What will be dominating in the 21st century needs the analysis of 20th century. The 20th century has been the century of democracy throughout the world. Let us analyze why it happened. 

During WWII, the super powers of the world thought towards making money out of the technology developed and used during the war. That was the main reason of developing a democratic society throughout the globe so that common man is mobilized to purchase as per his wish. That was primarily protected by human rights. Suppose it was not the democracy, then the ruling emperor could have imposed that you buy this but not that. The philosophy worked well and we all enjoyed all type of technology and its comfort during all these 60- 70 years.

Slowly people became educated and started thinking cleverly. By putting logics they understood the secret art of making fool and indirectly slave. This is triggered by the recent chaos and conflicts between global superpowers. Whether it is due to Wiki leaks or Snowden or due to Syria refugee crisis or through Crimea, but the truth is that after the formation of United Nations (UN), the word had almost balanced power for last 50-60 years which is an example of people’s belief in the United Nations. But more recently, the role of UN has been very marginal e.g. in Russia crisis, during sanctions on India and implementation of Kyoto protocol.

Through this background, a new world is emerging that is the word of ‘Returning Dictatorship’ throughout the globe. Until and unless the drastic reforms are made in UN system, the situation is not going to be improved. Most of the blame goes to the responsible nations because of their hypocrisy in the case of human right protection and climate change commitments.

Hence, the big question of the 21^st century will be `how to save democratic regimes around the globe’. No one can deny that with the growing refugee crisis, Europe is going to miss its developmental targets and will be forced to reorient from technology to social engineering. This will finally trigger more ambitious economic targets which cannot be achieved through democratic ways due to various humanitarian complexities as seen in the case of India. In order to maintain the same living standard for the additional population, the states will be pressurized drastically.

The fact is that the richer states cannot go along with the poorer states of the union, such conditions will trigger split of EU and more crisis in the Middle East. This means more wars and sale of weapons throughout the globe. This will further trigger a crisis of resources such as energy food and water. Though such problems will be of local and regional in nature but will be responsible for a civil war.

Powers which are against India will be united and will blackmail for essential imports. The growing population will cry against the ruler but will be suppressed by demolishing the democratic structure of the country. Again the principle of caste and creeds will be used to rule the public. Once again, underdeveloped will remain deprived of democracy and the opportunities of open sky breathing.

The present deteriorating education and political systems, large scale generation of unemployed youth with super ambitions will rampage the traditional values and ethics. The youth will believe in virtual society having short interactions limited to the parents. This is what big business houses want because such society can be controlled from remote regions. Similarly, governments will be controlled through remotes. Unlike in democracy where a common man can play a key role, in coming decades, active businessmen/groups will be the governments in different countries which will assist in the business of globally central houses who have the remote of different business sectors.

Very few people pay attention that data collected for any reason when shared with global stakeholders, it can be misused by any of the users or mischievous elements. For example- Aadhar card information is very sensitive. It has everything in it which can be used for controlling the population movements, business patterns, economy changes, future planning, consumption patterns etc.

Hopefully, there will be place in UN for India which could help for maintaining the balanced situation for a brief period. By any chance, UN loses its power and role, world will face WWIII which may be a nuclear war. Ultimately, due to selfish nature of the business and the race worldwide, the 21^st century will observe the death of democratic regimes or the free world. Due to global disorder, people will be searching another planet for survival and peace. My guess is that such symptoms of dying democracy will be on its peak in the second half of the 21^st century.

The article is part of the SFG publication “Big Questions of Our time: The World Speaks”. To access the full publication please click here.