Narendra Modi is a democratically elected leader, but his image is that of a leader who decimated opposition and dissent — in Parliament or on university campuses.
Nothing new, Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well
No, he wasn’t. He was appointed. His party won the largest number of seats, but not a majority, and Paul von Hindenburg won the Presidency. The problem is that the party with the largest representation got to choose the Chancellor, so obviously the Nazis picked Hitler. In theory the President needed to agree to it, unfortunately they were Nazis so, ya know, not big fans of mutually beneficial compromises.
Then Pauly Boy let them pass the Reichstag Fire Decree and the purge of opposition began.
The power sharing at the time was a bit convoluted but eventually he’d force the Presidency into irrelevance and then, eventually, just take the title too, for shits and giggles.
And in the end, Pauly did it all because he inherently hated the left, independent of any evidence or anything. He just believed they were traitors and the reason everything was lost.
Hrm… sounds familiar recently, doesn’t it? 😑
Two further tidbits:
- The NSDAP already had falling results in 1932 (down to 33% from 37), and the 1933 elections weren’t free (47%).
- The enabling act wasn’t really passed legally. They had to arrest SPD and KPD MPs to get the necessary 2/3rds majority, ignoring the quorum.
On the whole they kept up the appearance of the whole thing being legal as far as they could because, well, they could: Why throw away the appearance of legitimacy when you don’t have to, Nazis are idiots but not in that way.
The process you described sounds like a normal parliamentary system to me, and lots of countries with that kind of system are generally described as democracies. It also sounds a lot like the Electoral College in the US.
By your account, the voters might not have chosen Hitler personally, but they did choose the Nazi party, and I assume anyone who was paying attention knew the Nazis would select Hitler as Chancellor.
Edit:
Parliamentary systems typically choose PMs or whatever from elected representatives, but it’s true enough it’s not strictly required, and he certainly had the support of the Nazi base.
The other important lesson to learn from the example, other than the Nazis never won a fair national election but seized power anyways, is that Hitler could not run for office because of the crimes he was convicted of. You know, like trying to overthrow the government.
Disbarring a fascist from office doesn’t work if you let him out of prison with a slap on the wrist.
It’s not new even in india. Indira Gandhi, who for all the good things she has done, turned dictator, suspended our Constitution, and launched the Emergency on a flimsy pretext. India united & brought her to her knees.
This 2nd attempt at dictatorship is by Hindu supremacist Modi, who is trying to destroy our Constitution and electoral process since he knows he faces a defeat.
The most dangerous time fo abuse victims is when the abuser feels they might escape. Same situation.
Government forms aren’t carved in marble and completely immutable, constitutions allow for modifications to adapt to changing times, without overturning any institution.
Only if done in good faith.
What faith do you in a power-hungry megalomaniac dictator and his power structures, who uses cyberweapons against its citizens, who views opposition and activists and the common man who doesn’t kowtow as the enemy, who spies on all its citizens, who uses UAPA not against terrorists but against Dalit & Adivasi rights activists, who has created a violent ethnic & communal civil war in Manipur, who openly persecutes its religious minorities and the oppressed castes, who destablised our economy to convert black money to white, who enables corporate monopolies and kills MSMEs, who refuses to be responsible or accountable for any of their policy failings, who has deliberately weakened states rights, who sends IB after professors, who uses the law to crush democracy, who sends IB after minority religions, who allows and participates in hatespeech, who destroys homes & livelihoods of the poor on a whim, who fails India’s territorial integrity, who lies publicly to the people he should be leading, who denigrates & catcalls women politicians, who benefits from creating conflict, who behaves like a king and not an elected people’s representative?
Only if done in good faith.
Nah, that’s the problem. It happens whether it’s done in good faith or not, and bad faith actors have proven themselves quite adept at manipulating democratic institutions to their own advantage. I’m American so I’m mainly aware of how it’s going down in the US, but from my limited perspective it seems like a lot of other countries are going down the same path: India, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, etc. It might even be happening in China—not within the country as a whole since it obviously isn’t a democracy, but maybe within the Communist party, considering Xi declared himself leader for life and everyone seemingly just went along with it.
I disagree. Democracies and their foundations are living structures. They shouldn’t atrophy and become fossils. When needed, they should be updated but if the political party in power is fascist then they’ll wreck the very basis of democracy (this is the danger staring India in the face). Which is why we should never ever vote any kind of fascist or extremist to power. When we take democracy for granted, we allow fascism to creep in.
Wow, can you share credible evidences to back up all this?
You can find them all on all credible news on India since 2014.
Ah ok, very convincing, can’t debate that.
Sounds a lot like qanon folks, I can’t give you sources, you have to do your own research!
Your ignorance is your own responsibility, not anyone else’s. This isn’t some far fetched conspiracy, there is ample mainstream news discussing the current Modi government. Any media organisation will have covered the events in Kashmir when it happened years ago; as well as Modi continually stoking Hindu violence on other religious groups.
It’s ok, bro. Maybe they’re new to Indian politics and just want to know.
Let’s give’em the benefit of the doubt, yeah? plus I got to list out all the English-language resources that everyone can access to gain knowledge on how crony capitalism & Hindu supremacy has fucked India up.
I’d have to list every news report on India & Modi govt from these news sources since 2014:
In English- theguardian.com
- caravanmagazine.com
- thewire.in
- ndtv (before august 2022, it was captured by Adani, Modis favoured capitalist)
- quint ( before march 2023, it too was bought by Adani, Modi’s favoured capitalist)
- scroll.in
- newsclick.in
- newslaundry.com
- indianexpress.com
- the hindu (before 2020 and after feb 2023. During the gap years, it was headed by a Hindu supremacist & modi loyalist)
- washingtonpost
- morningcontext
- indiacable
- Hindutvawatch
- Adaniwatch
- thenewsminute.com
- SouthFirst.com
- Bloomberg.com
- Ft.com
- article-14.com
- BBC.com
- internetfreedom.in
- https://www.ohchr.org/
- Amnesty international
- https://www.uscirf.gov
- https://www.telegraphindia.com/
All mainstream media has been captured by Modi, so the one’s listed are all online. Indian express too is captured, but the editorial board fights back in its editorials. if you want the Indian version of Qanon, just check out India’s mainstream media (in print and on tv), they’ll put Fox & friends to shame.
Do you want the ones in regional languages?
dO yOUr oWn ReSeARcH!!11!!eleven!!1
Hey, it’s ok. Maybe they’re new to Indian politics and just want to know.
Let’s give’em the benefit of the doubt, yeah? plus I got to list out all the English-language resources that everyone can access to gain knowledge on how crony capitalism & Hindu supremacy has fucked India up.
Narendra Modi is not a democratically elected leader. The Prime Minister of India is appointed by the President of India and can be removed from office by the Lok Sabha (one of India’s two houses of Parliament). Modi is no more democratically elected than Clarence Thomas is.
I think you don’t understand how indian political system work. In India the Prime minister is elected by the people and has a similar position to the President of United States.
Modi’s party got majority seats in the previous election.
The President of India is more of a ceremonial role. It is one of the duties of the President to appoint the Prime minister. In this scenario the President really doesn’t have a choice.
President’s are supposed to be a check on the executive and legislature, because their assent is needed for a bill to become law. But very rarely have Prime Ministers appointed anyone with a spine, so we almost aways have rubber stamp presidents.
