democracy! or democracy?

To commemorate Indian Republic Day, it is fitting to briefly comment on the current state of democracy in India by elaborating on a recent article by Vijay Nagaraj, the current research director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy. In his article, Nagaraj, criticizes the increasing problems seen in India’s democracy characterized by a growing oppression of civil rights and the role of religious lobbyists in determining what should be secular policy.

Key points in the article:

Ten citizens were killed in 2010 for demanding their right to know under India’s Right to Information law, a toll likely to be higher given that authorities frequently understate threats faced by those demanding information likely to expose abuse of power.

The Free Speech Hub recorded 27 attacks and nine cases involving arrests or detention of journalists; writers and civil liberties activists also faced attacks and in four cases faced prosecution for sedition—under a legal provision of British vintage. . .

Author Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey was removed from the syllabus of Bombay University within 24 hours of an undergraduate student objecting to its portrayal of the Hindu radical Shiv Sena, a party led by his grandfather, Bal Thackeray.  Writer Arundhati Roy and two others face charges of sedition for their utterances at a public meeting in Delhi that Kashmir is not an integral part of India; precisely what most Kashmiris have been saying, for over five decades now. In Kashmir itself, a college lecturer faces charges of inciting secession because his English language examination paper included a question inviting students to discuss whether Kashimiri youth involved in recent stone throwing protests were heroes, and to translate into English a passage that mentioned their killing by security forces.  Then there is Dr. Binayak Sen—a physician awarded the prestigious Jonathan Mann award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008 for his services to the rural poor. Arrested and denied bail for two years, Dr. Sen, now an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience,  was convicted of sedition, found guilty of acting as a courier for an imprisoned ideologue of Maoist rebels, one of the many prisoners he was treating as a visiting doctor. The flimsy nature of the evidence, the fact that key prosecution witnesses, including prison officials, turned hostile and numerous other inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case notwithstanding.

The Free Speech Hub study also revealed that books, cinema, television shows, mobile communication or theatre performances were subject to curbs or restrictions in 33 instances by vigilante groups and in 34 instances by state or judicial bodies respectively. The most high profile examples include cases involving a nude painting by the renowned artist MF Hussain and comments made by a South Indian actress on the prevalence of pre-marital sex in society. Though higher courts eventually settled both in favour of free speech, they led to a spate of criminal cases, protracted litigation and continued harassment, and in the case of Hussain it all but ended his chances of exhibiting in India, culminating in his emigration to Qatar.  In fact, some fanatical elements threatened Arundhati Roy with much the same fate following her remarks on Kashmir. At the extreme, expressions of love that defy caste or religious prescriptions can cost people their lives—according to CNN, five such couples were killed in one week in June alone. (http://www.morungexpress.com/write_wing/61094.html).

These are not new issues within India which has seen a turbulent history of civic inequality alongside reasonable political freedom. The question, then, arises why is India labeled a democracy by those in the West when it fails to meet many of the criteria that we take for granted within our own countries?

One possible explanation is the role of rhetoric within global politics. Very soon, we may seen India, the largest “democracy” in the world come into play as one of the most important emerging super-powers, both in respect to economic might- it will soon be on par with China in terms of GDP growth- and geopolitical influence. In this respect, it is advantageous for the West to have a democratic ally in Asia to counter the role of subversive “Chinese” influence.