Modi Has “Killed the Constitution By a 1000 Cuts”, Whilst Many Were Asleep, Others Complicit https://youtu.be/sLRO4qs6Q-Q?t=80 The Wire
One of the foremost scholars of India’s constitution and its democracy says the first Modi government (2014-2019) is guilty of “killing the constitution by a thousand cuts” whilst the second Modi government has taken the process insidiously further in significant ways. Prof. Tarunabh Khaitan adds that many of India’s political parties and institutions have “sleep walked into (Modi’s) authoritarianism” whilst others “are complicit” in Modi’s undermining of democracy. He says many people “didn’t realize it was happening” whilst “huge swathes of constitutional machinery” were aware but let it happen.
Killing a Constitution with a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-State Fusion in India Law and Ethics of Human Rights https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3646238_code1023159.pdf
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professor taruna ketan you've devised an analytical framework for studying when a democracy is in Peril that framework comprises three elements to do with how accountable is the executive -- first its accountability to the people --- second its accountability to other state institutions like the opposition and the Judiciary --- third its accountability to the media academic criticism and Civil Society institutions
can you start by explaining why this framework is the right way of judging whether democracy is in Peril
well first thank you Mr taper for having me here and it's a pleasure to talk to you um so the motivation behind this paper was to devise a framework that's fair to the ruling party and the government in power um we what would not do for this purpose is a framework that criticizes the policies of the government simply because I may not like them it's an elected legitimate
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government with a mandate to implement its policies uh whatever ideological uh
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spectrum they come from from so the task was to devise a framework that distinguishes policy differences from a
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constitutional and Democratic uh foundational undermining and that is
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what this framework tries to do which is it does not go after what what is the
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ideological makeup of this government What policies it wants to implement but the question is this does this
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government seek to fuse the ruling party with the state because as we know as a
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famous politic scientist once define democracy uh as a system in which parties lose elections so if the
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government is doing things which makes it harder for the ruling party to lose elections by entrenching it within the
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framework of the state that was a problem and if the executive which in in
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my discipline in constitutional Theory we call it the most dangerous Branch because it is the branch of the state
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that holds military power that holds police power right it's got the power of the sword so the executive being the
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most dangerous branch is subject to a series of checks in a democracy to make
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sure that it does not do the things that it can do and and undermine uh the rights of the people so that was the
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framework I sought to design and hence the three typical accountability
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mechanisms that all democracies all real democracies around the world subject the
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executive to which is accountability to the people here and now
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accountability to State institutions which do two things which ensure that the government is accountable not only
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to the people today but to future people even if all the people of India Today unanimously decide that we should become
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an authoritarian regime even then that would reduce or take away the Democratic
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rights of future Indians and therefore impermissible even to the people right and institutions ensure that
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institutions like the Supreme Court institions like the election commission ensure that the rights Democratic rights
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of future people are ured and because we never have unanimity in a democracy
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other institutions as well as the media the universities ensure that there continuing democracy in between
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elections because democracy is not just elections every five years right so how do you keep the government continuously
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accountable by asking it tough questions so that is a framework of democracy and that was the metric the measure by which
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I sought to judge this government now Professor Gan you applied your framework to the first Modi government which
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served from 2014 2019 I'll come to the second Modi government afterwards but
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with specific reference to the first government you write it did indeed seek
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to undermine each of these three strands of executive accountability you say its
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mode of operation was subtle indirect and incremental but also systemic and
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you say this amounts to killing a constitution by a Thousand Cuts before
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we come to details can you explain this further this conclusion of course
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so there are no tanks on the streets of Delhi the media is supposedly still free
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the broadcasting tower has not been taken out over by the government there isn't a state of emergency the military
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is not on the streets right so it does not feel like a 20th century uh
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emergency right now this by the way before I directly respond to to the
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question in the Indian context I should locate it in a global context where autocratic leaders of the 20th century
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have become smarter they have learned from the failures of what we used to
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call dictators of the 20th century right 20th century dictators were in your face
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direct and they launched typically a full frontal assault on the democra on on their democracy right and and the
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signs would be obvious they would be visible and indraa Gandhi's emergency uh is is a clear example of that kind of
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in your face visible full frontal assault on a democracy now at least since the turn of the century uh but
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actually typically it this happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall democracy has become the key metric for
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legitimacy of a government it's become much harder for a state to justify itself to legitimize itself
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internationally if it's not seen to be Democratic so latterday autocrats have learned
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that they don't need to do all of those direct full frontal things in fact most
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of their agenda can still be realized while retaining the paraphernalia of democracy by going through the motions
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of democracy and it's more effective so this is not just an Indian phenomenon
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across the world You' seen in countries like Poland Hungary Brazil under bolsonaro South Africa under Zuma uh
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America under Trump in a in a whole lot of these countries we have seen a similar incremental subtle but systemic
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style of autocratization where you chip away the foundations of democracy
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instead of launching a full scale full frontal assault and that is the idea
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behind uh the Thousand Cuts that we we don't have one single big assault like
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the 42nd amendment was uh under and the Declaration of emergency was under indraa Gandhi we see a lot of micro
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assaults which make it harder to see and harder to mobilize against so to put it
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metaphorically and colloquially this is not Halal or jutka it's as you call it Death By A Thousand Cuts each little cut
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incrementally adds up to a further imperiling of democracy indeed that's exactly a very
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good metaphor indeed all right let's then come to details between 2014 and
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2019 India has held regular elections both at the state and at the national level the btia J party has won some it's
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lost some and this has happened multiple times so on what grounds do you say it's
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not been accountable to the people many would say the fact that it holds elections the fact that it accepts its
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defeat is a sign of accountability indeed so we must first
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understand that accountability is not a binary either or phenomenon accountability is a scalar concept you
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can have more or less of it and what we have seen is a gradual reduction in accountability in all three fronts and
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your question concerns the first front which is electoral accountability directly to the people so what are the
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things that the first Modi regime did or tried to do to to undermine that
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accountability to the people I'll come to you know the paper later discusses
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the things that have happened with the election commission and some credible grounds to worry about the the
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even-handedness of the Election Commission in in scheduling elections in in the manner in which it holded
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election but I put that to one side for now there are three key things which uh
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the first regime did the first to quite successfully the third was a thought balloon which might actually fract uh
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before the end of this Parliament so the first important thing was um a concerted
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effort to delegitimize and disenfranchise the Muslim minority
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population of India now uh as we know not not all Hindus vote for the BJP but
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very few Muslims do because of its uh anti-muslim uh political stance right
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and we saw a whole range of efforts the
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the most important and the biggest amongst it was the national register of citizenship exercise in Assam which uh
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although on its face was neutral in terms of religion and indeed um ordered
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by the Supreme Court uh by by a Judiciary but this is an opportunist
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government which which will you know G so it it saw an opportunity and ran with
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it it's the rhetoric around the NRC which was
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uh communalized in a in an astonishing way especially by the chief minister of
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Assam who talked about this is ensuring the indigenous people of Assam who talked about this uh you know and and
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the um the dog whistle politics around it was clearly anti-muslim and polarizing but that wasn't the only uh
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anti-muslim phenomenon as we've seen there's a whole host of laws that were passed especially in BJP rulle states
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which ensured or sought to ensure a second-class citizenship status for Muslims including Myriad anti-conversion
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laws Myriad laws very much in quotes to stop love Jihad um mered laws about cows
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slaughter so an entire generation of especially young Muslim men being targeted and criminalized in ways that
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we have not seen in India before and perhaps more akin to the criminalization of young black men in the United States
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right so that was the first dimension of electoral accountability of course the CAA was the
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citizenship Amendment Act was talked about and uh discussed in and and
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proposed in the first regime it actually was not enacted uh until the second regime but it did help with polarization
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of of the elect it the second question uh and and much more um uh meaningful in
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its impact on Indian politics was the 2017 finance bill which through a
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surreptitious money Bill issue uh money Bill route to override the rajas saaba
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veto not only retrospectively overturned judicial decisions that had found both
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the BJP and the Congress to have violated campaign Finance law laws but
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also granted full anonymity to parties in securing
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electoral bonds right and this was dual anonymity because you would not know who the donors are you do not know who the
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parties are now of course now now we know through the proceedings before The Supreme Court that it's only partial
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anonymity why because the ruling party knows who is donating money to which
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party but the opposition does not know who is donating money to which party now in a context in which
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supporting the opposition uh is Risky Business this is completely changed the
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scenario uh in which party funding Works in India right so that there's a lot of
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evidence from self- declaration by parties from reports by the RBI and the the State Bank of India which issues
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these bonds uh and uh the association of democratic reforms own research that
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most of the funding is coming from corporates and we know that because of the size of the bonds being bought which
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are in the crores not the lacks and we know that you know to just give you one statistic in the financial year of
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20178 over 95% of the Electoral Bonds were purchas were purchased for the
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benefit uh of the ruling party um and it
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formed a huge proportion of the bjp's overall funding right so this kind of
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um it's not even tilting the field it's almost squeezing out the opposition from
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any Financial um breathing space within the Electoral field which has and as we know the Supreme Court has taken its
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time I just mention it yeah and then the third element because you said there were three elements that account for
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accountability the third was the thought balloon about simultaneous pulls which
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we now know has been put into full gear and that has two bad effects on
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electoral accountability the first is it it moves the system closer to a presidential model we know that the
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presidential system it hasn't happened as yet has it it's only been talked about no it hasn't happened yet I think
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uh so let's then leave this discussion for Modi 2 because I think it's more
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Germaine to Modi 2 but I'll cap for the audience that the two ways in which the Modi government has made itself less
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accountable to the people one through a whole set of discriminatory laws that Target the Muslim Community that's
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virtually 15% of our population pretty close to 200 million and the second is the electoral bonds which confer the
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shroud of anonymity both on donors and on recipients and the major recipient as
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you said in 2017 94% was in fact the BJP let's then come to the second point the
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second point is that when it comes to accountability to State institutions like the opposition and the Judiciary
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most people would certainly readily accept that the Modi government is hardly accountable to the opposition in
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fact it's not accountable to the opposition at all but what about accountability to the Judiciary where
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has the Modi government failed on that count well so the one of the first acts
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of the Modi government and this was by the way with the support of perhaps a naive opposition because these are still
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early days and they thought this is this is going to be government as usual right was the uh was the Constitutional
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amendment to change judicial appointment system uh and and one of the features of the new appointment committee was a much
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much more stronger role to the executive um government in appointing judges now as we know that was struck down by the
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courts and the court uh said it it is going to retain the system of self-appointment of the Judiciary
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through the colleg collegium system now what has happened since is an astonishing and and since
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Indira Gandhi an unprecedented uh way in which the government
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has rejected resisted sat on exercised pocket veto of judicial nominees across
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the board from the high court to the Supreme Court it seems as if every single judicial appointment matters to
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this government in a huge way and if you look at the kinds of Judges that are being uh rejected whose appointment is
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being stopped by the government they are Judges who have a reputation for being independent or have found in cases uh
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you know decisions given judgments that have gone against the ruling party so that's that's I think remarkably
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unprecedented since at least uh the late 80s in India the second effort to
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compromise the Judiciary can I just interrupt there's no doubt that the point you're making is absolutely
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correct the government has stalled sometimes they simply refused to respond to nominations given by the Supreme
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Court it sat on them for not just months but even years at a time but there is a
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remedy in the hands of the Supreme Court which the Supreme Court has not exercised which is the power of contempt
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it could have acted against the law minister or the law secretary it's threatened on occasion by suggestion
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that it might but it hasn't done it so although the government has impinged on the Supreme Court isn't it equally true
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that the Supreme Court has the power to fight back hasn't exercised it and that suggests that when it's pushing the
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Supreme Court the Supreme Court is happy to be pushed that's absolutely true uh it is it is
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actually quite uh quite an indictment of our court
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now we should not expect a lot of courts in a democracy the court or in any
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system actually the court is the least dangerous Branch the only Power it has is the power of the pen and ultimately
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enforcement of judicial orders remain with the executive the second point I was about to mention about uh about
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courts is the executive is simply ignored judicial orders like in the adhar case about not making adhar
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mandatory right so the if the Judiciary sees its orders that go against the
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government being ignored that there becomes another big question before courts how far can they push and
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completely make the institution a laughing stalk the third thing they've done is politically rewarded judges
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after retirement by giving them governorships by making them MPS in Parliament we know about the infamous
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president conference in 2018 in Justice lawyer's investigation case that led to the press conference where very senior
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judges are talking about there's something rotten in the state of Denmark right um the open call in 2018 to defy
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the sabala Judgment in in Kerala so all of this creates an
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atmosphere a signal to the judges that this government is going to fight back
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it's not going to abide by the usual so in some ways courts rely on a sense
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of constitutional civility or we can call it constitutional shame right it's a way of doing
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things right you you do certain things not because any other consequence will
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follow but you live in a civil society where you you know your neighbor needs help you offer that help because that's
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it's civil to do that governments that don't care about it don't need to worry about courts you're saying that in its
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Defiance of the court whether it's rhetorical or that it's in terms of action this government has been so
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lacking in civility to be almost forgive my using that word Shameless oh it's it's been totally
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constitutionally Shameless and even a even a brave court has to be a pragmatic Court I'm not defending the Supreme
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Court I think a lot of these things could have been nipped in the bud if the court drew a hard line right from the
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beginning because the government also becomes um you know more Brazen once it knows that it can get away with things
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right so the more the court steps back the more it's it's an Institutional um
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fight uh but you know as the court itself is changing character with more prover
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appointees this will change too now the third level of accountability is to the
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media to academic critics to the universities and to Civil Society organizations again many people would
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agree that the Modi government has failed to be accountable at this level to all three of the institutions I've
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mentioned you accept that this is where the Modi government's deliberate lack of
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accountability becomes most glaring of all um I would agree with that um so I
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should qualify my response by saying that the the legal and judicial record of
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protection of civil liberties in India whether it's press Freedom whether it's free speech whether it's freedom of
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Association uh freedom of movement things that Civil Society needs to flourish has never been particularly
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strong right um we have always had a lacad isical Judicial approach to civil
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liberties the reason why these things nonetheless flourished was because the governments in the past have again been
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relatively benign and relatively civil in their engagement with civil societies they would go after certain types of
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activities but the bar for that kind of lawfare or even illegal violence
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against Civil Society actors was quite high with previous governments this government has lowered the bar
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enormously so it's not just anti-state activities or separatist activities which would trigger violence from
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previous governments anti-arty activities anti- party statements
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anti-government anti prime minister statements is enough to trigger the the
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not only the legal Machinery but also the violence it's the violence uh the naked Criminal it of going after
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journalists after students after activists whether it's a gor Lan murder or the violence against jnu students or
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how the ca protests were handled right that also puts sets India apart in the
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global scene because it's the naked use of violence that is distinctive against Civil Society in the Indian case and I
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think that's uh it's it's really quite appalling we even 10 years ago I don't think any of us you or I would have
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imagined India would be where it is today where any of us saying anything in public have to think twice about whether
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we'll get away with it would you say that the treatment of journalists just to just to pick on that in particular
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under Modi is worse than the treatment of journalists under the emergency that because this is Insidious and creeping
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and it imposes people to want to sensor themselves for fear of what will be the consequence it's worse than the outright
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in yourface censorship of 75 would you agree with that or would you disagree I would give a complicated
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answer to that uh in one sense the emergency was much worse because you know if you're in prison you can't do
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anything at all um and if uh if there is clear censorship then you can't write anything right but what is different and
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this is different with the Modi regime across the board is is the in this this very
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insidiousness uh a creates a climate of fear where you don't know where the line
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is right even in the emergency the line was relatively clear you knew knew what not to cross right here the self
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censorship becomes particularly important and second it's very hard to mobilize and find allies against what's
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going on because it's hard to see what's going on you know it's it's again the the the chipping away the minor cut so
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so in that sense it is worse than the emergency because you know the people of India had no doubt about what what
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happened in the emergency and they threw Indra Gandhi out of power in the election that followed that narrative is
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much harder to build today quite right it's happening behind Clos doors in journalist offices or sometime even in
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the minds of journalists it's not happening in a way in which the public and readily recognize what's happening
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absolutely can I just mention one more Point here Karen which is uh the use of corporate power to silence uh media as
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well is is different here because the government through its crony capitalist through its capitalist friends has also
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been buying up dissenting media houses that is a global phenomenon it's been used very effectively in India as well
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and also I might add the government uses corporate plan another way it sends signals to advertisers that a particular
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program or a particular channel is not considered friendly thus indicating we would prefer you not to support or
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advertise on this and most corporates fall in line to the government because they don't want to endanger the rest of
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their relationship with the government let's then take an overview at this point of the Modi first government 2014
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to 2019 you right and I'm quoting you institutional mechanisms are undermined
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when their power relative to the political executive is diminished they are captured when party loyal let's take
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over the functioning of these institutions and make them plant to the executive which of the two apply to the
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first Modi government have they undermined institutions or captured them or possibly done
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both it depends on the institution so um the institutions that were relatively easier to capture were uh those that are
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directly within the gift of the executive so things like Governor's offices the CBI the enforcement director
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all of which have been misused by previous governments but not to the same extent and not for such a low threshold
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trigger that the Modi government has been doing with this the naked blatant partisanship that we are seeing is quite
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different so I think it's quite appropriate to say that these institutions have been captured by the Modi government even when compared to
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previous governments a whole host of other accountability seeking mechanisms I think they have been undermined in the
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first regime and you know we talked about the courts but also whole poost of
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what what are called fourth Branch or guarantor institutions like Election Commission like RBI like um you know
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various accountability seeking bodies and capturing is the end point it's the goal you undermine and you chip away and
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eventually you come to control the institution either financially or through the Personnel so they lie on a
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spectrum and I imagine the treatment of Parliament and in fact of parliamentary select committees is a particularly
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woring example of how a major institution is undermined absolutely absolutely and we've only recently last
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week seen the appalling unconstitutional conduct of the Ethics Committee in the mahua MRA case now you say the Modi
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government has sought to legitimize its undermining and capturing of Institutions and it's that that I want
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to turn to at this moment you say this legitimization has happened a through
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its discourse of hyper nationalism secondly through its promised property
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decisiveness and efficiency and thirdly through what you call its welfarist developmental populist discourse are you
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saying that nationalism hindutva and populist welfare policies are the facade
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or disguise behind which the Modi government has deliberately eroded and imperiled India's democracy this is
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provided the screen behind which they've got on to do whatever they wanted to
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do no I I don't think I would say that I think there's a key difference between modi's style of
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authoritarianism and say Trump's authoritarianism in the US where um for
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for the Trump regime uh Power Wass its own reward right uh so Trump would say
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and do whatever would keep him keep him keep him in power the Modi government
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the BJP in power is a is a committed ideological party and its agenda of
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Hindu which is to translate IND India into indu Hindu rashtra is Central to
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and it's genuinely committed to that agenda now the Hindu rashtra is democratic in a limited sense so it's
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part of the agenda of making India a into a Hindu rashtra is that democracy
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becomes what Southeast Asian Nations um have called a guided democracy right
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where the opposition Works in a very constrained limited space there is a hegemonic ruling party so you know Amit
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Sha's brag about 50 years of BJP rule I it's not just political bracking I think
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there is a concerted systemic strategic effort to bring that about so I think um
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undermining democracy and hindutva are part of the same coin and hand in hand for give my interrupting so what you're
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saying is hindutva is not a facade or a disguise it is the actual intent of the government and a coroller of that intent
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is the undermining of democracy or it may not even be a corer it is perhaps the purpose of that inent too precisely
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because if you if if you imagine a democratically committed party it is a party that will accept that sometimes it
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has to sit in the opposition which means that sometimes its ideology will not form the policy of the state right say a
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left Socialist Party will know that sometimes the state will not be left socialist but the Hindu ideology does
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not permit that the state itself and not just the government of the day must be a Hindu rashtra now beyond the
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legitimization that we've talked about you also say that this assault on
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democracy was Cor cerated and in a sense enhanced by the way and I'm quoting you now the political opposition was
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constrained especially by targeting the offices and institutions in which it still held sway such as the upper
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chamber in the federal Parliament state governments that it controll and the office of the leader of the opposition I
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presume you could add to that the opposition's own failure to resist or at
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least effectively fight back against what the government's doing so not just the weakening of the opposition but the
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opposition's failure to resist that has in a way enhanced and corroborated this
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attack and assault on Democracy I think we need to make a distinction here between uh different parts of the
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opposition so I think uh in fact the the main if not the sole fight back to the
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Modi regime has come from as parts of the opposition the regional parties especially in Bengal the arm admy party
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in Delhi uh the Shiva or at least part of the ships C now in Maharashtra and some of the Southern parties especially
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in Tamil Nadu right so and they've been very Valiant because for them they know the question is existential right if
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they so while all the institutions of the state have rolled over including the courts have sort of held back the
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opposition the regional parties have put up a very vant fight at huge personal and political cost sometimes to
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themselves the main failure of the opposition has been the failure of the main opposition party the Congress and
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it's uh its failure has partly been the dysfunction within the party of taking years and it's cost India daily of
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figuring out its own leadership and not taking the leadership
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uh to secure the opposition Unity that is completely
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aanon in a situation like this if you have to fight a hegemonic party the main opposition party has to show magnanimity
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has to show alacrity they should have happened in 2019 not in 2023 right so
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that is where the failure has been and I think if the Congress had acted and behaved differently the story of India
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would have been quite different today this is where the crisis in Congress becomes in fact a crisis for Indian
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democracy absolutely and which is why uh what happens within the party is not
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just a personal business of the party as Democratic citizens we all should care about the health of our parties
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especially the opposition parties finally there are what you call Design flaws in the Constitution which have
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permitted the Constitution to be killed with a Thousand Cuts what are the sort of design flaws you have in
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mind no Constitution is perfect and every Constitution is a product of its time we have a very good constitution on
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the whole but there are serious uh shortcomings I think the most important design flow in our constitution is the
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retention of centrally appointed governors in States uh and a relatively
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centralized system of federalism uh where states have limited rights and we've seen how the govern have been
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weaponized in unprecedented manner under this government the second is an inadequate protection of opposition
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rights we don't have a constitutionalized Office of the leader of opposition we don't have opposition
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days in Parliament where uh the opposition every once one day a week controls the agenda of parliament sets
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the agenda we don't have a minimum number of days that Parliament must sit we don't the Constitution also delegated
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to Parliament to decide how its guarantor Branch institutions will be peopled but Parliament has not done that
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which gives the executive the power to appoint all sorts of officers election we've seen the fight over the election
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commission with the Supreme Court right so so these are just the the aspects of the Constitution where there was too
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much trust in the executive and I think constitutions framed with a with a neheru or a Mandela in mind can
34:16
sometimes be myopic because they don't they don't think about life after their
34:21
neeru and Mandela and there similar shortcomings in the South African con can I put it like this if you design a
34:26
Constitution with heru and Mandela in mind you aren't envisaging the possibility that people of lesser
34:33
caliber people whose intentions may not be so honorable could one day sit in the same powerful seats that these men have
34:39
sat in that's the failing in quotations of the Constitution not to envisage how
34:45
vile men can be absolutely and that there will be an indraa Gandhi or a Jacob Zumo or a nendra Modi who will
34:51
occupy the same office and who will not have that same commitment to democracy Now professor K you make one more point
34:58
about the first Modi government you say and I'm quoting you the systemicity of its assaults on all accountability
35:05
seeking mechanisms made it different from previous governments which had all
35:10
been constitutionally naughty every now and then the subtlety and incrementalism
35:15
of its assaults distinguished it from direct assaults and constitutionalism
35:21
during the emergency so has the Modi government and this is my question has
35:26
the Modi government placed India's democracy in Greater Peril than any
35:31
other earlier government um that's a tough question to
35:38
answer because reasons why Indira Gandhi ended the emergency and called for
35:44
elections remain mysterious and there was no compulsion she her hand was
35:50
certainly not forced there was no external force that uh that made her do that and she could have us easily
35:57
remained in power for the next decade or so so in that sense the fact that elections will happen and that the
36:03
opposition howsoever minuscule has a chance to perhaps at least fight and and
36:08
come to power Indian democracy is in a better State than under the emergency it's in a worse State than the Indra
36:15
Gandhi regime because it's we' sleepwalked into into authoritarianism because we don't we're not aware of the
36:22
danger our democracy and our constitution is in and that is that is is what makes this regime much more
36:29
dangerous because uh the kind of urgency the the kind of sense of Siege uh that
36:36
democracy is under uh is absent which means that the mobilization and the fightback has not been of the same
36:42
quality that it was under the emergency so what you're saying when you say and I think I'm quoting you correctly we've
36:49
sleepwalked into authoritarianism is that the people of India or maybe the institutions of India
36:55
or maybe the opposition that is the most important political opposition to the government none of these three
37:02
categories were aware of what was happening realized what was happening and the extent to which it was happening
37:07
in other words they had their eyes shut that well that is indeed the case
37:13
but this is also harder to see so it's just that the autocrats of today are much smarter and uh to to some extent
37:20
lack of constitutional literacy is also to be blamed right when we when we equate democracy with elections and
37:27
forget that there's a lot else that goes into designing a democracy the second and the third Dimensions that I talked
37:32
about um we we it's it's harder to see when elections are still happening that democracy might be under threat
37:38
absolutely but before I turn to the second Modi government there's a very interesting thought that will perhaps
37:44
have crystallized in the minds of the audience the Modi government 20149 is guilty of killing the
37:51
Constitution with a Thousand Cuts but equally the rest of the country were
37:56
asleep and let it happen asleep and let it happen and I would say perhaps also complicit and
38:03
because they were asleep because they were actually helping as well huge suedes of the state
38:10
Machinery uh you know the bureaucracy people in institutions of
38:16
power a lot of them must know what's going on and to either allow it to happen or become scared and letting it
38:23
happen or wanting it to happen it's happened that's what we know we we can't get into their minds right but the
38:31
fact that they did not stand up for the Constitution I think is a huge indictment and I think history will judge these people very harshly so again
38:37
to put it in colloquial language what Mr Modi has done in the last 10 years to our Constitution and our democracy is if
38:43
I can use that cial word hateful but equally what is hateful is that some of
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us were asleep and others because they allowed it to happen were complicit in
38:54
other words they are also to to some extent hateful in their either lack of response or in their complicity
39:01
precisely okay let's then at this point Professor ketan turned to the second Modi government I'm going to quote
39:08
something you wrote A couple of years ago and ask whether you still stand by it or whether the situation has got much
39:13
worse in the two three years since he wrote that sentence here's the sentence you say since it's resounding victory in
39:20
the 2019 general elections the Modi government appears to have moved into
39:25
consolidation mode has it simply Consolidated or when you look back over
39:30
the 2 three years since you wrote that sentence has it gone much beyond the consolidation yeah so I wrote that
39:37
sentence uh shortly after the 2019 elections when the when the new government had taken taken office and
39:45
what I underestimated what I did not see then was just how important the Hindu
39:53
rashtra agenda will become to the second regime um and
39:59
this so 2019 Victory gave a Swagger to the government it became overconfident
40:06
and it decided that the subtle incremental cautious step-by-step agenda
40:12
was perhaps unnecessary that it could do things in a more full frontal way so we
40:18
immediately saw uh the 370 uh declaration in Kashmir removal of 3
40:23
article 370 we saw the citizenship Amendment Act being enacted we saw the farm farm bills being pushed through
40:29
right and a lot of the the brazenness that was not there in the first regime
40:34
suddenly became visible and and I had underestimated um when I said consolidation and by the way this hurt
40:41
the regime right because with the kind of mobilization for example that we saw
40:47
against the citizenship Amendment act with tens of thousands of people
40:52
marching across India and if the pandemic had not happened that would have continued for much longer or the
40:59
kind of opposition to the farm bills we did not see in the first regime right so an overc confident regime also painted a
41:06
target a much clearer Target than than the incremental so in some ways the caution was thrown to the win uh by the
41:14
second regime so yes there was consolidation in the way that we have seen with the uh with the law on
41:21
Election Commission the aggressiveness towards the Judiciary increased manifold uh the Governors became a lot more
41:27
Brazen so all of the things that were happening more subtly certainly the they they stepped on the accelerator but the
41:34
Hindu agenda you know the entire point of Hindu is symbolism the Hindu rashtra is a symbolic ideal so incrementalism
41:43
doesn't work there step by step soov subtl does not work there the point is to shut from the rooftops right and that
41:50
is what uh is a defining feature of the second regime in my view let me ask you a specific question about Hindu and the
41:57
Hindu rra clearly it's acquired a much sharper cultural focus in Modi 2 than in
42:04
Modi one I'm referring to things like the citizenship Amendment act the handling of Kashmir the sangal in
42:10
Parliament the persecution of Muslims in up and new and of course using the name bhat in place of India but is this
42:17
simply all taken together s simply undermining our democracy or is it also
42:23
changing the character of the country it's it's defining or redefining who we
42:31
are as a people so it's it's fundamental you know you can say what
42:37
you will about the RSS the one thing they don't lack is patience this has been a
42:42
single-minded focused agenda of the RSS for decades and finally come to fruition
42:49
I think uh effectively I would say we are very close to if not already have achieved Hindu rashtra except the form
42:56
declaration that might be waiting the the the the second class
43:02
citizenship uh of non-hindus is now enshrined in our laws like the
43:07
citizenship Amendment act uh the kind of uh mob violence we see across the
43:12
country so and what we have not seen is a clear ideological
43:19
alternative to Hindu bhat joro was important in trying to get that message
43:24
across through action but actions have to be matched by uh by words and BJP is a master in coining memorable phrases
43:33
right but you know the Congress could have thought about an alternative like hindustani right which which has which
43:41
could have been imbued with ideas of a tolerance for pluralism a tolerance for difference of of of being happy with
43:50
difference around you right so we have not seen that counter uh way to belong
43:56
what what does it mean to be an Indian today quite right once again the inability of the opposition to counter
44:03
the message of hindutva with an alternative Paradigm of its own has assisted hindutva in changing what I
44:10
call the character of the country what you call redefining us as the sort of people we are a second key aspect of
44:17
Modi 2 is questions that are raised by people like the vice president whether there is a basic structure to the
44:24
Constitution and the whole debate about whether we need a new Constitution that
44:29
debate is certainly flowing not subterraneous but fairly at the surface at the moment do you see this again as a
44:36
threat to democracy or is this questioning of the Constitution being wrongly
44:43
understood so we should notice a a mode
44:48
in which this government functions right it has a very radical agenda to to change not just Indian government but
44:55
not just Indian constitution but the Indian people right and the way it works is its most radical ideas are first
45:02
floated as thought Balloons by relative outsiders with plausible deniability and
45:07
then that agenda is repeated adium to normalize it and then eventually enacted right like we've seen this with
45:13
simultaneous polls and this might be happening so I think what is we are currently in the phase of the the thought balloon phase of uh of changing
45:21
replacing the Constitution right now that is politically risky for the BJP because U India's D population is a
45:29
reverence for the Constitution because of its association with Dr edar so so how this will play out remains to be
45:35
seen I think they're they're they're gauging the popular reaction by by by floating the ideas but yes if they do
45:41
decide if they I think a lot will turn on how whether they win and how they win in 2024 if they win big and if they
45:48
think they can take that political risk and if they decide to go ahead we may well have a new Constitution and um it
45:56
will remain Democratic by the way but Democratic in a very constrained very minimalistic way because a small
46:02
constrained opposition that allows the regime to call itself Democratic is
46:07
hugely useful internationally I mean in in that legitimizing role that the label
46:13
democracy uh focuses but yeah we will become a guided democracy with a
46:18
hegemonic party system so at the moment all this talk about whether there is a basic structure or not whether we need a
46:24
new constitution not is incipient threat whether it materializes into a real threat will depend critically on how big
46:31
a majority Mr Modi can win in 20124 that's another reason why 300 plus plus
46:38
could be very worrying for the future of India's character as a democracy absolutely and I I suspect that well at
46:46
least it'll be politically wiser for them instead of making a new constitution to do something like the
46:51
42nd Amendment which was in effect a new constitution but done not as a con stion
46:56
replacement but through the process of amendment because you can still pay lip service to Dr edar and still move to a
47:02
presidential system get rid of federalism and do all the other things and and inin Hindu rashtra things that
47:08
they want to do and the interesting thing by the way is this talk about moving the system from a parliamentary
47:14
to a presidential was also something that was discussed during the emergency if I recall correctly and correct me if
47:19
I'm wrong BK heru wrote a paper on the subject advocating a switch from a parliamentary to a president democracy
47:27
and he was incidentally Indra Gandhi's Uncle of first cousin it also came up in
47:32
the vpai regime if you recall the part the Constitution Review Committee was set up precisely for this task and was
47:38
President narayan's intervention whether the Constitution has failed us or have we failed the Constitution that killed
47:44
that idea because that was a constitutionally civil regime and by the way the presidential system is every
47:50
elected autocrats W dream that is what they all want absolutely now
47:56
a third aspect of Modi 2 are attempts to downsize or clip the wings of
48:01
established institutions and political entities I'm referring to the election commission I'm referring to the powers
48:08
of the Delhi government I'm referring even to this inent debate now we have a
48:13
formal committee investigating the matter whether we should have simultaneous elections or not because if they happen it will certainly ensure
48:20
that the autonomy of state legislatures will be curtailed so they can synchronize with the national
48:25
legislature again how serious is all of this in terms of the undermining of India's
48:31
democracy oh this is hugely serious I think in some ways they have already replaced the Constitution and in some
48:38
ways Hindu rashtra is already here you know the former announcement is awaited these changes um will entrench the
48:45
ruling party will realize the 50-year uh Reign that that Amit sha dreams of so uh
48:51
and you know a brave Judiciary a functional Judiciary a Judiciary that was that that saw the dangers and did
48:58
not sit on cases for four years uh could have nipped in the in the bud but now
49:03
much water has flown and now the Judiciary itself is scared uh or
49:09
compromised or unwilling to act for reasons that we don't understand uh all of these things will
49:15
fundamentally change all the accountability mechanisms the the most dangerous branch has become uh even more
49:24
dangerous which case one last question has the Peril to India's democracy
49:29
increased or at least become more widespread and comprehensive and not limited just to a few areas under the
49:36
second Modi government or would that be an exaggeration no it has increased
49:41
compared to I compared to the first government uh I think the government's uh Swagger after the 19 2019 elections
49:49
um has made it a lot less cautious but the mask has also slipped and it's and
49:56
this is this is perhaps a hopeful optimistic note right the CAA protests
50:02
uh changed the international at least complicated the international coverage of the regime from the first regime it
50:09
was largely still seen as a reformist modernist government that will do good to India right so the international
50:15
press has become much more complicated and domestically many more people realize because of the full-frontal uh
50:22
aspects of some of the things that have happened in the second regime that uh that there's something fundamental and
50:28
existential at stake here this is not just another government trying to do uh
50:33
trying to enact its policy so uh so yes it has being more blatant but that blatant has come at a cost that the
50:41
incremental subtle behind the scenes activities are are a bit more obvious a
50:46
bit more seen a bit more visible as you said the Swagger of the government has grown but its mask at the same time has
50:54
slipped which if I to if I were to misuse the king Canute analogy what
50:59
you're saying is his majesty is strutting for far more obviously but his clothes are becoming transparent I could
51:06
not have put it better Professor kathan thank you very much for this interview I think you've opened the eyes of my
51:12
audience to a whole range of issues I'm not sure whether you will be fondly
51:18
remembered by the Modi government itself because I think you've exposed a lot that they've done but I think there are
51:24
many others in this country who will be deeply grateful for the analysis that you've offered it will be controversial
51:29
no doubt there will be people in the Modi government who will criticize you but there will be many others who will say thank God he's explained things to
51:36
us thank you very much indeed thank you very much it's been a pleasure talking to you hi I'm Karan harer over the last
51:43
few years I hope you've been watching my program the interview on The Wire during that period I've interviewed doctors
51:49
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52:32
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