Modi’s party using ‘authoritarian playbook’ to cripple opposition in India
From the arrest of opposition leaders to the silencing of critical media, there is a broad consensus among scholars and analysts that India is moving in a worrying direction. Maroosha Muzaffar reports
Earlier this month, India was labelled one of the world’s “worst autocratisers”, an assessment by a Sweden-based watchdog that describes a rapid backslide on democractic ideals in the most populous country on Earth.
India is about to go to the polls in a marathon election lasting more than six weeks, and the V-Dem Institute’s report warned that a victory for Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – widely considered the most likely outcome – could further entrench the country’s status as an “electoral autocracy”.
It bases this assessment on “the already substantial democratic decline under [prime minister Narendra] Modi’s leadership and the enduring crackdown on minority rights and civil society”. In just the past few weeks, India’s authorities have arrested a key rival to Modi, frozen the bank accounts of the largest national opposition party, and been revealed to be by far the biggest beneficiary of a now outlawed system of secret political donations.
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