Democracy: India’s aisle to Nazism

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned? (Lines from Blowin’ in the wind by Bob Dylan)

What procedure should a nation follow,

Before you call it democratic?

The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Why do these phrases conjure images of modern-day India? Could it be that even if I’m on familiar ground, the area around me seems foreign? I frequently hear that India is a democracy, yet in democracies, it is criminals who are imprisoned, not civilians who have done nothing wrong but disagree with the indomitable force. We don’t know how many of these have been imprisoned. s India a democracy now?

Strong disagreements between the opposition and the administration have occurred both inside and outside of parliament in each of the decades since the country gained independence in 1947. Loud and unequivocal criticism of a government action or policy did not result in anyone being incarcerated. The world looked up to India’s vibrant democracy as an inspiration for other Asian nations. Why isn’t the current India itself following this example? Father Stan Swamy, a Catholic priest, was one prominent victim. He was subsequently liberated, but died shortly after. We are unsure of the number of unidentified political prisoners who may have met a similar end. Does this sound like the government is attempting to weaken the opposition?

Our immediate environment has changed. Today, different values rule and call for our devotion. The new precept, today, is hate. It is acceptable to carry out retribution. Violence is now viewed as a normal part of life. Lynch mobs thrive and are unchecked. Participation of the populace in the daily operations of the government is at the heart of democracy. Democracy is not just about elections. Due to enormous populations, elections are required when the people must control the state through elected officials. But even in the absence of their elected representatives, the people always retain the right to take action.

India lost its status as an electoral democracy in 2019, according to V-Dem, a Swedish organisation that researches democracy. Instead, it evolved into a “electoral autocrat,” a classification it shares with Hungary, Mali, and Kenya. In February, the Washington Post editorial board questioned “whether a country that brags of being the world’s largest democracy really merits that label in the wake of the sedition accusations brought against a 22-year-old environmental activist. These evaluations are ultimately subjective; therefore, reasonable individuals can disagree with them. Does it sound right for Freedom House to cite the Covid lockdown in India from the previous year as an indicator of democratic regress? This policy was implemented to protect public health. Isn’t it true that in the past, governments that weren’t affiliated with the BJP hounded critics and tried to intimidate journalists? Don’t state administrations, particularly those governed by the opposition, like those in West Bengal, frequently behave in a similar manner? Would Rahul Gandhi have been comfortable drawing such absurd parallels if India were genuinely a dictatorial regime like Saddam’s Iraq or Gadhafi’s Libya?

Teesta Satalvad’s arrest for making derogatory comments highlights the media’s intentional forgetfulness of the Gujarat Pogrom. “At the end of the day, it appears to us that the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat collaborated with others in an effort to stir up controversy by making discoveries that, to their knowledge, were bogus. Their accusations had been thoroughly debunked by the SIT following a careful examination. It’s intriguing that the current processes have been going on for the past 16 years, including the chutzpah to call into question the honesty of every official involved in revealing the sneaky tactic used, plainly to keep the fires burning for a later purpose.

The remission to the convicts of 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case is a travesty of justice and points the authoritarianism of the government. The court stated that the “new normal” shouldn’t include “barbaric acts of mobocracy.” The State was cautioned by the Supreme Court not to “turn a deaf ear to the burgeoning scuttlebutt of its people. The remission is incredibly erroneous, arbitrary, and capricious considering that the Mumbai court that found the defendants guilty expressed an opinion opposing their hasty release.

A citizen must at the very least possess fundamental human rights in order to participate in governance, including the right to live in safety and security, the right to an adequate standard of living and employment, the right to free and adequate education, the right to free and adequate health care, and the right to a clean and sanitary environment. It is quixotic to expect the current capitalist economic system to guarantee these fundamental human rights to every citizen. Under capitalism, a limited fraction of business people operates the industries and companies for their personal financial gain rather than the good of the general populace.

Social and economic equality, or at least the least feasible inequality, is a requirement for a democracy. Such equality is not possible under the capitalist economic system. As a result, there is absolutely no democracy in any democracy with a capitalist economic system. We have plutocracy of the few instead. A democratic government does not exist merely to uphold the law and collect taxes. Police and revenue officials are capable of doing that. There is no need for elected officials in this.

Can it really be said that democracy as it is practiced in modern India differs from democracy as it is practiced in other parts of the world? But what use is asking when the solution is blowin’ in the wind?