‘A Wholesale
Attack on the Democratic System in India’
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok
Sabha, has been an uncompromising critic of the current regime, raising in his
public speeches at various forums the issue of assault on Indian democracy and
the Constitution. In a recent post he asked the Gen Z to defend democracy.
Recently, he went on a four-nation tour to South
Africa. On October 2,2025, addressing a seminar on The Future is Today
at the EIA University in Medellin, Colombia, he said the single biggest risk to
India is the attack on democracy. It is essential to understand what he is
saying. Responding to a comparison between India and China as development models
he said:
“India has tremendous potential. India has a completely
different system, whereas China is very centralised, uniform. India is decentralised,
and has multiple languages, multiple cultures, multiple traditions, multiple
religions. So, India is much more complex system and India’s strengths are not
necessarily China’s strengths. They are different. India also has old
traditional spiritual system, very profound old values which are very useful in
today’s world. The idea of non-violent political action comes from within the
deep Indian tradition. Mahatma Gandhi is the modern exponent of that.
I am very optimistic about India, but at the same
time, there are fault lines within the Indian structure, there are risks that
India has to overcome. The single biggest risk is the attack on the democracy
that is taking place in India. Different ideas, religions and traditions
require space. The best method for creating that space is the democratic
system. And currently, there is a wholesale attack on the democratic system in
India, so that is a risk. The other big risk is different conceptions,
different religions, different languages. Allowing these different traditions
to thrive, giving them space to express themselves, is very important for a
country like India. We can’t do what
China does, which is to suppress people and run an authoritarian system. Our
design just will not accept that.”
The rise of authoratianism in India under Modi is
quite unsettling. The democratic institutions – the media, the judiciary, the
bureaucracy, the investigating agencies - all are muzzled and controlled. The
central agencies are misused to target the political rivals and the critics. The
educational institutions are saffronised; and have lost the academic and
functional autonomy. They cannot arrange academic seminars and lectures
critical of the current government and its policies. On August 9, an elite educational
institution, St Xavier’s College Mumbai, was forced to cancel a lecture in the
memory of Stan Swamy, who died in jail in 2021, by its own right-wing students’
group Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
And the draconian anti-terrorism and security laws
such as Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
(AFSPA), National Security Act (NSA), Prevention of Money Laundering Act
(PMLA), Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), Jammu &
Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), are misused against the critics of the
government to intimidate and silence. Any criticism of the government is
construed as an anti-national activity to invoke the provisions of these laws
and put the dissenters in jail for years without trial, in gross violation of
the basic human rights. Umar Khalid – a JNU students’ leader - and eight of his
associates are languishing in jail for more than five years, without any
chargesheet or trial. The crime they committed was protesting against the CAA
that is considered anti-Muslim, violating the letter and the spirit of the
constitution. This is the state of democracy and the criminal justice system in
the world’s largest democracy.
Recently, Sonam
Wangchuk of Ladakh, a veteran Gandhian and an eminent international environmentalist
and educationist, was arrested under the NSA by invoking the sedition section
against him and was confined to a jail, without access to anybody, not even his
wife allowed to meet him, compelling her to file a habeas corpus
petition in the Supreme Court. He
believes in the Gandhian way of non-violent peaceful protest. He and his
supporters were carrying a peaceful protest demanding inclusion of Ladakh in
the 6th Schedule of the Constitution, as promised by the Centre in
October 2024, to protect its unique culture and identity and granting of a statehood.
It is a very sensitive border union territory, with a large chunk of land in
the Eastern Ladakh remaining under the occupation of China.
Just before the
conclusion of the last monsoon session, the Union government had introduced
another draconian Bill in the Parliament. The Constitution (130th
Amendment), Bill 2025, was introduced in the name of ‘constitutional morality, public
interest, welfare, and good governance’ and referred the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary
Committee. The INDIA bloc en masse decided to boycott the Joint
Parliamentary Committee, not to nominate any opposition party member to the
Committee, as a mark of protest against the Bill.
The Bill is
designed to destabilise the Opposition ruled states and undermine the federal
structure. The Bill proposes to disqualify any legislator or a Minister,
including CM and PM, if he is arrested and detained for a month, even without
any charge sheet or trial. The intent is obvious; which authority or agency can
dare to arrest a ruling party member or a minister, let alone the PM, however
serious a criminal charge may be. The
Articles 14,19 and 21 of the Constitution ensure equality before law, freedom
of speech, due process, and personal liberty. Automatic disqualification on a mere
suspicious unproven criminal charge contravenes the constitutional guarantees. It
is a clear case of brutal attack on democracy and the constitution.
The governors
appointed by the Centre exercise ‘pocket-veto’ in non-BJP ruled states, that is
keeping the bills passed by the state legislatures pending indefinitely and
refusing to give assent; thus, killing the bills and paralysing the elected
governments. They neglect their constitutional duties and act as BJP functionaries,
exercising parallel power creating a hostile atmosphere.
The most severe
attack is on the independent democratic institutions. The Election Commission
of India is acting as an ‘agent’ of the BJP. And even no less than a former Chief Election
Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi accusing that the BJP “has become spokesperson of
the Election Commission.” The Commission has lost its constitutional
independence and the trust of the people as a neutral and impartial umpire that
ensures free and fair elections. It stands discredited. And the democracy is at
stake.
The Chief Election
Commissioner held a press conference in Patna on October 5 to review the
election process in Bihar and claimed ‘purification‘ of the electoral rolls in
the state after completing the controversial SIR exercise. The very next day,
October 6, he held another press conference in Delhi, and announced a two-phase
Assembly election in Bihar on October 6 and 11, enabling Narendra Modi to inaugurate
the Metro in Patna and Nitish Kumar to make another round of Direct Transfer
Benefit (DTB) of Rs.10,000 to an additional 21 lakh women, just hours before
the announcement of the election schedule; benefiting a total of more than 1.2 core women
from the DTB. This cash inducement is
meant to woo the women voters, so as to sidestep the real issues of
unprecedented unemployment, lack of jobs and migration, massive corruption in
governance, poor education and health system, paper-leaks that frustrate the
youth, atrocities on the poor and the marginalised, and vote chori.
The CEC Gyanesh
Kumar did not provide the details of the voters finally deleted: how many from
the 65 lakhs deleted in the draft list are now included in the final voters’ list?
There are many anomalies, like the duplicate voters, the zero addresses, not
providing the names of voters deleted and the names of the new voters added,
the details of additional 3.66 lacks voters now deleted in the final list, without
giving them any intimation and the time to appeal. Neither the CEC nor the Modi
govnment had any answer to the charge of ‘vote chori’ documented by the Leader
of the Opposition.
The SIR exercise in
Bihar has left much to be desired in terms of accuracy, equity, transparency,
and fairness. According to Yogendra Yadav, who is a petitioner in Supreme Court
challenging the SIR exercise, “90 per cent of adults have made it to the list.
However, the big picture has not changed. The SIR has caused the sharpest drop
in the electoral-population ratio. In
September 2025, Bihar should have had 8.22 crore voters - the state’s adult
population estimated by the Government of India’s Technical Group on Population
Projections. The actual figure of 7.42 core on the final electoral rolls
indicates as many as 80 lakh potential voters missing from the list” (IE, October
7).
Yogendra Yadav
makes some startling revelations: “The use of name recognition software brings
out an alarming fact: Muslims were 24.7 per cent of the 65 lakh voters excluded
from the draft electoral rolls and 33 per cent of the 3.66 lakh names deleted
from the final list, against their population share of 16.9 per cent. This translates
to nearly 6 lakh exclusive exclusion of Muslims.” And “a preliminary analysis of some of the
most common errors does not support the ECI’s claim of purification of the
electoral rolls. The final voters’ list of Bihar has more than 24,00 gibberish
names, about 5.2 lakh duplicate names. Over 6,000 invalid gender entries, over
51,000 invalid relations, and over 2 lakh blank or invalid house numbers. In
substantive terms, there are now more than 24 lakh households with 10 or more
electors, housing 3.2 crore electors in total. In most of these, the final
electoral rolls are worse than the draft rolls.”
And what about
the oft repeated claim by the BJP leaders, endorsed by the CEC, of cleansing
the rolls of foreigners, allegedly Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. Even Narendra
Modi and Amita Shah claimed at public rallies that the SIR was meant to identify
and throw out the ‘infiltrators’, while accusing the opposition - RJD-Congress-
of doing vote-bank politics to protect them. The CEC did not answer this
question during his press briefing. Nor does the final list provide the names
of ‘infiltrators’ deleted. This is how Modi and Shah used the SIR exercise to
polarise the voters and derive electoral dividends. The BJP did not file a
single objection to any elector on this ground. The whole electoral process is
seriously compromised.
The Indian
democracy is derailed. There can be no bigger attack on democracy than a
Supreme Court advocate - religious bigot of Hindutva ideology - hurling a shoe
in the open court at the Chief Justice of India, B.R. Gavai. Democracy cannot be just a rule by majority
that is manipulated and manufactured through corruption and electoral
malpractices, that doesn’t reflect the true mandate of the people. And the
routine periodical elections, without transparent free and fair elections and
the integrity of electoral rolls, are a farcical exercise.
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