[ghoomketu]

While I have no sympathy for razorpay but I'd just like to point out that laws in India are much more heavy handed than a country like US. People are thrown in jail for social media posts and sometimes just for liking a social media post(1)

Twitter has been having a very hard time operating in India too(2) and routinely censoring stuff so while IANAL just remember that things are very different in different parts of the world.

(1) https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/arrested-over-a-fa...?

(2) https://restofworld.org/2022/twitters-censorship-india/

[RicoElectrico]

India is weird. It's not really called authoritarian (rankings don't classify it as such), but there are many similar stories of government dysfunction and overreach. Maybe someone else has a word for them?

[parsimo2010]

Corrupt is an appropriate word for this kind of behavior. The government does not officially condone the behavior, and it would probably function well if the policies were followed as written. But instead people get some power and abuse it. India is not unique, many countries struggle with corruption.

[voakbasda]

Many? Which countries do not suffer from corruption? This seems to be the human condition. As the old saying goes, “power corrupts…”. It’s not of question of “if” a country is corrupt, it is “how much”.

[brigandish]

True but India does seem to be steeped in it. I once bribed someone in India accidentally and didn't realise what had happened till afterwards. That's how embedded it is in daily life. I can't imagine that happening anywhere else I've been and I've been a few places.

[imperistan]

What happened? Sounds like an interesting story

[monkey_monkey]

It's more a matter of scale and how embedded it is in everyday life.

Getting almost anything done without having to wait months / years / decades requires some form of black money payment ie a bribe.

[colechristensen]

For example: have you personally ever had to bribe someone, thought about it, or even considered it a possibility?

[Kab1r]

Corruption is large enough in India to have an entire political party dedicated to the issue (Aam Aadmi Party).

[ramraj07]

Heres the interesting thing though. A majority of Indian citizens would agree with this overreach. If the majority agrees with heavy handed tactics and they are enforced by elected officials with at least reasonably fair elections then is it right to call it an autocracy?

I don’t agree with any of this of course but it is unfortunate reality here.

[sateesh]

The phenomenon what you mention is called "Tyranny of Majority", great many thinkers have indeed weighed on this.

[Gurgler]

Fear of such a tyranny of the majority is why the founders of the US created the electoral college, and apportioned the Senate as it is, creating a republic instead of a pure democracy. It also describes the original ideological distinction between Republicans and Democrats, the two main political parties in the US. James Madison described a scenario like this in his Federalist Paper #10.

"Complaints are everywhere ... that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."

[throwaway_62022]

Folks belonging to majority can get caught on the wrong side of the fence too - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/editor-arreste...

I believe the problem is laws related to religion and hate speech. They are stupid. Section 295 is non-bailable offence and can be easily abused by either side to placate group that feels offended.

The discussions about India sliding into authoritarian is interesting because strictly speaking many of these laws are pretty old. I wish that these laws did not exist but strictly speaking these laws have been abused to placate Hindus, Muslims, Christians(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeping_crucifix_in_Mumbai) at different times.

[mrkstu]

Tyranny of the majority.

[kanduri]

It is an electoral autocracy. Merely having elections doesn't make it "democratic". Certainly not if much of mainstream media is under the ownership of the biggest "donors" of the current ruling disposition.

Alternative crowd sourced media houses such as AltNews, The Wire among others are under real danger as are socio-political activists, union organizers, smaller opposition political parties, etc.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944

[gnufied]

I think hate speech laws in India are overboard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_India and although not enacted by current govt. it can be easily abused by police and that is what is happening in many instances.

These laws are vague to a fault and govt. has given themselves too much power (and I do not see it changing anytime soon, who wants to give up power?). It is easy to selectively apply these laws and that in itself can promote enmity that these laws were designed to protect from.

[spaceman_2020]

The India system is essentially a system of “who you know”. Anyone who grew up in India knows that if you’re a powerful bureaucrat, cop, or politician, you can do whatever you want. The law doesn’t really apply to you.

The only exception is if you manage to piss off someone higher up in the power hierarchy.

Its not so much as authoritarian as it is Darwinian.

[worker_person]

I can't find it now, There was an old article talking about a Zombie party in India. Basically bribing an official to get someone declared dead was easy. Getting it fixed was basically impossible. There was some guy running for office who was legally dead.

[Viliam1234]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_D...

[TedDoesntTalk]

That’s called nepotism, not Darwinian.

[achow]

Well so was the case in USA few years back.

It is not about govt per se (which is grappling with bigger issues - Russia, Srilanka..) but is about mid and lower level politicians, govt and police officers..

Also the pattern is inconsistent, some regions in India is polar opposite to this kind of right leanings - Ex. East of India. Some are neutral - most of South India. India is a large and complex country; the general sentiment is no different than looking at Ireland and thinking French politics generally sucks (or whatever appropriate example.. I have no clue how politics is in either of these countries).

[ethbr0]

A lack of rule of law? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

[ridiculous_leke]

That's true. India is a severely under-policed country.

[0xmohit]

Not quite. Just that the ruler is the law.

[ethbr0]

That's contrary to the definition of the term. If the ruler is the law, then there is no rule of law.

[0xmohit]

> If the ruler is the law, then there is no rule of law.

I thought that it was obvious :)

[shaan7]

Yeah its only "sort of" authoritarian, in most regions you can live quite a free life.

The cases where it becomes authoritarian is when it comes to religion and criticism of the government. This is the reason that the majority of the population does not even believe in issues that exist (social, political, ecological or otherwise).

[throwaway_62022]

As I mentioned above - criticism of any kind of religion can get you in trouble in India[1][2]. But we should not lump that with criticism of government.

Do you have any examples, where someone was arrested for simply criticising govt actions?

1. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/editor-arreste...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeping_crucifix_in_Mumbai

[ImPostingOnHN]

>Do you have any examples, where someone was arrested for simply criticising govt actions?

Muslim citizens of India being arrested for criticizing the government's action of insulting their religion

One even had their family home demolished without any due process as revenge for criticizing the government

[onepointsixC]

That just sounds like literally any other authoritarian country. Freedom of speech never was needed in order to speak things which are commonly agreed and central government approved.

[biosboiii]

>It's not really called authoritarian (rankings don't classify it as such) Because they serve US interest, especially against China. Despite "authoritarian" being a buzzword, you should maybe base your views on a country on your observations (such as the extreme violation of basic human rights in India regarding muslims, the fact that there are laws against muslim and hindu folks marrying, labelled as "love jihad", the fact that the government shot multiple people protesting against the government in 2020) and not on some obscure rankings, funded and made by US NGOs (see National Endowment for Democracy as a reference)

[signatoremo]

Hmm India has never been a close US’s ally, the latest example being their stand in the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They are more often than not at odd with the US’s interest. The only thing that brings the two sides together is China.

[kalimanzaro]

An autocracy of the majority, for the majority, by the majority.

[snambi]

There is a name for it, democracy.

[ImPostingOnHN]

democracy is orthogonal to what the person you replied to said, as not all democracies devolve into such authoritarianism

[azifali]

It has slid into authoritarianism.

[digestm]

Exactly

[thorncorona]

They are attempting to become an autocratic ethnostate

[pessimizer]

https://www.ibtimes.com/hindu-nationalists-historical-links-...

Hindu Nationalist’s Historical Links to Nazism and Fascism

Sorry for the awful source, but the predecessors of the BJP were openly patterned after European fascist movements, there were contacts between them and a mutual affection. There's even a strain of European mystic Hindu Nazism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitri_Devi

[garyfirestorm]

kleptocracy

[ignoramous]

> ...laws in India are much more heavy handed than a country like US.

AltNews alleges that RazorPay banned their account (and later restored it) without cause: https://archive.is/R9OJ8

To me, it seems like RazorPay simply buckled under pressure. Why wouldn't they, they need to be in bed with the central govt, or their business falls apart pretty quick.

[sateesh]

But as the article suggests why was there a need to share data of all donors, they could have shared only those that originated outside India.

[sa1]

There were no transactions originating outside India, the payments were configured to accept only Indian cards.

[hef19898]

Well, my inner cynic assumes that authorities know that. And that is exactly the reason why the wanted the records. Might be a tad hard to crack down on foreign donors, harassing domestic ones on the other hand...

[ahamedirshad123]

LoL. They don't recieve payment from foreign countries.

[anovikov]

And this is billed as "world's largest democracy". Wtf is the bullshit we are made to believe? Why don't we just stop pretending and relabel most "democratic" countries as just "pro-Westnern"?

[dragonwriter]

> And this is billed as "world's largest democracy". Wtf is the bullshit we are made to believe? Why don't we just stop pretending and relabel most "democratic" countries as just "pro-Westnern"?

India is not pro-Western, and none of those things upthread are inconsistent with democracy. They are illiberal, perhaps, but not all democracy is liberal democracy.

[gruez]

>none of those things upthread are inconsistent with democracy. They are illiberal, perhaps, but not all democracy is liberal democracy.

This line of reasoning feels like a motte and bailey to me. When that fact is being trotted out by supporters it's almost always a comparison to liberal democracies. I doubt when Indians say "we're the largest democracy" they're comparing themselves to russia.

[achow]

> billed as "world's largest democracy". Wtf is the bullshit we are made to believe?

New York Times:

“India is valued the world over for a great many things, but for three over others: the Taj Mahal, Mahatma Gandhi and India’s electoral democracy.” It is the 17th general election in India, being held in seven phases over 38 days. Nine hundred million Indians are registered to vote! Around 70 percent are expected to vote. The voting age in India is 18, and 15 million are voting for the first time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/india-elections.h...

USA + European Union = ~750M population (not voters)

[eldaisfish]

India has a very effective and fair electoral system, that's about it. The other branches and foundations of a liberal democracy are either a sham or crumbling in India.

Minorities are routinely targeted, court judgments are filled with personal opinions... i could go on.

The mere existence of a voting system does not a full democracy make. Remember, Russia also has "elections".

[achow]

> Minorities are routinely targeted..

> court judgments are filled with personal opinions..

Sounds like another country that we know of.

[ImPostingOnHN]

yes, India

[mytailorisrich]

India is a "non-aligned" country, it's not "pro-Western". They have good relations with Russia, which is their main weapons supplier.

The West tends to cultivate them in relation to China, at which point calling them "the biggest democracy in the world" is simply a propaganda tool to sell them as the 'good guys' to public opinions (vs. China who are obviously the 'bad guys'). But the issues between India and China are independent of any "pro-Western" stance or political system, they are purely based on conflicts of interests between those two countries, including left-overs from the British Empire when it comes to border disputes.

[digestm]

> billed as "world's largest democracy".

This is what you are made to believe by the propaganda machine. As someone else mentioned here, India is "elected autocracy". And "first-past-the-post" election doesn't mean the government has support of the majority of Indians.

Sad to say as an Indian, India is going Russia way.

[kasey_junk]

India is pretty decidedly not pro Western and hasn’t been since independence.

[satya71]

The laws in India are quite similar to US. Unfortunately, current practice and interpretation is far from what was envisioned in the constitution.

[lifeplusplus]

Heavy handed? They are straight up barbaric not democratic. More similar to China then democratic countries