 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjali Guha Thakurtha and we are going to discuss the state of democracy in India. We keep describing our country as the world's largest democracy, whereas others have described this country as a failed democracy, as an electoral autocracy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 15th of August, described India as the mother of democracies. So what is democracy in the Indian context? Its strengths, its limitations, its successes and failures. To discuss this subject, I'm very happy to welcome to the studio of NewsClick, Professor K. C. Suri. Dr. Suri retired recently from the University of Hyderabad, the Department of Political Science. He's been a teacher for 38 years and an ardent observer and analyst of India's democracy. Professor Suri, let me start by asking you a question about the report that was presented in March 2022 by this Swedish institute called Varieties of Democracy Institute, VDEM Institute. And the report had a year ago in 2021 described India as an electoral autocracy. They work out this kind of a index, a liberal democracy index and they have claimed that India's position has worsened and it is among the top 10 autocratizing nations. And the democratic slide is continuing in India and India falls into the category of countries like Brazil, Turkey and Hungary where there's been a downslide. And this particular report says that all this has happened largely after 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India and naturally the Government of India is not at all happy with such a report and says that these reports are by western organizations based on flawed methodologies. So this is my first, your observations on this particular report. I think there are several organizations for Anjai who are engaged in assessing democracies all over the world. There are four or five agencies which are well known throughout the world like Freedom House, then there is this institute called International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm. There is Economic Intelligence Unit based in London and there's varieties of democracy project that is called VEDEM project now. It is founded and led by a professor called Stefan Lindbergh. It is based in the university, basically, Gothenburg in Sweden. One difference between the VEDEM methodology and the methodologies that are followed by other organizations. I will tell you a couple of them to three of them so that we can appreciate what they are saying. There are two ways of measuring democracy. Democracy is understood as a system of government in which people are free to choose their governments in a free, fair and periodical election and in which opposition parties have a reasonable chance of coming to power and the choices are made in an environment where information is available to the citizens freely and from different alternative channels of information. So these are generally, this is a minimum, at the minimal level the democracy is understood by most of these agencies. So there is a minimalist, it's called a thinner perspective of democracy which is the Freedom House follows, that's where it stops. But then the VEDEM is on the other extreme of the continuum. It adds some more attributes. So two attributes which most organizations follow in assessing democracy in a world, in a particular country, they are political rights and civil rights. These are the two, which are the minimal criteria. Then there are others who added a few more and this VEDEM adds three more. These are basically the two important of them are the participatory and deliberative aspects of democracy. The participatory aspects are those that where citizens actually feel kind of some kind of efficacy in participating in politics, that they feel that they matter in the society. And this goes beyond voting. It goes beyond voting. So it's not just you exercise your franchise at the national level once in five years and at the state level or at the Punjab level. It's also not merely exercising certain freedoms of speech and expression but it also goes beyond equality aspects, rule of law, participation in politics, political awareness. And then there is the deliberative aspects. How far you are communicating with others, what kind of discussions you are having, whether you have discussions, whether you watch news, etc. So there are certain deliberative aspects. So VEDEM people have developed quite a complex methodology to assess democracies of the world and they regard it as a kind of a thicker view of democracy. That's how the distinctions are made. Let me take you up on one of the points that you mentioned and that's important in a democracy, the opposition, the role of the opposition in a democracy. And let me just draw your attention to a recent remark, a recent article that was published in print on the 27th of June by this writer by the name of Kapil Gommi Reddy and he is the author of a book called Malvolent Republic, A Short History of the New India. And he says, I quote him, democracies can survive authoritarianism. They cannot survive the absence of an energetic opposition. And he says that is the great paradox of Indian democracy that there are citizens uprising but the opposition is fragmented, divided. There is institutional decay even as their attempts at civic reclamation and the fury of citizens get dispersed. So one of the reasons what many attribute to the weakness of the working of institutions responsible for upholding and strengthening democracy in India is the fragmentation and the weakness of the opposition, your observations and comments. Yes, I think just before I come to this point, let me finish one more aspect related to your earlier question. Okay. That is, like all of these three institutions including Veedam, its reports and assessments of democracy in a country are based on what are known as expert surveys. So these are not public opinion surveys. So there are two ways of assessing democracy in a world through a cross-sectional public opinion surveys and through expert surveys. So all these institutions, whether it is Freedom House or EIU Intelligence Unit or International Idea or Veedam, they are primarily based on the perceptions of country experts. That's about Veedam. Now coming to your question on opposition, I think opposition is central to democracy. That's how democracies have evolved. The first democracies of the world, say Britain and France, the opposition evolved from the beginning itself. You know, you heard about the Vixen Tories in England and the very idea of democracy, I think rests on the belief that truth doesn't exist in one place and truth can be spoken by somebody else who is not in majority. So respecting minority for the good of the majority, not for the sake of minority itself, because if truth is known, everybody will benefit. So I think we should defend opposition to an idea or to a majority and not for the sake of minority alone. So the freedom of speech and expression of an individual is what supporting, not for that sake of that individual alone, but for the sake of larger society. And the second thing that there is always opposition in society, paranjay, there is no society in which people are not divided on a particular view or on a particular thing because people have different experiences, people come from different backgrounds and people have different perspectives of the reality. So there are always division of opinions and that society which tolerates a difference of opinion always prospers. That's interesting. This is a historical thing and I think in democracy that gets institutionalized, that's the only difference. It's very interesting that you say this about that a fundamental right of every Indian citizen. Article 19a of the Constitution of India, it's a fundamental right of every citizen. Article 192 which is more contentious talks about the reasonable restrictions and the debate goes on about what is reasonable, what is unreasonable, be that as it may. One of the factors that help strengthen democracy is a vibrant media. And unlike NewsClick, much of the media in India, a very substantial section of the media in India seems to have abdicated or I would say not seems has abdicated its role as holding truth to power, asking difficult questions of those who are in power and then seem to be more interested in bashing the opposition. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first prime minister of India who has never addressed an unscripted press conference or media conference where anybody can ask him anything. He has given interviews to selected individuals including an actor from a Canada citizen who is also one of India's or if not India's highest income taxpayer who asks some questions like how do you eat your mango? I'm saying right from the top till now it seems that freedom of expression and the freedom of India is under a huge threat and that is weakened democracy. What are your views? I think democracy rests on this fundamental condition that people should get information freely from different sources because the reality out there is not one, it's how you see it and only when people are allowed to tell others what they see the reality and that will allow citizens to form what we call more informed views. There are scholars who worked on democracy, they mentioned this as kind of one of the important criterion to assess a democracy whether there is a free media. But if the media as you are saying that if some people in the media have not stood up to that kind of an understanding of conveying what they think is truth to the people in a fearless manner that's not good for democracy. I think the purpose of the media is to tell people and report to them what is reality and give sufficient space to them to decide for themselves. I think if that happens democracy can be much more robust and vibrant. Okay, Professor Suri, 75 years of independence and we've seen large sections of the foreign media not the Indian media being very critical about the state of democracy in India. There's several articles which have appeared in well known publications like the New York Times, Time Magazine, Washington Post, I can go on and on and on where they have been very critical about the state of Indian democracy and I'll just give you one headline from the Associated Press which is a leading news agency an article written by Sheikh Salik on the 12th of August 2022. The headline reads at 75 India's democracy is under pressure like never before. Would you agree with that view? Yeah, when it comes to the perceptions of western scholars and western media about Indian democracy they have been skeptical about the survival of Indian democracy from the beginning. 1950s many of them said it's not right to introduce democracy in India at that point of time because they thought that it was premature because the preconditions for democracy were not there in India and India was a vast society with great heterogeneity and India was a poor country and it has a large population. These are three conditions because the scholars have established three conditions that country has to be small and homogeneous and it should be reasonably prosperous. In fact there were people who worked out a figure of what should be the average annual income of citizens for 462 years. When women were allowed to vote in India in 1951 and 1952 women of Switzerland were not allowed to vote. So there were fears because they said two things that India cannot be simply a democracy because it is as I said illiterate and then it is also diverse such a huge diverse country because illiteracy was about 12 percent and it was a poor country so much of the languages, religions etc and they were also even skeptical about the survival of India as our nation not male as a democracy. So what we have traveled so far in these 75 years? I will tell you that many democracy scholars in the West did not recognize India as a democracy till the late 1980s. They didn't include in their study of democracies all over the world they didn't include India and I know Robert Dahl who said that now India is a candidate for democracy that was in 1980s after emergency. So only recently they started in 1990s they started calling India a democracy earlier it was the freedom house was there it was called partly democracy. So I think in my view Paranjay Indian democracy has gained strength in over the last 75 years. And I'm interrupting you here how would you trace the trajectory of Indian democracy from 2014 onwards specifically the last eight and a half years of the Narendra Modi regime? I think there are certain positives and there are certain negatives in this period. The positives are first of all let me speak about the positives. The positives are now we have a situation where there is a party at the national level which is national in the sense that it is spread all over the country earlier it was not there there was there was the Congress and then there was the regional parties and there was Janatha experiment and the BJP is now the pole of the polity of course which the Congress was for several decades. So we have at least in 2014 I thought that here we have two big parties the Congress and the BJP which is good for the country in the sense that there will be Congress has become very weak or period it is in power on its own in two states in Rajasthan and that's the problem it's in power it only in as a coalition partner in Jharkhand. I think that's the problem I think that's your question again on the opposition unless you have a equally nation a party with the nationwide spread you cannot have a healthy democracy. So the regional part there are strong regional parties there but they are most of them are family forms. So how do we really at least in 2014 that was the situation as you rightly said Congress declined over the years and it's not able to look at the gap in 2014 between the Congress and the BJP that widened in 2019. Yeah and it widened in 2019 so that's the problem I think. So you would lay the blame more on the Indian National Congress for the current state of India's democracy. I don't blame I just look at the situation I'm not blaming anyone I'm saying that for whatever reasons maybe the leadership crisis or maybe Raul Gandhi is able to galvanize that kind of a nation or unable to galvanize. Yeah unable that's what I'm doing I don't say fail unable to galvanize that kind of a. We are waiting for the elections to happen in October. Yeah and on the second positive I see is that in any democracy Paranjay that parties which have which are more ideologically oriented whether they are on the right side or the left side it's good if they come to power communists came to power in Bengal communists came power into power in Canada. Communists are no longer in power but then all states other than Kerala but then they also get democratized. So are you trying to say that there is a link between the internal democracy within a party and democracy. What I'm saying is that you could say that the BJP internally is as undemocratic as the Congress. I'm not talking about that that is another aspect about party organization I'm thinking of party ideology. So ideologically extreme parties when they come this happened all over the world it's not only in India when they come to power they become mainstream parties and they get moderated. So that is one possibility I'm saying that in 2014 when this party came it happened in before 1998 and 1999 then 2014 but the hope that's that's where the problem the hope that this party would get moderated or this ideology gets moderated and becomes liberal is not happening because of the because of the problem within all parties that are based on extreme ideology face this problem whether to moderate or not to moderate. There is always this ambivalence because if you moderate the fringe groups will abandon this if you don't moderate the the majority of people won't accept you. Would you see this do you see that this happening now within the Bharti Janta party? I think it has it has it has tried to moderate itself but this is ambivalent. All right that's where the problem is that these are the positive sides and they're also negative sides because at any point of time in a democracy when a party which is based on kind of cultural nationalism. BJP wants a Hindu rastra. I mean people will call it majoritarian 15 percent of the population one out of seven Indians if they don't consider them I mean they will not officially we call second-class citizens but effectively yeah they are and that's the message going through yeah the RSS completes a hundred years in 2025. Correct so I think what you're saying like media opposition etc. I think as a ruling party in a ruling party in any democracy you should also recognize that a healthy opposition and the healthy media is good for democracy but do you think Mr Modi recognizes that he has personalized politics in India like a few others me versus Rahul Gandhi. Do you really mean he's repeatedly talked about a congress Mukt Bharat opposition Mukt Bharat. There are three there can be one can imagine three dimensions of this. I don't reduce a discussion on democracy only to to persons there are there are certain cultural aspects there are certain institutional aspects there are certain leadership aspects. I think democracy has its own logic you cannot reverse it so the leaders will will have to recognize this and that pressure has to come from people and from civil society. Okay so I'm sorry I'm interrupting you we've almost run out of time so this is my last question to you and I know it's difficult for a professor to give a short answer try and give a short answer you know we are described as the world's largest democracy the United States is sometimes described as the world's oldest democracy Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 15th of August said India is the mother of democracy we can define it anyway how and I mean I'll give you another example writer Nantra Saigal I was reading something she wrote on the 13th of June 2022 in the wire where she questions is India really a democracy and the attacks on human rights individual freedoms makes a very skeptical she quotes Bob Dylan's line the answer my friend is blowing in the wind so if I can request you to give us your closing remarks on the current state of democracy or the health of democracy in India at present that's a good question I think India is a democracy and I am proud of it there are problems there are challenges that we should overcome and India has been facing these challenges both structural and cultural and institutional as well as in the domain of leadership so the whole problem with the medium report that we started talking about this classification is sometimes a problem when you say this person is good and this person is bad of course that results lot of tension in us but then there is something in between also that as you said health and quality it's not health is it's not that I get I'm I'm dead out suddenly or I am healthy suddenly it is a process so in this process you in a society encounters difficulties so one understanding of democracy Paranjay is instead of looking at democracy in terms of two categories either democracy or non-democracy I think that's the trap in which many people fall there is something in between that we are becoming democracy and this is a journey forever this is a journey for the individual how democratic I am in my life and how democratic the society or my group in their social life and how democratic my nation is in this line you know so look at 75 years the people's participation has increased their capacities to judge things have improved it's called water sophistication they are more sophisticated today and and I think in that sense democracy has gained but then there are challenges as as you rightly pointed out about the health of opposition about the media freedom and expression I think these are at the core of democracy and if these are not fostered nurtured and safeguarded you will not have a healthy democracy thank you so much professor suri for speaking to me and through me to the viewers of news click make up your mind do you agree with professor suri or not is indian democracy healthy or not he argues that we have to take a nuanced view but time alone will tell we have about a year and a half to go before the next general election thank you very much for being with us on news click keep watching this channel subscribe to this channel click on those buttons thank you very much for being with us