Analyses
Asia
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Maria Tavernini 19 April 2024India, a country that loves to be defined as the world’s largest democracy, or the “mother of democracy” – using the words of its Prime Minister Narendra Modi – has just started its 18th general election. The massive democratic exercise is going to take place from today through June 1, with 970 million people heading to the polls in seven phases, with results expected to be announced on June 4. However, many have pointed out that it is not only simply the fact of holding elections that makes a country a democracy. According to V-Dem Institute’s Democracy Report, India dropped down to an “electoral autocracy” in 2018 and stayed in this category up to now. - Chandra Mallampalli 19 April 2024Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pose an imminent threat to India’s liberal, secular democracy particularly as their agenda impacts religious minorities and other voices of dissent.
- Giancarlo Bosetti 4 April 2024“While India has rapidly climbed the ladder of economic growth rates, it has fallen relatively behind on the scale of social indicators of living standards, even compared to many countries that India has overtaken in terms of economic growth.” So wrote Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Belgian economist Jean Drèze in An Uncertain Glory. India and Its Contradictions, a key text that in 2013 analyzed and exposed the failures of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, then at 6 percent. More than a decade later, India’s “uncertain glory” is perhaps even more uncertain, despite Narendra Modi’s aspirations to make it a great power.
- Ashaz Mohammed 28 March 2024The 1992 destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, upon which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ram temple was built, is seen by Hindu nationalists as a “historical retaliation” against India’s so-called “dark ages”. Several right-wing news outlets, such as Republic TV, have celebrated the inauguration of the new temple as a “500-year wait coming to an end.” This “dark” period, which lies 500 years in India’s past, is popularly characterized by the rise of the Mughals, an empire of Muslim rulers from what is now Uzbekistan. According to Hindu nationalists, the Babri Masjid is believed to have been built by the first Mughal emperor, Babur, as a result of the destruction of the “original” Ram temple that once stood on the site. Although there is no concrete historical and archaeological evidence of the destruction of this temple, there have been attempts by archaeologists and historians leaning towards the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) to suggest otherwise.
- Maria Tavernini 25 March 2024The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has canceled more than 100 Overseas Citizen of India cards in the past 10 years, according to Article 14, which has filed a Right to Information (RTI) query with the Ministry of Home Affairs. When someone’s OCI status is canceled, they have to leave the country and apply for a regular visa, but many former OCI holders have been “blacklisted” as the Narendra Modi-led government is increasingly trying to silence critics in the diaspora.
- Maria Tavernini 14 March 2024As India gears up for the general elections next month, where over 900 million people are expected to go to the polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term in office, reaffirming the country’s global ambitions. In the past decade, under his tenure, India’s historic pluralism has increasingly been jeopardized by the ruling party’s majoritarian agenda
- Ali Kosha 26 February 2024According to a 2022 Gallup survey, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where the vast majority of the population, a staggering 92 percent of men and 96 percent of women, say they face hardships that make their lives sheer suffering. In this realm of agony, the Hazaras bear a disproportionate burden of suffering. And for Hazara women, the burden intensifies further.
- Zafar Musyani 20 February 2024After months of delay, Pakistan held its 12th general elections on February 8. However, the entire electoral process, from the lead-up to the polling and the announcement of the results, was marred by several controversies, further exacerbating the country’s political crisis.
- Mujibur Rehman 29 January 2024On January 26, 2024, India celebrated its Republic Day – the day India adopted its current Constitution – with great fanfare, with French President Emmanuel Macron as the guest of honor. “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ is the major political ideal for France, though each of these terms has little meaning for Indians in the context of rapidly expanding Hindu majoritarianism.
