GUWAHATI, May 28 - The fundamental rights guarantee certain basic facilities and rights to all the citizens of the country, together with the Directive Principles of State Policy as enshrined in the Constitution of India, endowed the Indian democracy with rare majesty and greatness compared even to the older democracies of England and America.
This was observed by noted journalist Haidar Hussain while delivering the 18th Padma Lochan Bhuyan memorial lecture at Madhabdev Bhawan of Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra recently.
Giving a genesis of democracy in the world, Hussain said that it was to the credit of the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution in particular and great leaders like Gandhi and Pandit Nehru, who were at the forefront of the freedom movement, that Indian people could get a Constitution containing the best elements of all the older democracies of the world.
Hussain added that barring some minor aberrations, Indian democracy had been consistently unfurling its glory, securing rights to the weakest and preventing even the most powerful to acquire dictatorial powers.
Hussain said that the very fact that a country with six major religions and over two hundred languages and dialects was knit together as a composite and vibrant nation could itself be described as the monumental achievement of Indian democracy.
The memorial lecture organised under the auspices of the PL Bhuyan Memorial Trust of the Brihattar Panjabari Sahitya Sabha (BPSS) was presided over by Nagen Bhuyan, president, BPSS.
Mafizuddin Rahman, secretary, BPSS, in his report, dwelt on the steps taken by the Sabha for perpetuating the memory of Bhuyan, a founder member of the Sabha and a competent bureaucrat and ideal social worker.
Senior journalist DN Chakravartty, while addressing the function, said that although the British and American democracies were older than India�s, yet the achievements of Indian democracy during the last 69 years superseded many of the chapters of American and British democracies in terms of qualitative changes in the lives of the people.
