Sometime back in the Rajya Sabha, a
MP from AAP raised the issue of a Swedish think tank downgrading the status of
Indian democracy. The Vice President who was in the Chair was contemptuous and
did not allow any further comments or references to the topic. Now that the
V-Dem has released its report calling India an ‘elected autocracy’ for whatever
that means. A couple of weeks back, Freedom House a think tank funded by the US
government downgraded Indian democracy from free to ‘partly free’. The discussions
over these reports seem to be expected lines and have provided enough fodder to
all suiting their political preferences.
To the critics, the report seem to reinforce their perception that Modi
is a dictator for whatever that means to them. To the supporters, it is the colored
perception of the West that refuses to recognizes the ground realities in
India.
India is free and well flourishing democracy.
The elections have been held at regular intervals. The governments have changed
based on election results. There has hardly been an instance of a government
digging heels and refusing to hand power to the successor regime. The only
instance of India killing democracy was in 1975 when Indira Gandhi refused to
resign following the adverse High Court judgment and instead imposed Emergency.
It is a different matter that pressure worked to conduct elections albeit a
year late and the electorate did resoundingly to defeat her. Currently, there
is no such indication that India is moving towards authoritarian regime. PM
Modi is a democrat by all accounts something vindicated by the numerous media
articles and television shows disparaging him. There is no shortage of
television commentary or media commentary or even comments on the internet that
are critical and sometimes outright contemptuous of Modi. In fact, if there is
an attack on the opponents, it is in the states like West Bengal where
opposition activists are routinely harassed or in Maharashtra where anyone
going against the government are arrested. Incidentally both these states are
ruled by opposition parties and get a free pass by the media and liberal commentariat.
Therefore, it would appear puzzling
why as to the Western think tanks believe India is not a democracy or rather
moving away from it. It has to do with perception. For decades, the West has
been used to dealing with an ecosystem generally dominated by the acolytes of the
Nehru-Gandhi family. They have developed a comfort level. The new establishment
is dismantling the Omerta code that have existed for long. India is no longer a
country that seemed to be bounded by the moral trap. As a barrier of entry or
otherwise, the Western world has sought to categorize the Indian normative policy
to be framed in the contours of moralism based on alleged non-violent freedom
struggle. The perception has been reinforced over the last seventy five years
or so. The politics that has been practiced by the Nehru-Gandhi family adds to
this. The Modi government has broken this long standing consensus. Whether it
was in Kashmir or Pakistan, they have adopted new approaches not in sync with
the Western perception about the Indian policy framework.
The reports of the think tanks have
their genesis in the Indian internal politics. To the Indian critics of Modi,
there is very little they can do to stop his juggernaut. Despite widespread
talk about his vulnerability in 2019, Modi not only retained power but
increased both his seat share as also the vote share. On the other hand, the Congress
is looking directionless and seemingly sinking into a morass. In this context,
to the ecosystem that influenced the establishment needs ways to discredit Modi.
As highlighted repeatedly in the past posts, the agenda of the liberal ecosystem
is not merely about the domestic constituency but the international constituency.
They want to position Modi as somebody of an autocrat under whom the democracy
is shrinking. They fear that Modi at some point or the other would crack down on
the liberal chatterati. This is the time when they would have the West to believe
that Modi is not a democrat. In fact, their frustration seems to stem from the
fact that Modi is not being provoked nor getting into the trap which they have
been creating for years.
In the contention of anti-Modi
forces, if the West comes to a conclusion that Modi is a dictator, their
policies are likely to take a different shift. It might or might not be true. To
the Western establishment what would matter is their interests. If they
perceive Modi to be in alignment with their interests, they would turn a blind
eye even if he were to be a dictator. If Modi is perceived to be something
antithetical to their interests, they would demonize Modi. It is not something
new but practiced deep in history. Their attempt to create a villain of Indira
Gandhi much before 1975 for refusing to toe their line and instead creating a
new narrative on Bangladesh is something well known. They have long sought to
project India’s excesses or rather alleged ones in Kashmir or Punjab as some
serious human rights issues and sought to preach India on multiple forums. Therefore,
the current round of their seeking to project India as a step away from
dictatorship is not surprising.
As illustrated in the past posts, as
India seek to reframe its foreign and domestic policy contours away from the
conventional established paradigms, these are bound to arise. There is nothing
that would make West accept India as their equal. China arose in a different
context. China was sought as counterfoil to the Soviet Union in the Cold War
and it played along well as long as it needed the West. Unlike India, China did
not go through the pretenses on non-alignment and all such. Both had their own
self-interests and it worked as it suited both. It’s only in recent years that
there is some concern on Chinese rise but China through its money has
successfully captured the Western institutions nor it has been bothered by
them. At the heart of it, lies the money. Money speaks and speaks of volumes.
India neither tried to cultivate the lobbies nor has enough money to challenge
the Western hegemony in global discourse. Until India gains in strength, this
disparity will continue. At the moment, India should ignore the grandstanding
of the West and instead focus on the continued agenda of making India a
stronger nation economically, culturally, scientifically, socially and
politically.
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