Democracy Is The Best Form Of Government [For] - Debate Topic for Students

 

Why Democracy Is The Best Form Of Government

"Democracy is the destiny of humanity; freedom its indestructible arm."

-Benito Juarez

I am of the firm belief that democracy is the best form of government available to us right now. Why? Let's start with the basics.

Firstly, democracy allows us to exercise various freedoms, such as freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to criticise one's own government. Democracy is the government of the people, this is perhaps its biggest and most widely known virtue. Allowing everyone to participate in the decision-making process, at least in theory.

Democracies tend to produce stronger systems of checks and balances, independent media, and rule of law than other governance systems. And these institutions yield the consistently positive results seen in democracies.

Mulligan, Gil, and Sala-i-Martin (2004) find that countries that are more democratic are less likely to execute, regulate religion, or censor the press.

Gallego (2010) presents evidence that democracy has indeed had a causal effect on primary-school enrollment.

 Baum and Lake (2001) find that democratization increased secondary-school enrollment. Also, Acemoglu, Naidu, Restrepo, and Robinson (2015) find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling.

Few autocratic countries enjoy child mortality rates under 10 per 1,000. In contrast, democracies often enjoy child mortality rates below 10 or even 5 per 1,000.

Here we have considered only child mortality, but a broader analysis of countries’ health outcomes would also show that more generally, good health is linked with political freedom. My source is the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

A review of the economic growth performances of all developing countries since 1960 finds democracies have, on average, attained rates of per capita GDP growth equivalent to their autocratic counterparts. This holds for each decade as well as in aggregate. There is no empirical evidence of an authoritarian growth advantage.

On nearly every social welfare measure available, democracies exhibit development outcomes that are 15-40% superior to that of autocracies, controlling for income.

Democratic countries tend to be wealthier and have a better distribution of wealth throughout the population.

Everything considered what truly helps democracy be the best form of government is the satisfaction of the people with it.

Over the twenty-eight countries examined happiness levels in democracies stayed robust, even when variables like religion, language, and of course, income, were controlled (Dorn, Fischer, et. al 2007). Incidentally, these particular findings are also supported by (Frey and Stutzer 2000), that household income to have a minimal effect on happiness, in contrast to the effect of direct democracy. 

Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." And I have to agree, democracy has many flaws and problems but it is still the best form of government compared to all others that have been tried over and over again.

Difficult conversations - The Red Lotus

 

Taboo and superstitious practices surrounding menstruation exist in India, that is a fact well known. But what I would have never guessed was that it was prevalent even in my community, a privileged and highly educated community! Back when The Red Lotus had just started, I was talking with a friend, who I will refer to as Priya (a pseudonym) here for the sake of her privacy, about how being a menstruator in rural parts of India can be very difficult, to which she replied that even she had had experiences with superstitious menstrual practices. I was quite shocked, I asked her if I could post a blog about this and agreed. So here is a short excerpt of my talk with Priya.
“I remember when I got my first period. My mom had asked me to stay in my room. I then thought that maybe she was just being considerate because I didn’t take her to be someone to put restrictions on me just because I was on my period. Ever since then, every time I’m on my period my mom asks me to limit my room and not to touch other family members’ things. I’m told to take a head bath before I do anything else on all days of my period. She also doesn’t like it when I enter the kitchen to help her out a little. This came to me as a surprise because even though I’ve heard stories of menstrual taboos being propagated, I never thought my family members would subject me to it. Especially when they are very open-minded otherwise. This put into perspective how normalised menstrual stigma is.”
“When I told them about me wanting to work with The Red Lotus, they were hesitant at first. They didn’t like the idea of me talking so openly about menstruation and the stigma surrounding it. It was a very difficult conversation to have but one that was the need of the hour. Why is it that the menstrual taboo is so rooted in our traditions?”
I have no answer for her question, but I do hope that Priya’s experience encourages other menstruators to have that much needed difficult conversation.

मैं Packets by The Red Lotus

 At my local sanitation plant, the workers are provided with a piece of functioning machinery for the proper disposal of sanitary napkins in an eco-friendly manner. Yet the machine sits in a little corner and collects dust, why is this so?

The disposal of sanitary pads is especially difficult, the addition of blood, used disposables become dangerous for a city corporation. They cannot be humanly handled by garbage collectors as they contain a cocktail of materials including cotton, a super-absorbent polymer, and a whole lot of plastic.

This is where the sanitary napkin destroyers come into play. The destroyer burns the sanitary napkins and reduces them into micro ash, which is collected in the inbuilt ash-tray. There is also an emission outlet at the top of the incinerator for pushing out the fumes developed during the incineration. These machines produce significantly lesser fumes and emissions than the average incinerator.

The machinery requires a certain quantity of pads as input to be operated safely. Unfortunately due to the unwillingness of menstruators in the residential area to segregate their waste and to properly wrap their pads/tampons in a newspaper, there aren’t enough pads to work the machine. If the workers wish to operate the machine they will need a significant amount of sanitary napkins, for which they’d need to segregate the waste by hand. This is incredibly unhygienic and poses a threat to the workers’ health.

Now, how do we plan to solve this problem?

The Red Lotus distributes sanitary napkin disposal packets called मैं packets, which are made of recycled newspaper. Currently, we’re producing it on a small scale, packets are handmade by sanitation workers. We also wanted to incorporate an element into these packets that would add to the normalization of periods. Therefore as mentioned before, we named these packets मैं packets. मैं means me in Hindi, symbolising the concept of individuality that comes about by accepting our menstrual cycles for what they are. Depending on the region, we change the label to say ‘’me’’ according to the local language. So in drives in Kochi, we wrote ഞാന്’, મને in Gujarat, and so on according to the region. However, to ensure that sanitation workers know that these packets contain pads at every level of the disposal process we are changing the label to make it more apparent that the packets contain menstrual waste. These packets are also biodegradable, so they can easily be disposed of using a biomedical incinerator, which is really the best way to dispose of pads and tampons. 

We want to provide a solution that is easy and efficient so that every menstruator is able to partake in this practice. We want these envelopes to become ubiquitous, and the only way one disposes of their menstrual waste.

Ishita Desai,
Founder
The Red Lotus