To be sure, it's very much a dynamic situation; at one level - we're in the process of a constantly accelerating downslide, while at another, resistances are being waged and the one by the farmers has proved a very big success and to a significant extent has elevated the mood of the actual and potential resistors. While the journey to the bottom continues, the prospect of a reversal also looking somewhat brighter.
It's a complex and a very crucial phase. If, in 2024, Modi gets back to power, "India" and Indian "democracy" is just doomed. Right at this very moment, there's still some space to fight back - needs be fully made use of. <<I think the description you gave is accurate. India has become more communal; India has become more authoritarian – and I don’t think anybody actually can contest those descriptions. I mean, and you know we don’t have to sort of get into what the prime minister’s intentions are, but we just have to look at the behavioural attributes of institutions: when the Supreme Court refuses to take habeas corpus seriously; when most or at least the television media (I mean, you know… as you know better than anyone else in a sense…) ceases to play the role of the fourth state, I mean you can just go institution after institution, right. When, as you just saw, in Kashi Vishwanath, the prime minister in a sense is projected as this combination of Shankaracharya and Shivaji. I mean, the entire liturgy is structured around him, this is not just a recasting of Indian democracy, but it is a kind of recasting of the religion and religious forms of Hinduism in a very radical way. You can just pick any attribute it’s very hard to contest the impression that, you know, India has become more communal and authoritarian. I think, the only qualification I would give to this, and I think that’s where the BJP supporters will push back, is that there is a genuine democratic energy to this authoritarianism which is to say that it does have popular roots and that’s what makes it more disquieting in some ways. Modi is a popular figure he has managed to, in a sense, transform India’s institutional landscape by winning elections. And I think that’s what makes this moment much more complicated to think about.>> (Excerpted from: < https://m.thewire.in/article/rights/full-text-damage-to-indian-democracy-under-modi-is-lasting-pratap-bhanu-mehta/amp >.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZgEeyr%2BM8-vAJ_2RfWXvJXHhrTSiSZFoDb5kj9KGwE2SQ%40mail.gmail.com.
