The paradox of Indian democracy is that enlightened middle class has shown indifferent attitude towards electoral process. In the era of globalization, he is so deeply involved to fulfill his unending quench for attaining material pleasure that he fails to realize his larger national responsibility. This raises the question that when the most educated and enlightened group will fail to fulfill their national obligation then how can we expect our political system to improve automatically.
In western democracy, highly educated and successful groups not only take part in electoral process but also put pressure on government through various pressure groups and also by forming civil society groups on a large scale, whereas in India, people belonging to middle and upper class maintain indifferent attitude and people belonging to lower social, economic, educational background register their participation in large number. For the success of democracy, the participation of have and have not is equally required.
If we analyze the prevailing trend in Indian democracy, we find that on the one hand electoral process has raised the level of political awareness and on the other hand it has also increased the misuse of electoral process by political parties for their narrow ends. Winning election has become the sole criteria for political parties. In order to win election, political parties compromise with values, ethics and morality which used to be associated with it. It has further consolidated primordial values. In this process, they fail to realize that they have larger national responsibility as well. The kind of tactics applied by political parties for winning election has promoted casteism, communalism, regionalism, sectarianism and above all use of money, muscle power and criminalization of politics.