Narendra Modi is a democratically elected leader, but his image is that of a leader who decimated opposition and dissent — in Parliament or on university campuses.
Nothing new, Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well
No, he wasn’t. He was appointed. His party won the largest number of seats, but not a majority, and Paul von Hindenburg won the Presidency. The problem is that the party with the largest representation got to choose the Chancellor, so obviously the Nazis picked Hitler. In theory the President needed to agree to it, unfortunately they were Nazis so, ya know, not big fans of mutually beneficial compromises.
Then Pauly Boy let them pass the Reichstag Fire Decree and the purge of opposition began.
The power sharing at the time was a bit convoluted but eventually he’d force the Presidency into irrelevance and then, eventually, just take the title too, for shits and giggles.
The process you described sounds like a normal parliamentary system to me, and lots of countries with that kind of system are generally described as democracies. It also sounds a lot like the Electoral College in the US.
By your account, the voters might not have chosen Hitler personally, but they did choose the Nazi party, and I assume anyone who was paying attention knew the Nazis would select Hitler as Chancellor.
Two further tidbits:
- The NSDAP already had falling results in 1932 (down to 33% from 37), and the 1933 elections weren’t free (47%).
- The enabling act wasn’t really passed legally. They had to arrest SPD and KPD MPs to get the necessary 2/3rds majority, ignoring the quorum.
On the whole they kept up the appearance of the whole thing being legal as far as they could because, well, they could: Why throw away the appearance of legitimacy when you don’t have to, Nazis are idiots but not in that way.
It’s not new even in india. Indira Gandhi, who for all the good things she has done, turned dictator, suspended our Constitution, and launched the Emergency on a flimsy pretext. India united & brought her to her knees.
This 2nd attempt at dictatorship is by Hindu supremacist Modi, who is trying to destroy our Constitution and electoral process since he knows he faces a defeat.
The most dangerous time fo abuse victims is when the abuser feels they might escape. Same situation.
Government forms aren’t carved in marble and completely immutable, constitutions allow for modifications to adapt to changing times, without overturning any institution.
Only if done in good faith.
What faith do you in a power-hungry megalomaniac dictator and his power structures, who uses cyberweapons against its citizens, who views opposition and activists and the common man who doesn’t kowtow as the enemy, who spies on all its citizens, who uses UAPA not against terrorists but against Dalit & Adivasi rights activists, who has created a violent ethnic & communal civil war in Manipur, who openly persecutes its religious minorities and the oppressed castes, who destablised our economy to convert black money to white, who enables corporate monopolies and kills MSMEs, who refuses to be responsible or accountable for any of their policy failings, who has deliberately weakened states rights, who sends IB after professors, who uses the law to crush democracy, who sends IB after minority religions, who allows and participates in hatespeech, who destroys homes & livelihoods of the poor on a whim, who fails India’s territorial integrity, who lies publicly to the people he should be leading, who denigrates & catcalls women politicians, who benefits from creating conflict, who behaves like a king and not an elected people’s representative?
Only if done in good faith.
Nah, that’s the problem. It happens whether it’s done in good faith or not, and bad faith actors have proven themselves quite adept at manipulating democratic institutions to their own advantage. I’m American so I’m mainly aware of how it’s going down in the US, but from my limited perspective it seems like a lot of other countries are going down the same path: India, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, etc. It might even be happening in China—not within the country as a whole since it obviously isn’t a democracy, but maybe within the Communist party, considering Xi declared himself leader for life and everyone seemingly just went along with it.
I disagree. Democracies and their foundations are living structures. They shouldn’t atrophy and become fossils. When needed, they should be updated but if the political party in power is fascist then they’ll wreck the very basis of democracy (this is the danger staring India in the face). Which is why we should never ever vote any kind of fascist or extremist to power. When we take democracy for granted, we allow fascism to creep in.
What I’ve been observing in the US is that about 1/4 of the population is appropriately aware of fascism and freaked out about it, 1/4 absolutely loves fascism, and 1/2 the population thinks it’s all “just politics” that can safely be ignored no matter how much anyone tries to explain the importance of it. It’s infuriating.
Narendra Modi is not a democratically elected leader. The Prime Minister of India is appointed by the President of India and can be removed from office by the Lok Sabha (one of India’s two houses of Parliament). Modi is no more democratically elected than Clarence Thomas is.
I think you don’t understand how indian political system work. In India the Prime minister is elected by the people and has a similar position to the President of United States.
Modi’s party got majority seats in the previous election.
The President of India is more of a ceremonial role. It is one of the duties of the President to appoint the Prime minister. In this scenario the President really doesn’t have a choice.
President’s are supposed to be a check on the executive and legislature, because their assent is needed for a bill to become law. But very rarely have Prime Ministers appointed anyone with a spine, so we almost aways have rubber stamp presidents.
