Indian democracy has always been described in superlatives: the largest, the most colourful, the grand experiment in collective will. It was never a perfect democracy, but even the fence sitters now concede that the system is drifting toward something harder and more unforgiving; what scholars might call authoritarianism, and what ordinary people who consume news through youtube might simply call fascism.
Recent allegations of fake voter IDs, along with Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the Election Commission, supposedly a neutral umpire, now looks more like a supporting actor in the political drama than an impartial referee, only underline the slide.
The mythology of “electoral fairness” still endures, though its practice feels like a relic. Booth capturing may be a thing of the past, but “youth capturing” is the fashion of the present where the ruling party has mastered the art of occupying the subconscious of the young or of middle aged folks who like to identify themselves as youth.
What is striking is that the collapse of democracy or the quiet drift into authoritarianism is not even perceived as alarming by many. Among supporters of the ruling party, it is often celebrated as a necessary stage of national maturity. A cab driver of a ride sharing app on Jaipur Delhi highway once told me, quite sincerely, that he wanted India to be like North Korea. “Bring dictatorship,” he said. His co-passengers nodded in agreement and repeated that “yes, more dictatorship.” At that moment, I understood why that ride-sharing service was called BlahBlahCar.
In this absurd landscape, it is difficult to make sense of where exactly the country is headed. To untangle the knots, I spoke with political commentator and YouTuber Meghnad, who has the ability to bring cynicism and optimism into the same sentence. For him, democracy however chaotic is still worth defending. Ours is not a system of order but a system of managed disorder. To survive it requires both seriousness and, occasionally, the ability to laugh.
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