(a)OR(b)

Democracy is a better form of govt. than dictatorship. Analyse.

(i) In democracy people have right to choose their rulers and have control over rulers whereas in dictatorship people cannot exercise this right.

(ii) There are regular free and fair elections, open public debates on major policies in democracy whereas in dictatorship people don’t get these rights.

(iii)Citizens’ right to information about government and its functioning ensures accountability of government whereas this accountability is missing in dictatorship.

(iii) In democracy decision making is based on the idea of deliberation and negotiations whereas in dictatorship, rulers do not bother about public opinion.

(iv)Democratic governments attend to the needs of people as they want to be elected again. In dictatorship, rulers don’t have to bother about elections.

(v)Democratic governments follow norms and procedures. Citizens have rights and means to examine the process of decision making. This feature is missing in dictatorship.

(vi)Democratic governments accommodate various social divisions.

(vii)Equal political rights, freedom of speech and expression enhance dignity of citizens and transform them from the status of subject into that of a citizens.

(b) Democracy accommodates social diversities. Analyse. Democracy can better accommodate various social divisions

(i) Accommodation of social diversity in democracy helps the citizens to lead a peaceful and harmonious life. For example, Belgium successfully negotiated differences among ethnic populations.

(ii) Democracies usually develop a procedure to accommodate competition amongst various social groups.

(iii) Democracies are better able to evolve mechanism to handle and negotiate the social differences, divisions and conflicts.

(iv) Majority works with minority so that governments function to represent general view. majority community in terms of religion, race or language etc.

(vi) Every citizen gets a chance of being in majority at some point of time.