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?
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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?
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.
>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)
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.
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