The Authoritarian Roots of India’s Democracy

Since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, India's democratic credentials have been rapidly eroding, and it is now commonly believed that the country is transitioning into the domain of "electoral autocracy." India has been progressively dropping lower in democracy indices, and study after study seems to confirm the deterioration of the country's democratic credentials. This, however, is shown to be an ahistorical claim that is built on unstable political and constitutional grounds, and suffers from a significant amount of temporal myopia, according to this essay's argumentation. From a historical point of view, it would appear that Indian democracy continues to exist within the same broad continuum that it has inhabited since the year 1950, and there is very little evidence to suggest that this continuum has been disrupted in any way.

Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner, who had attended the inaugural session of the Imperial War Cabinet in May 1917 as the representative of India's hereditary princes, wrote a lengthy and rather peculiar note to Austen Chamberlain, the secretary of state for India, upon his return from the meeting. The maharaja made the forthright observation that "the desire for self-government in any educated people is a simple elementary fact of human nature" while also arguing for the introduction of the franchise in India. He then made the resolute declaration that "Self-government is government of the people; that is democracy, as opposed to autocracy."

Despite the fact that Singh was a hereditary autocrat dedicated to dynastic rule, he was able to perceive with remarkably clear-eyed foresight the inevitability of some form of democracy in India given the structural conditions of British rule and the direction of political events years before the (very limited) franchise first became a reality. Singh was able to do this despite the fact that he was committed to dynastic rule. His point of view was straightforward. He made the observation that "step after step has been taken and is being taken by the British Government which tends towards the same end," noting that "the spread of the English language and Western education; the extension of railways and telegraphs; the creation of a sense of unity among the various peoples; and the steady admission of Indians to some of the highest offices of State, are all preparing the way for representative government."