Q: What is democracy?
A: Democracy is a political system in which the people choose their rulers.
A person can choose who his/her ruler should be only if he/she has a certain minimum level of knowledge/awareness. That is, if he/she has a certain minimum level of education.
In the Agricultural Age, education was only for the elite. The masses were uneducated (because they were farm labourers).
The Industrial Revolution changed all that. Factories needed literate workers. So the Industrial Age saw the birth of mass education (or universal education).
With an educated population, the condition for democracy was satisfied. Thus democracy was born.
Thus, a literate/educated population is a pre-requisite for democracy. In fact, it is an educated population that is the fundamental feature of democracy – not elections.
Universal education and democracy go together. They are two sides of the same coin.
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