Democracy & Education.

Ever since the colonization of the lands and the spread of Western concepts and ideologies in the world, thinkers seemed to have preoccupied in exploring and analyzing the alien ideologies.

History bears witness to the fact that during the period of absolute monarchies in the West, people badly required some ideology to fight against the absolute monarchs. They found in democracy a good weapon for them to fight against absolute monarchs and form their own government based on the consent of the people. They were quite successful in their attempt since absolute monarchies slowly transformed into constitutional monarchies and then into representative democracies

Democracy in the West being originated from the economic regeneration of European societies is secular and materialistic by its very nature. It mainly caters to the material life of a society leaving the spiritual aspect altogether. Consequently, democracy in the West tends to move away from moral and ethical values. This secularist and materialistic orientation of Western democracy is totally rejected by many people.
In such state of affairs, can democracies work for the good and the wider interest of the people, if the rulers in democracies follow Machiavellian doctrine-ends justify the means? Does not it mean that in such conditions, democracy would turn into a government of the bad people, by the bad people for the good and bad people? It implies that there is a great risk of democracy degenerating into what we prefer to call as ‘democracy,’ rule of the demons. As monarchy may degenerate into “tyranny” if a monarch becomes a tyrant, so also democracy may degenerate into “democracy” if the people who are in power turn out to be the demons. Hence, the most important factor for a good government seems to be the supremacy of good over bad and this is possible if those who are in power are good and aim at the establishment of good.
One of the solutions to the above discussed problem is good “leadership” for a good government lies in good education. Such an education should be provided in the state that can produce good rulers so that they can make good laws representing “good will” not the “bad will”. Obviously, such an education should not be God-secluded, rather God-centred. Nothing much can be expected from state-controlled secular education that is imparted to the young generation in secular democracies. Education which is devoid of God cannot bring forth God-loving and God-fearing leaders who can strive to give God a central place in laws, politics and society.