The waning throb of democracy

 To commemorate the nation’s 75 years of independence, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled a lever last month while standing atop the almost finished new Parliament building. The structure’s statue at its top was revealed when a long crimson curtain pulled aside. India as a whole gasped. The cherished national emblem of India is depicted in the 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture, which has four lions looking outward while seated with their backs to one another. The critters are typically shown as majestic and controlled, however some appeared otherwise: They appeared furious and hostile as their teeth were shown. The redesigned picture above the Parliament building, which was rushed through without discussion or public input, is seen by Mr. Modi’s detractors as a reflection of the snarling “New India” he is constructing.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government of Mr. Modi has trampled on Indian democracy during his eight years in office by promoting an intolerable Hindu supremacist majoritarianism over the ideals of secularism, pluralism, religious tolerance, and equal citizenship that were the cornerstones of the nation’s founding after it gained independence on August 15, 1947. The administration, which has drawn analogies to Nazi Germany, intimidates opponents by using co-opted government apparatus, false information, and partisan mobs while demeaning the significant Muslim minority and stoking social unrest. Human rights are often infringed.

The greatest democracy in the world, India, is where the confrontation between liberalism and authoritarianism is now losing. But Western democracies like the US choose to woo Mr. Modi rather than criticize him in order to keep access to India’s sizable market and to benefit from the country’s usefulness as a geopolitical buffer against China. Even while Mr. Modi has hastened India’s slide toward despotism, it would be wrong to hold him solely responsible. Weak government institutions and social inequality, issues that have existed in India from its inception, have weakened its democracy and created an environment that is conducive to the emergence of Hindu supremacist politics.

Although it established a progressive constitution, it nevertheless kept the highly centralised administrative systems from British colonial times, which gave elected state and national presidents almost total power over institutions like the police and other law-enforcement organisations. This gives chosen state and national authorities the freedom to stifle opposition without consequence when coupled with strict security and sedition legislation. Although Mr. Modi’s party has accelerated these repressive instruments, it is certainly not the first to turn them into weapons. Since most political parties are dynastic and personality-driven, arbitrary authority is firmly established in India, a peculiar democracy where political parties are not democratic in and of itself and do not have internal elections.

Money has taken centre stage in politics, along with frequently shady connections. Politicians may be bought and sold. Many are ill-equipped to pass legislation, instead approving the directives of a chief executive who frequently serves distant special interests, such as the agricultural rules that sparked peasant protests till they were overturned last year. However, a more fundamental and lengthy barrier to the growth of a strong, durable democracy has been India’s historical inability to safeguard the welfare of its most vulnerable residents. Despite the fact that Indian millionaires are climbing the world wealth rankings, scores of thousands of children succumb to hunger every year, and more than a third have stunted growth.

This majoritarianism is already reflected in the makeup of Parliament. With 200 million people, India has the third-largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan), making up around 15% of the country’s total population.   But only 5% of the seats in Parliament are held by Muslims. In India’s 75-year existence, the B.J.P. is the only ruling party without even a single Muslim parliamentary member. A senior B.J.P. official referred to Muslim refugees from Bangladesh as termites that were consuming the nation’s resources. Hindu radicals are now publicly threatening to kill and rape Muslims, emboldened by governmental assistance, while the government detains journalists who expose hate crimes. On August 15, the authorities freed 11 prisoners serving life sentences for the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, which took place under Modi’s leadership and resulted in the gang-rape and murder of 14 members of a Muslim woman’s family.

Weak institutions have limited ability to fight back. There is a 40 million case backlog in the ineffective judicial system, which creates public contempt for the rule of law. The higher court, once renowned for its radicalism and independence, now largely cooperates with the administration, and SC judges adore Mr. Modi. The Indian press, which previously had a crucial role in defending democracy, is under pressure to support his government. India’s democracy is too frail at 75, after eons of institutional abuse, to withstand a warlord taking a shovel to its frail foundations. The Parliament building is referred to by Mr. Modi as a temple of democracy. However, the institution’s new New Delhi location serves as a memorial to the demi-democracy he is establishing.