Autocrats killing democracy globally

The death of Alexei Navalny in Russian prison and the lead Donald Trump enjoys over Joe Biden in opinion polls have accentuated fears that the cancer of electoral autocracy is sounding death knell of democracy across the globe.

The spread of this scourge has been aided and abetted by  democracies which remain silent when the autocrats defile the electoral process in other countries. In fact, the duplicity of these democracies is evident when the leader whom once they refused to grant a visa is feted time and again by them on becoming the head of the government because now he can give them business. But then Karma strikes back and they have a similar version of  electoral autocrat threatening to rip the nation’s social fabric apart.

Among the victims of this assault on democracy are school-going children and college-going youth who unknowingly become co-conspirators. An American opinion writer blamed the country’s toxic political culture on the decay of “moral formation”, i.e. teaching children to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong in schools and civic organisations. The problem becomes worse when the ideological fanatics, from right or left, try to turn schools and universities into centres for indoctrination and brainwashing by tampering with the syllabus, content and even targeting teachers for how they teach. 

In the US, it is like the House Republicans opposing  teaching of  the Critical Race theory or officials at state and local levels playing politics with curricula of schools According to a US report,  “At least 17 states have introduced bills containing gag orders or taken other steps that would restrict how teachers can discuss American history and current events, including pulling books off library shelves in an effort to suppress so-called “divisive concepts”— a shorthand affectation nearly always referring to issues about race and identity.”

In India, the NCERT and UGC have drawn flak for allegedly aligning the syllabi, especially in history, with the right-wing  ideology. Over the last decade there have been Gyan Sammelans to teach the “true nationalist narrative” to academia. Keynote speakers have included the top boss of the fountainhead of right wing ideology. Foisting ideologues on educational institutions, including the “fort” of leftists in the national capital or replacing heroes of independence struggle like the first prime minister with false gods and demagogues of one’s ideological bent in national celebrations befit an electoral autocracy rather than a true democracy. The Delhi high court, in fact, had to come to the rescue of a student who had been punished by the university administration for opposing the entry of members of rightwing-affiliated students organisation in a convention centre on the campus. The court went on to pull up the university administration for its lax handling of such political activities which affected campus life.

History is witness that authoritarian leaders have ridden to power on the back of the proletariat during times of economic or social turmoil and then ridden roughshod over them. Today, the global rise in economic uncertainty is one of the main reasons of increasing toxicity in politics across the world. From MAGA Republicans in the US to AfD in Germany or even Lee Anderson in the UK, finding scapegoats based on religious or national identity (read migrants) has become the favourite shortcut for politicians short on substance.

“Successful politics is often more about forging emotional bonds with the electorate than articulating policy positions, especially when voters feel as if their world is in flux. Chaos or unpredictability breeds neediness, and change often breeds fear. Workers fear inflation and shifting economic realities,” says an American opinion writer decoding Donald  Trump’s grip on his Republican bhakts. 

“Trump understands the political sway that comes with feigning spiritual devotion. His superpower is his ability to prey upon those fears while appealing to voters sense of a higher calling and pretending that he, like them, has been overlooked and victimised,” the writer adds.

This will sound familiar to Indians who are barraged with similar whining over temples or the family background of a certain individual who could not deliver on his  promise of bringing “good days” but now sells dreams of the country becoming Viksit and a Vishwaguru in a distant future when he would be long gone after enjoying power and pelf and messing up the nation’s economic, political and social structures.

The world over, ideological fanatics from left or right have thrived by propagating identity-based politics and using fear and rage to promote the sadistic urge to dominate the less powerful. They slow poison democracy by normalising the “might is right” ideology.

In the twenty first century, believing and belonging constitute the core of politics. Polarisation – religious, ideological, racial – has turned the right wingers and the leftists into rabid bigots. Both sides  are delusional in believing  that only they can save the world. Intellectuals too have degenerated into rhetoricians.

“When the writ of the state fails to run, the problem goes beyond the specific crime being committed to the wider attitude of hopelessness and egoism that it instils. It is the formula for a low-trust society,” observes an American opinion writer . 

In  the Indian context, it translates into gau rakshaks taking law into their own hands or moral policing and harassment of young couples by certain organisations. The law enforcement agencies treat them differently because of the political protection enjoyed by them. This emboldens them and results in creation of extraconstitutional bullies.

The head of the government sets a bad example on everyone being equal in the eyes of the law when on the one hand he tells people to respect the courts of law but on the other hand mocks the highest court with  when it declares an opaque electoral bonds funding brought by him as unconstitutional.

“A founding cry of modernity — liberté, égalité, fraternité — made no mention of sécurité or l’ordre, without which nothing else is possible. This intellectual blind spot for the rule of law is excusable. It is a hard concept to define. It isn’t inspiring, consisting as it does of prohibitions and sanctions, backed ultimately by violence,” a US writer stresses.

Things get worst when the laws are made by the bullies in power to railroad their political and ideological opponents and the interpreters of those laws are often their past friends or ideological fellow travellers. In countries like the US the political affiliation of the judges, including those of the Supreme Court, is public knowledge. But in democracies like India, the politicisation of judiciary is more clandestine. The black sheep get exposed ultimately but by then the damage has been done. The latest example is a judge who went after a state government hammer and tong but then suddenly resigned and joined a political party which has used his judicial observations to settle political scores.

A common theory for rise of Autocrat’s is that voters feel disillusioned with democracy in times of economic and social upheaval and think that an iron hand is needed to set things right. The problem with this proposition is that it presumes common man doesn’t understand the value of and treasure freedom. Historically, this reasoning doesn’t hold water and is just a sorry excuse to blame the common man for getting deceived by politicians selling snake oil, whether it be bottle of MAGA or Achche Din. 

The common man ultimately has had enough and fight backs. The American civil war shows the violent path to get freedom. On the other hand,  India’s non-violent freedom struggle is a shining example where a poverty stricken populace answered the call of a Naked Fakir and sacrificed so that the future generations could be free. Today once again the modern world’s oldest and largest democracies are under siege. By the end of this leap year we will know whether they have chosen the Putinesque form of democracy or liberty, fraternity and equality for all. After all, people elect the government they want and, people get the government they deserve.

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