If one consciously decides to live in a democracy, ply one’s trade in a democracy and die in a democracy, they should learn to value and subsequently embrace the significance of numbers. In other words, the big group directs the small group.

The latter should allow the majority, not only to administer, but also lay the course, which should be taken by those fewer in numbers.

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By doing so they would have saved several lives…

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That’s because the majority are not a lab invention, but a group elected through ballots, which are secret. They have proved their worth to monitor and fashion developments. 

I wish people in an Indian district had remembered that. By doing so they would have saved several lives, which are always precious, because they can’t be replaced and indispensable to the world’s survival.

When the bona fide representatives of an elected dispensation removed a building last week because they felt it was wrongfully constructed, the residents of the district should have accepted the decision instead of resorting to mindless rioting.

Five people were killed in the district and dozens more injured after clashes over the removal, officials said. Police said protesters had torched a police station and vandalised police vehicles. Authorities in the north Indian district suspended Internet services, closed schools, imposed a curfew and banned large gatherings after the violence broke out.

If we talk to the people who decided to target the police personnel and their vehicles, they will probably repeat for the millionth time, ‘We shouldn’t take things lying down.’ But it isn’t lying down, it is strategic positioning because their numbers don’t earn them the authority to direct the majority. 

One shouldn’t fall for dangerous pieces of sophistry like ‘don’t take things lying down.’ It can prove ruinous. The sophist will push you further into trouble by throwing up phrases like ‘brute majority.’

One’s main fear is that there could be a backlash now, which will perhaps take away more innocent lives and destroy more properties of people who sadly had nothing to do with the removal.

If one has decided to live by choice in a democracy, one has no option, but to honour those who have come to power not through might, but vote. If they want things to change they should work hard on increasing their number, the soul of democracy.