Athens', Historic, 9, 1960
28. G. R. Stanton, Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Source book, London, Routledge, 1990
29. M. L. West (ed.), Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati2: Callinus. Mimnermus. Semonides. Solon. Tyrtaeus. Minora adespotra, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, revised edition, 1992
30. W. Woodhouse, 'Solon the Liberator: A Study of the Agrarian Problem', in Attika in the Seventh Century, Oxford, 1938