Whether Indian or not, cherishers of democracy should know of at least some troubling recent happenings in India.
On February 16, a French journalist who has worked in India for twenty-five years, Vanessa Dougnac, was ordered to leave the country. Dougnac’s Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status, earned because she has an Indian husband, was suddenly withdrawn. As explanation, she was merely told that her work had been found to be “inimical to the sovereignty and integrity of India”.
Six days later, on February 22, X, the giant global platform owned by Elon Musk, announced that in “compliance of executive orders” issued by the Indian government, it was removing “specific” items because of “potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment”. Adding that the removal only applied to viewings in India, X (formerly known as Twitter) showed some courage in publicly saying, “We disagree with these actions (of the Indian government) and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.”
The stories that X was forced to remove were about farmers from Punjab and Haryana who were (and are) protesting near New Delhi against the government’s failure to implement earlier undertakings.
Two days later, on February 24, when Nitasha Kaul, professor of politics and international relations at London’s University of Westminster and an admired poet, arrived at Bengaluru’s Airport to take part, as an esteemed delegate, in a conference organized by the state government of Karnataka, she was prevented from leaving the airport. In a statement she posted on X, Professor Kaul said: “I was given no reason by immigration except ‘We cannot do anything. Orders from Delhi’.”
According to a Hindustan Times story (Feb. 28), Kaul said she was denied entry because of her opinions on “democratic and constitutional values”. Kaul added: “My travel and logistics had been arranged by Karnataka and I had the official letter with me. I received no notice or info in advance from Delhi that I would not be allowed to enter.” Before boarding the first available flight back from Bengaluru to London, she spent 24 hours “in a narrow area with no easy access to food and water”. Her pleas for a pillow and a blanket drew a blank.
An earlier move by Ashok Chavan, twice a Congress chief minister of Maharashtra, who joined the BJP on Feb. 13 and was immediately elected by the Maharashtra state assembly to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s national parliament, invited on social media a fresh tribute to the BJP’s washing-machine. As they join the ruling party, politicians it had earlier accused of corruption (as Ashok Chavan certainly was) are “instantly cleansed” by the machine.
On Feb. 27, the BJP displayed another impressive skill. Although the party only had 25 MLAs in the 68-member state assembly of Himachal Pradesh, its candidate for election to the Rajya Sabha obtained 34 votes in a secret ballot, the remaining 34 going to the Congress Party’s candidate. Nine MLAs belonging to the Congress or supporting it had quietly and disloyally voted for the BJP candidate, who defeated the Congress candidate when lots were drawn.
Far from Himachal, in the northeastern state of Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, now with the BJP but earlier a Congress leader, remarked on Feb. 27 that by the time Assam’s 2026 assembly election arrives, “only a few Muslim MLAs would remain in the Congress”. This was a simultaneous attack on the Congress and on Muslims, who constitute more than 30 percent of Assam’s population.
Attacking a rival party may be the essence of politics in a democracy but defaming a religious community is against India’s laws. However, in today’s India demonizing Muslims is the norm. The police refuse to see the offence or wink at it. Generally, the courts too have refused to intervene, no matter what the constitution lays down.
The frequent, increasingly open and increasingly loud assertion by BJP’s leaders that India is a Hindu state is in direct defiance of the constitution. The latter is clear that India’s central and state governments must be secular and impartial between religious communities. Yet India’s high courts and Supreme Court have remained silent. In addition to pollutants, fear is in the Indian air.
Predictions are being made that the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act of December 2019, and the Act’ associate, the National Register of Citizens, both dormant thus far, will soon be made live. Polarization will benefit the BJP, that’s the belief.
Be it remembered that the CAA conspicuously and carefully excludes Muslims from migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who may be eligible for citizenship in India. Thus far the Supreme Court has not addressed the constitutionality of the CAA’s exclusion of Muslims.
Meanwhile, however, the Supreme Court has unexpectedly emitted a ray of hope. On February 15, the court declared that the notorious “electoral bonds” introduced by the BJP government in 2017, which enabled the ruling party to acquire vast sums of anonymously funded money, are unconstitutional. The State Bank of India was ordered to immediately stop issuing any more electoral bonds. The bank was also told to share with the Election Commission (within a week) the details of all bond purchases since April 2019—including the value, the date of purchase, and the name of the buyer.
Important questions remain. Will the Supreme Court’s order permit the BJP to retain the mountain of anonymous funds it has obtained thus far? Secondly, will the order be actually or fully implemented? Despite these questions, the order seems to have roused a tiny hope in a dismal scene.