 I'm Salvaturbo Bonus. This week on India Outside In, is India really an electoral autocracy? Reporters of that border's Freedom House, the Economist, the Varieties of Democracy Institute, they've all come down hard on India, with the last of these VDEM, now labeling India a quote, electoral autocracy. Autocracy? It was Barack Obama who said in 2009 that quote, elections have consequences. And they have consequences much more in a parliamentary system like India's than in a presidential system like that in the United States or the kind of consensus politics we find in Western Europe. VDEM doesn't seem to understand the difference between a parliamentary system and a coalition government, which is certainly not what India has. If they want to chastise Westminster-style electoral autocracies, they might go for the United Kingdom where half the population has just been denied their European Union citizenship against their will. But the UK gets the all clear of ranking in the top tier of electoral liberal democracies. Now what's VDEM's beef against India? A catastrophic decline in press freedom they say. They say press freedom in India now ranks on the level of that in Pakistan. Now I'm not Indian but I do watch the Indian news and I have to say it's hard to take this seriously. If VDEM particularly decries India's tough defamation laws, well they were part of the 1947 Constitution. It criticizes the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the UAPA, that was passed in 1967 under the Congress Party. And this is the richest of all, they criticize India's sedition laws, which date from the 1860 Indian penal code. It's hard to see how any of that can be charged to the Narendra Modi BJP government. VDEM has a whole paragraph on the 2010 Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, which at least dates from the current millennium, but their objections can't be against the law itself. Since the law itself was passed under the Congress Party's Mamluan Singh, so it must be the Modi government they don't like for actually enforcing the law with a 2020 enforcement provision that actually put teeth into the law that already existed. Well, it's no surprise that an international NGO, like the Varieties of Democracy Institute, would protect its own. The Economist makes a lot of the same complaints about press freedom, but their top example, and I'm serious here, their top example of repression of the press in India is the fact that Arnab Goswami, who is admittedly a pro-regime journalist, got a bail hearing, wait, after just one week in jail. That's right, the Economist is criticizing India for taking only one week to let a journalist out on bail. They wanted him to be locked up longer. That's what the Economist wanted to see, a journalist in jail, don't give him bail. If you give him bail, we're going to ding you for repressing freedom of the press. It's such a bizarre, but the new kid, the big kid on the block is freedom house, not the new kid. They're the old kid on the block. They earlier this month demoted India from free to quote unquote, partly free among their reasons. And again, I'm not kidding. So I'll give you a direct quotation, quote, Uttar Pradesh approved a law that prohibits forced religious conversion. So in other words, forced religion conversion, religious conversion is fine. If you prohibit it, we'll say that you are repressing civil rights. You no longer have freedoms. Oh, and again, there's a story about repression of the media. But this time it was repression of quote unquote, independent journalists that the Economist didn't like. In other words, people posting on Facebook of all of these complaints keep circling around to journalism. And thus ultimately to last year's damning evaluation from reporters without borders, RSF, as they are known in French, rate India's press freedom as 142nd in the world. That's in the bottom quarter of all countries ranked worse than free coup Myanmar, which was effectively ruled by the military, worse than today's post coup Thailand, which is ruled by the military south Sudan, Morocco's in Bobway. Now I'm not just throwing out these countries because they're poor. These are all countries with horrible repression, horribly violent repression where journalists are routinely beaten up and murdered. They all, well, I'm not sure about Morocco. Let me not disparage Morocco about murders, but Morocco is a pretty, pretty severe autocracy. All of these rank higher than India. Even Afghanistan beats India by 20 places in the press freedom index. Now I don't know much about freedom with the press in Afghanistan. I'm going to be honest, but if I had to be a journalist somewhere, I'd certainly round Kabul. Now reporters that were says that their ranking is heavily affected by the situation in Kashmir, where after rescinding the state's autonomy, that is making it a normal state of India, the federal government shut down fixed line and mobile internet communications completely for several months, making it virtually impossible for journalists to cover what was happening in what has become a vast open prison. Now, whatever the opinion of RSF on the situation in Kashmir, reporters didn't have their phone lines selectively shut down. What they're saying is if they don't like the policies in a particular area of a country, well, they're just going to make their rating based on it, whether or not it has anything to do with reporters. Again, I don't live in India, let alone Kashmir, but it's worth reminding people that there is an ongoing separatist insurgency in Kashmir, routine terrorist attacks and although losing internet access may make reporters work a little harder, it certainly doesn't make reporting impossible. In fact, I'm just old enough to remember a day before the internet. I guarantee you back before the internet, we still have reporting. Look, India has problems. I don't want to make light of all this in a country where communal violence is always just a hair trigger away where, well, there are three ongoing armed insurgencies in the country at any one moment. Good governance is inevitably a challenge. If you ask me, Modi and the BJP should lighten up a bit on journalists. I think it would probably be good for the country. Certainly it would be good for the country's reputation. They should repeal India's outdated security laws and make sure everyone, even Arnav Goswami, can get a bail heelering within 48 hours. Look, Modi and the BJP might even reflect on the fact that historically the UAPA has been much more often used against the BJP and the RSS than by them. But it's their country, not mine. This is a decision for them to make. Look, you know you're living in a democracy when you can fire your leaders and no one disputes that India is a country where elections do have consequences. You know you're living in a liberal democracy when you can speak your mind and get away with it. Anyone who has ever read the Indian press knows that you can definitely disagree with the government. It won't land you in jail. It won't find you murdered. If elite professors want to resign their positions from elite universities, I'm not going to argue with them. But I'd be more concerned if ordinary professors and ordinary journalists were being fired for their opinions, not resigning in protest. And that's what's happened, frankly, right here in Australia. Any democracy can be improved. I encourage Indians to improve theirs. But even more, I encourage organizations like Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, The Economist, Writers of Democracy Institute to reflect on their own research methods. These international rankings aren't based on any kind of objective, directly measurable values to know what international experts, many of them emigrate Indian intellectuals themselves, what they think about Marendra Modi and the BJP. They hate the BJP and they positively despise the erstwhile Chaiwala and Marendra Modi. Before these organizations make their evaluations, they should evaluate their own biases. Now, that's a tough ask. It's much easier to just hide behind the cloak of anonymity and give your prejudices free reign. That's India Inside In for Wednesday, March 24th, 2021. You can find the relevant links below in the description. Thanks for watching and join me next week for another edition of India Outside In.