As students of politics and political science, we cannot but appreciate that dictators, autocrats and despots share certain common characteristics.
For one, they don’t like sunlight. Democracies are all about transparency and accountability and the phrase “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” has been quoted often in this context. One famous instance from recent years is the 2018 order by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court allowing live streaming of court proceedings to bring accountability into the judicial system.
More often than not, autocratic leaders are immensely popular with the masses and are powerful orators. This gives them immense power and they are prone to use this to perpetuate their rule. This inevitably leads to a nationalistic and ultra-nationalistic fervour in the country because ultra-nationalism — with a mix of jingoism, radical loyalty and blind faith in a leader — serves as the perfect glue to bind the people with.
Inevitably, autocrats seek to snuff out any opposition to their leadership from within or outside their party. Thus, the police machinery may be used or abused to harass, intimidate and silence the opposition to perpetuate their iron grip on power.
What else do autocrats and dictators have in common? Since they always think big, some of their decisions might prove disastrous, with huge, tragic consequences. But since there is no accountability, there’s no price to pay and life moves on.
There’s one more critical similarity between autocratic rulers: they don’t like a free press. In autocratic societies, the fundamental role of the media is to serve as a propaganda machinery of the government. Thus, the media in autocratic societies is always on a tight leash, it will never serve as a watchdog of democracy, question or critique government decisions or engage in investigative reporting to uncover the truth. There is a clampdown on the free flow of information. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said it precisely — that famines don't happen in nations with a free press because news reportage by the press forces the government to take corrective measures before things get worse.
In his deeply insightful book, ‘The News: A User’s Manual’ the French-American philosopher Alain de Botton speaks of the enormous influence of news in modern societies: “Once our formal education has finished, the news is the teacher. It is the single most significant force setting the tone of public life and shaping our impressions of the community beyond our own walls. It is the prime creator of social and political reality.” And then de Botton goes on to say, as revolutionaries well know (we may add dictators and autocrats as well), “if you want to change the mentality of a country, you don’t head to the art gallery, the department of education or the homes of famous novelists; you drive the tanks straight to the nerve centre of the body politic, the news HQ.”
In short, you take over the media; the television and radio stations, which you can also do in a subtle manner, without driving the tanks but by increasing the heat incrementally before society realises what has happened.
Can a large, chaotic, argumentative, federally-administered multi-religious nation like India become autocratic? Well, India had a taste of what it feels like to live in such a society when all freedoms, including the freedom of press, were completely suspended during the Emergency of 1975. There was a fierce reaction from the public and the opposition and democratic processes were restored after the 1977 general elections which led to the defeat of Congress led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Landmark electoral defeats and victories have always brought home the wisdom that the power of the people and the opposition can never be under-estimated in India.
On at least three occasions Prime Minister Narendra Modi has referred to India as the “mother of democracy”, the most recent being a month ago on March 30 during a virtual address at the second Summit for Democracy co-hosted by US President Joe Biden. “India, despite the many global challenges, is the fastest growing major economy today. This itself is the best advertisement for the democracy and the world. This itself says that democracy can deliver,” he said.
The prime minister noted that the idea of elected leaders was prevalent in ancient India, well before the rest of the world.
India may have been the mother of democracy, but the sad reality is that our democracy is flawed. Strong western democracies have sound institutions such as the judiciary, a free press and independent law enforcement agencies. These are not used by the political masters as instruments of harassment and persecution of opposition leaders. India has a long way to go before our key democratic institutions genuinely become independent.
Unless India works towards strengthening her democratic institutions with a free press and a fair law and order machinery, India’s tall claims of being the mother of democracy will sound hollow.
To realise her potential and to strengthen national security, India needs to consistently achieve high economic growth of 7-8% per annum. The country needs to provide employment to the youth by the millions, year after year, and ensure social harmony if economic targets are to be met.
Will India move in this direction post-2024 general elections?
This is the critical question that faces the nation up ahead.
Abhay Vaidya has worked as a senior journalist with a number of leading publications. He is now director at a policy research think tank in Pune
