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• A democratic decision involves consultation with and consent of all those who are affected by that decision. Those who are not powerful have the same say in taking the decision as those who are powerful. This can apply to a government or a family or any other organisation. Thus democracy is also a principle that can be applied to any sphere of life.
• The most common form of democracy in today’s world is rule through people’s elected representatives. We shall read more about that in Chapter 3. But if the community is small, there can be other ways of taking democratic decisions. All the people can sit together and take decisions directly. This is how Gram Sabha should work in a village.
• No country is a perfect democracy
• The features of democracy discussed in this chapter provide only the minimum conditions of a democracy
• That does not make it an ideal democracy
• Every democracy has to try to realise the ideals of a democratic decision-making
• This cannot be achieved once and for all
• This requires a constant effort to save and strengthen democratic forms of decision-making
• What we do as citizens can make a difference to making our country more or less democratic
• This is the strength and the weakness of democracy: the fate of the country depends not just on what the rulers do, but mainly on what we, as citizens, do
• What distinguishes democracy from other governments

  Other forms of government like monarchy, dictatorship or one-party rule do not require all citizens to take part in politics
• Most non-democratic governments would like citizens not to take part in politics
• Democracy depends on active political participation by all the citizens
• That is why a study of democracy must focus on democratic politics