Abstract
Abstract Many concerned citizens, including judges, bureaucrats, politicians, activists, journalists, and academics, have been claiming that Indian democracy has been imperilled under the premiership of Narendra Modi, which began in 2014. To examine this claim, the Article sets up an analytic framework for accountability mechanisms liberal democratic constitutions put in place to provide a check on the political executive. The assumption is that only if this framework is dismantled in a systemic manner can we claim that democracy itself is in peril. This framework helps distinguish between actions that one may disagree with ideologically but are nonetheless permitted by an elected government, from actions that strike at the heart of liberal democratic constitutionalism. Liberal democratic constitutions typically adopt three ways of making accountability demands on the political executive: vertically, by demanding electoral accountability to the people; horizontally, by subjecting it to accountability demands of other state institutions like the judiciary and fourth branch institutions; and diagonally, by requiring discursive accountability by the media, the academy, and civil society. This framework assures democracy over time – i.e. it guarantees democratic governance not only to the people today, but to all future peoples of India. Each elected government has the mandate to implement its policies over a wide range of matters. However, seeking to entrench the ruling party’s stranglehold on power in ways that are inimical to the continued operation of democracy cannot be one of them. The Article finds that the first Modi government in power between 2014 and 2019 did indeed seek to undermine each of these three strands of executive accountability. Unlike the assault on democratic norms during India Gandhi’s Emergency in the 1970s, there is little evidence of a direct or full-frontal attack during this period. The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s mode of operation was subtle, indirect, and incremental, but also systemic. Hence, the Article characterizes the phenomenon as “killing a constitution by a thousand cuts.” The incremental assaults on democratic governance were typically justified by a combination of a managerial rhetoric of efficiency and good governance (made plausible by the undeniable imperfection of our institutions) and a divisive rhetoric of hyper-nationalism (which brands political opponents of the party as traitors of the state). Since its resounding victory in the 2019 general elections, the Modi government appears to have moved into consolidation mode. No longer constrained by the demands of coalition partners, early signs suggest that it may abandon the incrementalist approach for a more direct assault on democratic constitutionalism.
Highlights
As established democracies – such as Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and Israel – witness democratic deconsolidation,[4] the world’s largest democracy has sadly not been an exception
This framework helps distinguish between actions that one may disagree with ideologically but are permitted by an elected government, from actions that strike at the heart of liberal democratic constitutionalism
India’s longer history with democracy and the relative strength of its institutions has meant that one term in office was insufficient for the ruling party to establish its stranglehold on power
Summary
As established democracies – such as Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and Israel – witness democratic deconsolidation,[4] the world’s largest democracy has sadly not been an exception. From previous governments, which had all been constitutionally naughty every and ; the subtlety and incrementalism of its assaults distinguished it from more direct assaults on constitutionalism during the Emergency years under India Gandhi,[9] the three-and-a-half decades long Communist Party rule in the state of West Bengal,[10] and, possibly, even the second Modi administration elected with a full parliamentary majority for the BJP in 2019. These comparisons make clear that assaults on democracy can, and have, come from the political Left as well as the political Right. What I propose to do is to defend the arguments with more specific evidence, organized in a clear analytic framework described
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