[bhupy]

It's not so much Western notions of what liberal democracy should look like, but rather the Western notion that liberal democracy is superior/sacrosanct.

"Liberal democracy" has a very specific meaning — or at least, it has to, or else there's no common language to describe these things. What India is engaging in is objectively not liberal democracy, it's illiberal democracy[1], but that can be okay. The fact that "illiberal democracy is bad" is the Western notion / post-colonial imposition on an independent India.

I personally disagree with most Indians, and tend to prefer liberal democracies, but that's my Western notion (and I say that as an ethnic Indian that went to high school in India, but has settled down in America).

[1] Poland, Hungary, and arguably Turkey are also notable examples of increasingly illiberal democracies

[rayiner]

I agree with your framing. Good point.