Opinion | Rahul must not challenge popular mandates by dubbing them as “electoral autocracy”
On Thursday, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, whereas quoting a Swedish institute’s report, tweeted: ‘India is no longer a democratic country’. He quoted a Swedish institute V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy). V-Dem claims, it really works with greater than 3,500 nation specialists and it has a world advisory board.
Members of the board embrace Pakistan People’s Party chief Aitzaz Ahsan, India’s Centre for Policy Research chief Pratap Bhanu Mehta and JNU Professor Nirja Gopal Jayal. The institute has been arrange the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
In ‘Democracy Report 2021’, V-Dem has downgraded India from ‘world’s largest democracy’ to an ‘electoral autocracy’. The report says: “Narendra Modi led the BJP to victory in India’s 2014 elections ..and most of the decline occurred following BJP’s victory and their promotion of a Hindu-nationalist agenda.”
The report additional says, “In general, the Modi-led government in India has used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. For example, over 7,000 people have been charged with sedition after the BJP assumed power and most of the accused are critics of the ruling party. The laws of defamation, upheld in India’s Supreme Court in May 2016, has been used frequently to silence journalists and news outlets that take exception to policies of the BJP government.”
I do not know from the place the V-Dem obtained its figures, but when legal guidelines of defamation have been used to silence Modi’s critics, Rahul Gandhi ought to come ahead and disclose whether or not he or his get together males have been framed in any defamation case for making allegations in opposition to Modi for placing Rs 30,000 crore in Ambani’s pockets due to the Rafale deal.
Rahul Gandhi ought to know the way greater than 1,40,000 folks have been arrested and put in jail with out trial throughout 20 months of Emergency imposed by his grandmother Indira Gandhi in 1975. This determine is from Amnesty International report, the organisation, which Rahul and his aides like to quote these days.
Nearly 27 lakh folks in 1975 and 83 lakh folks in 1976 have been forcibly sterilized throughout the Emergency, in keeping with Population Bulletin. The total opposition was thrown into jail for 19 months. Right to Life and Liberty, as enshrined within the Indian Constitution, was abrogated and 4 out of 5 judges on the Supreme Court bench have been compelled to provide judgement supporting the federal government’s energy to abrogate this proper. The solely courageous choose who wrote in dissent was Justice H R Khanna. It was he who wrote “detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty”. This dissenting judgement later price Justice Khanna the put up of the Chief Justice of India.
If Rahul Gandhi says there isn’t a democracy in India now, he must give you info and figures to point out whether or not censorship has been imposed on the media, or whether or not journalists have thrown into jails for writing in opposition to the federal government, as his grandmother did throughout the Emergency. Rahul Gandhi alleges that the voice of the opposition is muzzled. Right from 2014, Rahul and his get together males had been levelling baseless allegations in opposition to Narendra Modi. Were they ever prevented from voicing their allegations? Rahul had alleged in 2019 that Modi had favoured Anil Ambani to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore within the Rafale deal. Did anyone tried to muzzle Rahul’s voice?
It’s time Rahul ought to come ahead and make clear what kind of democracy he desires. Does he need a democracy the place a household controls the operating of a authorities for 10 years by utilizing distant management? Does he need an ‘Accidental Prime Minister’ like Dr Manmohan Singh, whose cupboard accepted an ordinance, however needed to stall it, after Rahul tore up the copy of the ordinance in public at a press convention?
Rahul and his aides must perceive that the folks of India have twice given clear mandates to Narendra Modi. The folks of India have rejected the idea of rule by a single dynasty. In elections after elections, the Congress has misplaced the states which it as soon as used to rule. To label the folks’s mandate as “electoral autocracy” is nothing by quoting a report written by two professors sitting in a Swedish college, is like being an ostrich hiding its head within the sand. Rahul ought to get up and attempt to mobilize his partymen with a purpose to construct a robust opposition as a substitute of counting on experiences ready in overseas land.
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