KING, QUEEN AND THEIR PARROTS

Once upon a time there was a great king Vikramaditya. There are several stories associated with Vikramaditya and Vetaal. Vetaal is a corpse hanging on a tree. At the behest of an ascetic, Vikramaditya picked and carried Vetaal from the tree. On the way, Vetaal told him a story and asked the king a question regarding the story. When Vikram answered, Vetaal went back to his tree. This repeated several times.

No, we are not going to talk about all the stories. We are interested in one story, though. The story is about a king, a queen and their parrots.

The king had his male parrot and queen had her female parrot. These parrots were always fighting with each other. The male parrot would tell stories favoring the males and always would talk ill of the females. The female parrot also always talked ill of males and in favor of females. The fight always continued on these lines.

Why am I interested in this story? Actually, it was ‘Shish’ who told me to look up this story. We were having one of our long arguments about democracy. Now, ‘Shish’ is coming out with the idea and there is nothing that you can call pure democracy which can be practiced.

N: These are strong words, Shish…. You must have a strong reason and why pure?

Sh: Look, there are several definitions for democracy. Wikipedia says democracy is "a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity ... are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly"

Another definition is, “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.”

Yet another one from Google is democracy is “control of an organization or group by the majority of its members”

N: So?

Sh: Take the first definition. First of all, all the people are not involved in making decisions even if it is through elected representatives. And generally when many representatives are involved, the chances of decisions are less. According to a management expert, the chance of coming to any decision is inversely proportional to the number of people involved.

N: And the second definition?

Sh: That is more difficult. It says eligible members. So, we will have to define the eligibility criteria. Age? Minimum Education? Ladies or gentlemen? And many others we can invent? 

It is so complicated.

N: as I look at it, it is the third that is more in practice everywhere, I think. Why can’t we have that?

Sh: You are making me laugh. How can it be democracy when control is by a few who by chance became majority? I had earlier mentioned once that they are, by no means, a clear majority. Even if it is, it becomes only a majority autocracy. If the majority takes a decision, that will become the law. And the majority leader’s words and opinions will be repeated by everyone who is their followers.  Same is the case with each of the involved parties. The followers will keep repeating what their leaders are telling. This is not a recent phenomenon. It is from time immemorial.  Look at the story of the king, queen and their parrots from Vikramaditya and Vetaal stories.

And that is what prompted me to look at Vikram and Vetaal stories.