https://www.heraldgoa.in/Edit/By-invitation/Another-Annus-Horribilis/216193
Good governance has always been elusive in Goa, but the past decade has been an unmitigated disaster for the people, culture, environment and democracy in India’s smallest State. It didn’t have to be this way, after a good start post-1961 with decent administrators working towards meaningful social justice priorities under Dayanand ‘Bhausaheb’ Bandodkar, and there was another dawn of hope during the rise of Manohar Parrikar, the first IITian to become MLA and CM in the country. All that promise was squandered however, in the depressing pattern of arrogance, incompetence, corruption and impunity that continues to hold sway. Things were already bad when the CM expired in office in 2019, and then have only become unimaginably worse. This ongoing catastrophe presents more than one conundrum. Why does India’s best educated, wealthiest, and most cosmopolitan electorate tolerate abysmal misgovernance, and the rampant destruction of its own quality of life? How do voters ignore the converging crises in front of their noses: youth unemployment nearly 30%, garbage overwhelming the landscape, mayhem on the roads, rampant illegality and an epidemic of crime? When did it become risky – even dangerous – to simply state these truths in public, as though the right to information has already been extinguished? There is broader context here that must be taken into consideration. Goa is disgracefully misgoverned compared to Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and several other States near and far, but its worst problems are due to the collapse of accountability and oversight at the Centre. Many of the crucial institutions have ceased functioning in the way they were intended, often deployed to purely political ends. The damage is systemic. According to the excellent Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) multinational project, India ceased being democratic in 2019 and is now officially an “electoral autocracy”. Here too, the bigger picture demonstrates an alarming pattern, because V-Dem’s *2023 Democracy Report* says 72% of the world’s population lives in “electoral or closed autocracies”, an increase from just 46% in 2013. Over the past decade, the world has seen a wave of “autocratization” - Russia, Nigeria, and Turkey are in the same category as India – to go along with already closed societies like China, Myanmar, and Iran. We can easily recognise the signs: “Toxic levels of polarisation hinder cooperation among elites and induce citizens to abandon democratic principles to keep their leader in power and get their preferred policy. That way, toxic levels of polarisation often increase support for autocratic leaders and empower their illiberal agendas. Disinformation, polarisation, and autocratization thus reinforce each other.” Unfortunately, this crisis is exacerbated because the existing global powers are fatally compromised to lead by alternative – Gaza is only one example – and newly comparatively weak. This means much of ‘the developing world’ has liberty to act out in ways they never have before. India utilises this historic opportunity with brilliant effect on the international stage, but the problem is what occurs with similar abandon at home. *Le Monde* editorialised accurately earlier this year: “Attempts to suppress the media, harassment of opponents and minorities, manipulation of the justice system, educational revisionism: Modi’s record speaks for itself. This makes it all the more regrettable that countries that claim to defend democratic values prefer to remain silent, so as not to upset a regime that is asserting itself in the new global geopolitical order.” It should be noted one of the most prominent enablers is Emmanuel Macron, eager guest of honour at the 75th anniversary Republic Day parade in New Delhi later this month. 2024 will make the difference, because more than half the world’s population will vote on their future. *Time *quotes V-Dem’s director Staffan Lindberg saying it is a “make or break year for democracy in the world”, and notes that “of the 43 countries expected to hold free and fair elections this electoral megacycle, 28 do not actually meet the essential conditions for a democratic vote [and] 8 of the 10 most populous countries in the world, including India, Mexico, and the US—all of which head to the polls this year—are grappling with the challenge of ensuring voter participation, free speech, and electoral independence while authoritarianism is on the rise.” In this regard, the January 2024 edition of *Journal of Democracy *has some insightful analysis by Ashutosh Varshney and Connor Staggs of Brown University in an essay entitled Hindu Nationalism and the New Jim Crow (the latter term refers to American laws that enforced racial segregation): “What makes Modi’s India and the Jim Crow United States comparable? It is the idea that electorally legitimated majoritarianism can be used to create an ensemble of laws and practices which seek to deprive a disfavoured group of its rights, subject it to extra-legal violence, and reduce it to second-class citizenship.” The author’s conclusion is about what’s at stake in India in 2024: “The emergence of the full-blown Jim Crow system in the post–Civil War United States took several decades. As an ideology, Hindu nationalism has been in power at the national level for only a single decade. The political order preferred by Hindu nationalism is not yet complete or firmly in place; only the first steps have been taken. If the BJP keeps winning elections, there can be no doubt that these steps will continue and the impetus behind them will be stronger. In the United States, Jim Crow went against the Constitution, but the courts for a long time would not apply that document. In India likewise, the judiciary is not playing its assigned role as guarantor of liberal constitutionalism against the trespasses of overweening executives and legislatures. Although it took them until the 1950s to fulfil their role, America’s courts eventually did so and began enforcing civil rights. Will India’s? Whatever the answer, friends of liberal, constitutional democracy will be wise not to count on judges to salvage the situation. In the end, only the voters can decide to stop Hindu nationalism, or else underwrite its final advance. The choice is theirs.”