With barely three weeks to the first phase of General Elections 2024, the preparations for the electoral battle are going on full throttle. Unlike the previous General Elections, the Indian Opposition is entering the fray openly acknowledging the return of the incumbent dispensation with renewed majority and strength. No less than the Congress Party president and leader of the Opposition, Mallikarjuna Kharge in the concluding session of the 17^th Parliament humorously alluded to “Ab ki baar 400 par…. With a current majority of 330-334 seats, this time it will be 400”. The desperate attempts of the opposition to put up a sham unity of the INDI Alliance in the face of Modi’s rolling juggernaut of “Once more Modi Sarkar” is falling like a pack of cards.

Even the much-touted attempt to grab the people’s attention through Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra ended up doing more harm than good to the Opposition and especially to the Congress. The body blows suffered by the Indian opposition parties have been their making given their inability to challenge the government on real issues and ineffectiveness to play a constructive role. As a result, the elections have turned out to be largely one-sided with people now waiting for what next rather than who next. Airing a modicum of confidence in returning to power, PM Modi has pledged Rs 10,000 crore financial assistance to Bhutan for the next five years. Even the media is also abuzz with PM Modi’s meeting with ministers for the first 100 days of his government in the third term.

Ensuring sustained political stability is one of the hallmarks of any developed country. Bereft of an absolute political majority, for three decades, Indian polity was roiled by a series of coalition governments. Concomitantly, the developmental agenda was sacrificed at the altar of the so-called “coalition dharma”. Lack of political stability in India caused a laggard growth. In terms of GDP, India and China were of roughly similar size till the early 1990s. But subsequently, China rapidly zoomed past India with a consistent double-digit growth rate and now China is 4.8 times richer than India. An unobtrusive development vision backed by a strong political leadership in China has made all the difference.

A third term for the Modi government is poised to bestow such an advantage on India. India is at the cusp of a critical development phase. But unlike the authoritarian regime of China which has effectively insulated itself from external influences, thanks to the filial loyalty to the Communist party, nonexistence of political diversity and dangling sword of corruption purges, India has been a playground for foreign players. The fidelity of Communists to the Soviet Union facilitated the latter’s infiltration into the Indian political system which subsequently declined following its collapse. Since its stoic rise as a developing economy after the economic reforms, external agencies forged connections with influential media, academic, social and political organisations of democratic India.

The dangerous gameplay of these foreign agencies which went unchecked under the pliable political regimes suffered a jolt under the Modi regime. An uncompromising nationalistic strategy and a developmental vision of the Modi government frustrated the vested interests bent on making India an experimental ground for proselytization and turning it into a fractured, disunited, laggard nation. To have their way, vested interests in cahoots with external agencies have rolled out concerted attempts to vitiate India, its polity, and its democracy with international media under its fold. Resultantly, India began to suddenly slip in all rankings ranging from Poverty Index through Happiness Index to even Democratic Index.

The abrupt fall of India in the international rankings has been steady and consistent notwithstanding the stable and steady development enabling environment. The unabashed bias became so glaring that the common man began to mock the Western aptitude of giving a better rank to Palestine and Afghanistan, the seedbeds of terrorism as much happier places to live than India. According to the World Happiness Report, India is at 126^th position among the 146 countries below its neighbours-Nepal, Bangladesh and China. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dems) reports placed India among the top ten autocracies deeming it an “electoral autocracy”. The sudden fall of India in all these indices from 2013 is glaring.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) which relies on the annual reports of US-based think tanks like Freedom House, Pew Research, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Sans Frontieres termed India a “Flawed Democracy”. JSF has downgraded India from completely free to partially free in terms of press freedom

Similarly, India is being pulled up on global platforms for its strategic choices even as the Western countries continue to violate the sanction regime with impunity. The attacks have been multi-pronged and multi-sided. Unfortunately for the West, the decade-long sabotage attempts to taint India's polity and malign the robust democratic institutions boomeranged. Instead of trust-deficit, these despoiling attempts appear to have heralded a steadfast faith in the current dispensation. Frustrated by the futility of biased narratives bolstered by toolkits deployed to unseat the political dispensation, the vested interests and their masters in the West have now shed the pretense of propriety.

The attacks reached a tipping point with the arrest of AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal. From providing a platform to the disgruntled and reluctant politicians to spew venom against the syncretic fabric of India, countries are now openly hitting at the democratic framework. Lending weight to the opposition claims of “politically motivated” arrest, the German foreign minister in response to a question remarked, “We assume and expect that the standards relating to the Independence of the judiciary and basic Democratic principles will also be applied in this case. Like anyone facing the accusations, Mr. Kejriwal is entitled to a fair and impartial trial”¹. After MEA summoned the German envoy and issued a demarche, Germany retracted the statement expressing faith in the Indian Constitution that guarantees basic human rights and freedoms.

A day later, the US responding to an emailed query voiced, “We encourage a fair, transparent and timely legal process for Chief Minister Kejriwal”. The note also lamented the freezing of Congress party bank accounts and toed the line of Amnesty International’s Aakar Patel-“the growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law”².

Taking a serious objection to US spokesperson Miller’s remarks, MEA summoned US Deputy Secretary Gloria Barbena and at the weekly briefing MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal lodged a strong objection and protests and said, “The recent remarks by the State Department are unwarranted. Any such external imputation on our electoral and legal processes is completely unacceptable”. He even added, “India is proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions. We are committed to protecting them from any form of undue external influences…. Mutual respect and understanding form the foundation of international relations and states are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others”³.

India is proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions. We are committed to protecting them from any form of undue external influences…Mutual respect and understanding form the foundation of international relations and states are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others.

Interestingly, even after summons, Miller reiterated that the US is “closely monitoring the situation” raising questions about its alleged interference in the internal affairs of a fellow democratic country. Washington’s replies have recapitulated the entrenched fears about the US’s dubious reputation in the orchestration of “Colour Revolutions” across different countries.

Earlier in the week, Washington criticised India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) over “human rights”. This is in line with USCIRF’s (US Commission on International Religious Freedom) gross misinterpretation of “religious requirement” of asylum seekers in India by glossing over its historical context and relevance. India strongly hit back at these regurgitated narratives as “misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted”. The above three back-to-back unwarranted references to India’s domestic affairs have inadvertently stoked the old mistrust towards the US. The US which crossed India’s redlines by hosting Kashmiri Separatists is adeptly playing a double game with its inaction against the mushrooming Khalistani ideology on its territory despite its repeated requests. Above all, the timing of President Biden’s letter to Pakistan's Prime Minister after three years of long prolonged silence is also raising spurious speculations.

After the US and Germany, the UN waded into Kejriwal’s row saying, it hoped that “everyone’s rights are protected in India” and that they “encouraged fair, transparent and timely legal processes”. It is interesting to note that a Bangladeshi Journalist, Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey serving as a White House/UN correspondent for SA Perspectives and Just News BD has directed these queries to Germany, the US and the UN. Ansarey, a Columnist for The Wire, connected to Jamaat-e-Islami, a proscribed terror organisation, has been a supporter of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the architect of the “India Out Campaign” in Bangladesh. An IPA Newspack Report indicated that William B Milam, former US ambassador to Bangladesh with ties to the Democratic Party and co-manages Right to Freedom has reached an agreement with Ansarey⁴. A close look indicates that an unholy nexus of anti-India, Civil Society Organisations and political parties is relentlessly at work to tarnish India’s image and to politically destabilise the country.

Indeed, every pillar of Indian democracy is under attack. Calling the Indian Judiciary as “majoritarian”, “not as strong as it can be”, “at its weakest in modern Indian history” and “Pakistan’s Judiciary has done much better than India in many cases”, a lobby group has been casting aspersions on its functioning⁵. Underscoring the dubiety of these systemic wanton attacks over 600 advocates in an open letter to the CJI expressed concerns about “vested interests” attempting to “pressure the judiciary”, “influence judicial process” and tarnish the reputation of the judiciary with “frivolous logic and stale political agendas”⁶.

The current scenario validates Late CDS General Bipin Rawat who cautioned against a “two and a half front war”⁷. The oblique reference to the malicious agenda of the “vested interests” is the prescient “half-front war” India is now faced with. Calling the bluff of this nefarious narrative war, EAM Jaishankar showed a mirror to the US by pointing at the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Lautenberg Amendment and Spector Amendment that fast-tracked citizenships of certain minorities. India is now going full guns blazing against the Western hypocrisy reminding them of the cardinal rules of diplomacy and vociferously questioning the Western precedent of judging countries as their imperial moral compass.

The fumbling opposition incapable of garnering the electoral mandate is hanging to the coattails of the West to tilt public support in their favour. The brazen interference of the West in the internal affairs of a sovereign country is uncalled for and reeks of unjustifiable moral constabulary. The subversive acts perpetrated by the vested interests at the behest of the foreign puppet masters can potentially destabilise India and can pose a security threat. India must rebut, counter and confront the agenda now!! The decision to have India’s own Democratic Index is the first pragmatic effort in this direction.

References

1. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-protests-germanys-statement-on-arvind-kejriwals-arrest-biased-assumptions-interfering-in-11711184605988.html
2. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/india-crackdown-on-opposition-reaches-a-crisis-point-ahead-of-national-elections/
3. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/unacceptable-mutual-respect-foundation-of-diplomacy-govt-on-us-remarks-on-kejriwals-arrest-9238192/
4. https://organiser.org/2024/03/30/230118/world/mushfiqul-fazal-ansarey-know-all-about-anti-india-bangladesh-journalist-who-questioned-us-un-on-arvind-kejriwal/
5. https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/judiciary-is-at-its-weakest-in-modern-indian-history-dushyant-dave-video-interview-247717
6. https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/vested-interest-group-putting-pressure-on-judiciary-harish-salve-600-lawyers-write-to-cji/3439305/
7. https://www.news18.com/news/india/when-cds-bipin-rawat-warned-pakistan-against-infiltration-in-kashmir-top-quotes-4533743.html
8. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/eam-jaishankar-caa-us-lautenberg-jackson-vanik-amendment-iran-jews-matthew-miller-eric-garcetti-us-india-ties-11710648538517.html

Image source: One India