Bill K Koul
The world is keenly watching India’s current General Election – held in seven phases, over six weeks – and speculating on the election results, due to be announced on 4 June 2024. The results of the election will indubitably redefine the Indian democracy.
India’s founding strength
India is a global power, on both military and economy scales. Militarily, as per Global Firepower Index, India ranks 4th out of 145 countries, behind only the US, Russia and China. In terms of economy, India ranks 5th in the world, with a Nominal GDP of about USD 3.7 to 3.9 trillion7, 8,9, behind only the US, China, Japan and Germany. However, because of its large population, India has the lowest per-capita GDP on this list, around USD 2,400 to 2,700 (Forbes India, Investopedia)
India ranks 29th on the Global Soft Power Index 2024 (Vajiram & Ravi, 2024) and plays a significant role in the human race. Intriguingly, India has not conducted a census since 2011 but is understood to be the world’s most populated country, with around 1.43 to 1.44 billion people (World Population Review 2024, Worldometer, 2024), which is about 18 per cent of the world population (8.00 to 8.11 billion).
As per various sources, the world population is projected to increase to around 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, and India’s population to about 1.67 billion. This means every fifth or sixth person in the world is an Indian at present and will remain so over the next 26 years.
The above figures must make any nation proud, especially India, which gained independence just 76 years ago when the British exited the subcontinent in August 1947.
Understandably, India did not make all this progress just yesterday or during the last decade; it took more than seven decades to do so, after its founding fathers laid a solid foundation for this relatively young nation of immense cultural diversity, with a robust constitution, secular democratic principles, and 5-year development plans, which helped it to forge ahead in all walks of life and catch with the industrialised world in the areas of science and technology, engineering and medicine, agriculture, defence and local manufacturing.
Most importantly, India’s founding fathers ensured India’s religious, regional, and ethnical plurality was respected globally.
Serious challenges ahead for India
Amongst the greatest challenges before the next Indian government are the timely redressal of significant pressures due to high youth unemployment, high cost of living, incessant population growth, and existential environmental issues.
Heavy government and private sector investments in the health and education sectors will be urgently required, requiring a sustainable and robust economic model, one that provides decent equity to lower socio-economic communities.
Sincere efforts will be needed to stitch the social fabric together and rebuild mutual trust across castes, classes and religions. Sincere diplomatic investments will be required to strengthen India’s geopolitical relationships with its immediate neighbours, as well as its trading and geo-strategic partners in the west.
Growth in crony capitalism
During the last one decade, India has reflected conspicuous signs of a perceptible sharp surge in crony capitalism, promoted actively by an authoritarian Indian democracy. Boasting 200 billionaires at present, India sits third on the list of most billionaires in the world, after the US (813) and China (473). As per the Forbes World Billionaire’s List 2024, India has added 31 new billionaires in the last one year and 34 since 2022 (Indian Express, 2024).
The billionaires would make any Indian proud if not for an ever-widening wealth gap between the wealthy and the poor, with more than 800 million Indians receiving a free ration of 5 kg of grains per person per month, for the past few years now, purely for reasons of poverty and unaffordability, exacerbated by a high unemployment. Sadly, India is also reported to be slipping in parameters related to democracy, liveability, freedom of speech, and happiness.
India has been backsliding on democracy over the last decade, as per consistent reports from various credible global agencies, such as (a) V-Dem Institute’s Democracy Report (India at 108/179 as Electoral Autocracy); (b) Reporters Without Borders’s World Press Freedom Index (India at 161/180); Economic Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (at 7.18/10 as Flawed Democracy); and (d) Freedom House’s Freedom in the World (at 66/100 as Partly Free). Contesting these ratings, the current Indian government aims to establish its own democracy index. (Bajpaee, C. 2024).
With a sharp increase in authoritarian capitalism, including cronyism, India also scores low on measurable indices of human development, liveability, democracy, hunger, happiness, corruption, freedom of speech, journalism and press (Vajiram & Ravi, 2024), with a sliding trend. India ranks 134th (out of 193) on Human Development Index; in the 140s (Indian cities) on the Global Liveability Index; 41st on Democracy Index (in the flawed democracy category); 111th on Global Hunger Index; 126th in the World Happiness Report 2024; 93rd on Corruption Perceptions Index 2023; and 161th on World Press Freedom Index 2023. As per the World Air Quality Report 2023, India ranks as the 3rd most polluted country in the world, ahead of only Bangladesh and Pakistan. (Vajiram & Ravi, 2024).
Amongst the world’s 100 worst polluted cities, 83 cities are in India (CNN, April 26, 2024).
Youth unemployment
About 45 per cent of Indian youth in the age group of 20 to 24 years are unemployed at present, followed by about 15 per cent unemployment in the age group of 24 to 29 years. Overall, the unemployment rate was reported to be around 6.5 per cent in January 2024, which was lower than 8.0 per cent in 2023.
Historically, the overall unemployment rate in India has been reported to be around 5.4 to 5.5 per cent between 2008 and 2019, and between 6.0 and 8.0 per cent after 2019 [Forbes India (April 19, 2024)]. It is understood many unemployed people don’t register due to fatigue and disillusion.
Challenges During The Election Season
General Election in this massive country would normally be likened to the greatest festival of democracy on earth but, in this case, Indian people are nervously suspicious of the intent of the current government, and the level of autonomy and integrity of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The reason is the total number of votes cast in the already completed six phases of the election, at any particular constituency, was not revealed by the ECI; instead, only a percentage was revealed after a conspicuous delay extending up to 15 days from the election day, with inflated percentages of around 6-percent.
The data has now been finally made public after several transparency activists approached the Supreme Court, petitioning against the glaring lapse. But many questions remain unanswered including the high degree of inflation of numbers.
India uses Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) instead of paper ballots, so the delay raises suspicions. Politicians are known to use percentages and numbers depending on their political convenience. Percentages are used where issues are to be downplayed, and numbers are used where issues are to be raised.
Can the delayed vote percentages be trusted? In a boisterously digital India – the self-crowned mother of democracy – are the vote percentages being fudged in favour of the ruling party? Is the election being stolen from the people? Will India use EVMs or revert to traditional ballot boxes in the future?
Rigging of elections – by open or underhand means, overtly or covertly, with or without the support of the guardians of the election process – is tantamount to the highest anti-national act in a democracy. The perpetrators commit a heinous crime against the people whom they are meant to serve in the first place. It is the greatest betrayal of people’s trust. Manipulation of election results, using muscle, money and machinery, in compromised democracies indirectly lends legitimacy to authoritarian regimes.
Any regime that surreptitiously manipulates the electoral process to grab power after subjugating the institutions must be tried for an act of treason.
Dangerous trends
The highest leadership of India’s ruling party, the BJP – whose mother organisation (RSS, founded on 27 September 1925) is not known to have fought for India’s freedom from the British – calls the opposition Indian National Congress party ‘anti-national’. However, the British and the rest of the world know that it was the Congress Party that fought relentlessly for India’s independence. Thereafter, successive Congress governments fought wars to defend India – three against Pakistan and one against China – including the one that set Bangladesh free from Pakistan in 1971. It was also during Indira Gandhi’s Congress government that India carried out its first nuclear test 50 years ago, on 18 May 1974.
An extremely dangerous global trend is being set by this election whereby the political opposition is abominably branded as ‘anti-national’. Taking a leaf from India’s political book, imagine a horrendous state of the global scenario if the current Labour government in Australia also calls the opposition Liberal Party ‘anti-national’ and the current Democrat government in the US also brands the Republican Party as ‘anti-national’.
The vitality of any democracy rests in its diversity, of religion and culture and, importantly, of thought. In a democracy, an act of calling the political opposition as ‘anti-national’ can be construed as an act of treason or terrorism, because it promotes hate, fear and mistrust between the communities, potentially leading to unrest and violence in the country.
In addition, top leaders of the ruling BJP have also tried (unsuccessfully) to rake up the historical, but now non-existent, Hindu-Muslim divide which was seen at the time of India’s partition in 1947. The reality is that it has never been a Hindu-Muslim issue in a culturally and ethnically diverse Indian subcontinent. If it was such, Nepal would have been a part of India and Bangladesh would not have fought for independence from Pakistan. Hindus and Muslims cohabit in these countries, they fought together for independence from the British.
It seems, instead of addressing the people’s real issues, the rulers have been distributing the ‘opium of religion’ amongst the people, in the name of the Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), to exploit the religious divide that sadly partitioned the country 76 years ago and hold on to power.
As the icing on the cake, however bizarre it may sound, the leader of the ruling BJP has also publicly doubted his biological birth from his human mother and claimed he is Godsent to help India. Adi Shankaracharya (c. 788 – 820 CE) – an Indian philosopher and theologian, who laid the foundations of present-day Hinduism, is also understood to have proclaimed in a hymn (in Sanskrit):
‘I am He; I am He; I am He.’
Adi Shankaracharya is known to have renounced the worldly pleasures at a very young age and expounded the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta. He did not deny his biological birth. Jesus Christ, known as the ‘Son of God’, too did not deny his biological birth.
In this day and age, a human being who claims a direct connection with Divinity (whilst denying his biological birth) must renounce the material life and turn into a monk, traverse the earth on foot and spread the Divine message.
The moral health and culture of a people and, thus, a country are reflected by the personal conduct and public behaviour of the politicians elected by the people. People may elect anyone they like, however, after that, they can’t control how the rest of the world thereafter treats them – with or without respect or trust.
Important lessons from history
Eighty years ago, a megalomaniac named Hitler, who seemingly captivated his country, seemingly enslaving people with a hypnotic spell, not only committed genocide of the Jewish people but also brought unimaginable suffering and destruction to his people and the rest of the world. Sadly, since then, not all people have learnt from what happened or understood how or why it all happened. Unbelievably, Hitler is followed even today by many megalomaniacs in subverted democracies.
Unbelievably, many individuals who prosper in democratic setups work to establish dictatorships.
Dictators never last forever. Nevertheless, before meeting their ugly end, they leave behind a dark trail of destruction, for which their stooges and henchmen pay later. The only way to deal with such megalomaniacs is to treat them as one would deal with uncontrollable ‘armed rowdy kids’ before they cause too much mess. The judiciary is the one reliable institution of democracy that can disarm them, snatch away their deadly tools, and detain them in fit-for-purpose correction facilities.
India must learn from Iran, a nation that struggles to emerge from the religious authoritarianism that it brought upon itself 45 years ago. Progressive Iranians – who comprise an overwhelming majority of the Iranian population – are fighting to liberate themselves from a repressive regime that took over after a bloody revolution, which they or their parents or their ancestors may have supported at that time, not realising the extent of the damage they would cause to themselves. Can they ever be free?
In elected dictatorships, the rulers don’t share power with common people. People also lose the right to speak and protest.
Going forward
Liberal democracy defines human evolution and emergence from our brutal muscular past. Democracy needs necessary checks and balances in the form of autonomous institutions, including an independent, unbiased press that can ask questions. It also needs a vibrant political opposition or else it vanishes. Opposition to an elected government does not mean being ‘anti-national’ by any measure.
Being the largest democracy on the planet, India, keeps alive a much-needed hope for democracy. For that, it needs robustness and full autonomy of all its vital institutions. The rule of law must prevail on everyone, without bias.
Going forward, an effective economic policy, that strikes a sustainable balance between capitalistic and socialistic models, is a must so that a foreseeable bright future is spread across all communities in this massive nation of great promise. Young people need real jobs, not political slogans.
Hollow promises, fake guarantees or nationalistic slogans don’t put food on the table, nor does the opium of religion. But jobs can.
References
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CNN (April 26, 2024). The world’s 100 worst polluted cities are in Asia — and 83 of them are in just one country. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/climate/air-pollution-report-2023-asia-climate-intl-hnk/index.html, accessed on May 27, 2024.
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Vajiram & Ravi. 2024. World Air Quality Report 2023. https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-daily-current-affairs/prelims-pointers/world-air-quality-report/, published on March 19, 2024, and accessed on 25 May 2024.
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