Desperately seeking democracy: Pramila Aggarwal has been searching for the real thing since her youth in India and then her arrival in Canada

New Internationalist, June, 2000 by Pramila Aggarwal

I feel I can say something about democracy, having been born and raised in the world's largest democracy -- a Socialist Republic, no less. As a child, along with the other neighbourhood children, I would hang around and sometimes harass political candidates who came seeking votes. We had lyrics, which we sang to the melody of popular film songs, where we challenged their party loyalty and false promises. All I got was trouble -- trouble from my mother. She was stuck with darning the holes made by the political buttons I wore.

Elections were a special time, more like a picnic -- a celebration, I reckon, of democracy! The buses would hum not just with the usual bad engine noise but with animated discussion and argument. Who to vote for and why? My father would have these long and tedious arguments with my mother or with his friends over the phone. I often remember hearing: `They are all a bunch of crooks. Congress or Janata. Where is this country going? They will sell even their mother, let alone their country, for a chance to accumulate power and wealth.' But they all went to line up and cast their votes, even my grandmother. They firmly believed in the hard-won freedom of their country and the right to participate in a democracy. It was their duty to honour the long struggle which now allowed them to choose their own government.

Several decades later I got another lesson in democracy. From the airport to my home, the taxi driver presented a clear distinction between the two major contenders for power. He said: `The difference between Congress and BJP is that when BJP is in power only their relatives benefit, but when Congress is in power both their relatives and friends get a part of the loot. I vote for Congress, not because I am a Muslim but because they spread the money around more than the BJP.'

What do I make of democracy? How does it affect my everyday life, as a girl/woman in India? Is it any different in Canada?

I would like to submit that, other than at election time, my life as a girl was more directly governed by patriarchy than by democracy. We had formal political democracy but none of it found its way into our everyday lives. The attitudes of our elected political representatives and bureaucrats remain steeped not only in patriarchal values but are liberally spiced with values of the dominant caste, class, region, language and religion. Until recently, a woman had to have her husband's or parents' permission to get an abortion at government-run hospitals, in a country where abortion is legal. There is no law against divorce either. But the stigma is so great that a woman is forced to suffer violence rather than leave.

As far as I could see and experience, the advent of democracy did very little to enhance the everyday lives of most women, including mine. We remained untouched by equality, dignity or freedom, all the things which I believed democracy would bring. Whether in a public space such as travelling by mass transport or in the private domain of family, neighbourhood and community -- democracy was absent. Women could not travel without being harassed by men; they had to bow to the wishes and demands of family and community at every step. All this made me question the paper democracy we had. As I grew older it became apparent that democracy for women cannot coexist with patriarchy. And patriarchy had a much stronger hold over my society than did democracy.

For me, however, it was not the lack of democracy but the stifling heat of patriarchy which I rescued myself from. I came to Canada, to a Dominion state from a former colony -- both a part of the Commonwealth -- from Common India to Wealthy Canada. I came alone on a one-way ticket, on a Continuous Passage from India to Toronto. I had no friends, contacts or relatives. I made my home in a university residence. I had come prepared for student life with no expectations of building a career. I was just parking, in a high-priced lot, till the meter ran out.

The first year I felt I was in the land of `white' magic. I was stunned by the smoothness of the roads, the newness of the cars, the sheer number of titles in the library, the working elevators and coffee-dispensing machines. In my mind, democracy became synonymous with prosperity. Even on a student budget I could buy an enormous carton of ice cream. If democracy was defined by how much ice cream one could buy, and how much hydropower and newsprint a country used, Canada would certainly rank amongst the top.

However, more important to me was the freedom and personal safety that I felt as a woman. I felt normal, neither gendered nor endangered; I was no longer the `unwelcome' second daughter, dark to boot, hence a bigger liability for her parents. My parents and I have not heard the last of how nice it would have been if I had been born a son! I guess I did try to resist and sabotage the expectations of my community in ad hoc and ineffectual ways: like staying out in the sun to get darker and developing a friendship with a boy from another religion before a Suitable Boy was arranged for me. This at least got me out of the arranged marriage and dowry routine.