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See Terms welcome to the New Books Network.
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Welcome to Democracy Dialogue, a podcast from Cornell University's Brooks School of Public Policies center on Global Democracy. Co hosted by the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, this podcast is about bringing cutting edge research on democracy to you. In each episode, we'll dig into conversations with policymakers or scholars to discuss the challenges democracies currently face. Today we are joined by Yogendra Yadav. Yadav has been involved with almost two too many things to count. He has, by my count, been closely involved with three social movements. He was, until 2015, an executive member of one of India's newest and most successful new political parties, the Aam Admi Party. He's led one of India's most important think tanks, the center for the Study of Developing Societies. He walked by India's primary opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, as part of a march in advance of the national elections that went from India's southern tips to the Himalayan foothills. He's a regular contributor to the Indian Express newspaper. And above all, he is a thoughtful politician who spends a lot of time talking to citizens about the their worries and their aspirations. And I know most recently he was doing that in the state of Bihar, which concluded its elections last week. So, Yogendra, welcome to Democracy Dialogues.
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B
Thank you, Maya. I hope it doesn't sound like Political schizophrenia.
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A
It sounds like a man who's doing an awful lot to be a committed democratic citizen. So I'd like to start by asking you, Yogendra, about the current state of democracy in India. And for our listeners, this is just so important because few people realize how important the state of India's democracy is to the state of global democracy. And as an example, in 2021, when all the major watchdogs of democracy around the world downgraded India from a free or full democracy to some kind of hybrid territory, what that meant is that fully half of the population that was Democratic before 2021 went into this hybrid category. So what happens in India is really a harbinger for democratic trends around the world. So what I'd like to ask you is do you agree with their assessment that India's democracy is in a crisis of sorts of. And what aspects of Indian democracy are you most worried about?
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B
Thanks, Maya. Of course it's in a crisis. And let me begin by underlining what you just said. India shifting from being democratic to not so democratic is so critical, not simply because of the sheer size and the numbers involved. The Indian voters are about 1 billion voters India has currently, so it's of course the Saudis, but also because India in a sense democratized the idea of democracy in that before India became democracy, everyone thought democracy was for the rich, educated and developed world. This is not something that poor countries can afford. It's only when India turned democratic, that large number of post colonial countries in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America thought, yes, why not? We can also do so. A country that democratized the very idea of democracy, made it truly global, helped make it truly global, if that country slides back, it's bad news for the world. And what India has witnessed in the last 11 years, specifically since 2014, since Mr. Modi took over as the Prime Minister with his party, the Bharati Lamarta Party, the bjp, which is a Hindu supremacist party. Since then, in the last 11 years, we have witnessed not just a democratic backsliding, but also what I would call dismantling of the republic. Democratic backsliding in the straightforward sense that we've had serious backtracking on human rights, we have had compromised institutions. Indian media is amazingly captured by the government. All the watchdog institutions like the comptroller and Auditor General, the vigilance commissioner, the anti corruption agencies, the independent police investigative agencies and including even the judiciary, is very deeply compromised. The media, as I said, not only parrots what the government wants it to say, but it also actively hounds the opposition, something that I haven't seen in any other country. And basic democratic rights of the citizen have not officially been suspended because no one does that in the 21st century, but have been effectively curtailed. So, as Professor Tarunav Ketan says, Indian democracy has been killed with 1000 cuts. 1000 small cuts is what we have witnessed. So on the one hand, we had this backsliding of democracy, but we have much more, which I call dismantling of republic, which is the foundational vision of what India was meant to be. A country with deep diversity, where diversities were accepted, a country of different religious denominations, which was deeply secular, which said no one religion gets to lord over others. A country which respected its multiple languages, a country that at least in theory, adhere to the idea of the last person first. We have now a situation where the ruling party, the regime basically says so what? Simply, it refuses to. They not only do not follow the letter and spirit of the constitution, they are actually actively opposed to that vision. So we have a situation where the ruling, the regime basically thinks that the only way of unifying this country is through uniformity, which is opposed to India's foundational vision, which believes that Hindus, about 80% of India's population, must get to decide everything because that this kind of majoritarianism, dominance of one religion, which is anathema to Indian constitution in India's founding republic, is being carried out. So in that sense, I'm deeply worried, not merely because of backsliding of democracy, which can possibly be reversed, but by this dismantling of the republic, to which is a much deeper and serious danger.
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A
This analogy of dying by a thousand cuts is what democracy watchers have been shown is the kind of modal trend for how democracy, as you said, in the 21st century, is eroding. Democracy doesn't die with tanks rolling through the streets or with newspapers and media shut down overnight in a total blackout. Not that it never happens, but that most democracies that are seeing erosion, the kind of average pattern of erosion looks like that kind of cut here and a cut there. So I just want to ask you about the last election as an example of that. Right. So one way of reading the election, if we think of India's election last year and a year of elections in which sizable numbers of people on the globe voted, it was an election that could have been read as a loss for the ruling party. And this is an important question to ask because there are the scholars of democracy who say the world is not backsliding. Because you are still seeing electoral turnover. And though you didn't see turnover on the last election, you did see Modi and the ruling party, the BJP, see stumping on the election campaign for 400 seats. That was their stated ambition. And by, by that standard, they failed to achieve their, their goal. And they are now ruling, at least at a national level in a coalition government. So does the last election show that Indian democracy, at least in its electoral sense, is still strong? Or how do you read the outcome of that last election and particularly in terms of what's happened in state elections since that if you can bring that.
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In 2024 parliamentary election in India was something of an exception to what I've been describing because since 2024 it's been a string rule. Mr. Modi had the first victory in 2014, which it was in a fairly fair election. People were sick and tired of the previous regime and Mr. Modi looked like a hope. They voted for him. Five years later, 2019, six months before the election, Mr. Modi seemed like on the way, on the way out. Then happens blast. Which is followed by India's military confrontation with Pakistan. A surgical strike in Pakistan which transforms the entire game and Mr. Modi as a thumpy victory in 2019. Then comes 2024, his third election in which, you know, in a sense, Maya, I would say this was not an election. This was a plebiscite. Mr. Modi was very confident that he was going to win this third time. And he set a very high bar for himself. 400 plus in a parliament of 543. And the idea was to say, okay, we get Indian people's approval. So in a sense, while formally speaking, it was a election to parliament with 543 seats in a parliamentary system. But in effect it was a plebiscite to say, does the Indian public endorse of what Mr. Modi the manner in which Mr. Modi wants to change the country. There was open talk of changing the constitution of the country. There was a clear design to how the entire polity would be changed. And the idea was to get public endorsement for that. 400 plus was the stated aim. But the effective aim was to do better than 2019 and come back and say, look, the public is with us. We can change the system. Now what happened was very fun. Mr. Modi won the election. Technically speaking, though he lost majority. He secured his party, secured only 240, 32 short of majority mark. But he had his allies. With his allies, he formed the government. So Mr. Modi is back to power, but he loses the plebiscite. This is why 2024 was so important because that was meant to be an election where India would transit from being a competitive authoritarian state, which it has been, which is a technical category in political sciences. You know, from being competitive authoritarian regime, India was to slide to becoming electoral autocracy, say from something like Turkey or Hungary. We were going towards becoming something like Russia. But the election prevented that. People did not give BJP the mandate for that. The story thereafter then is of BJP learning the lessons. Coming back in India we have state assembly elections calendar which is very different from the federal government annual five year cycle kind of thing. We've had three or four major elections. One as you mentioned just last week in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. And Mr. Modi's party has managed to come back again, has managed to learn, has managed to get victories which look amazing victories. There have been serious allegations of electoral fraudulence, not established, I must confess yet. Allegations of changing, not allegations, I mean serious changes in the electoral roles themselves. Just to give you one instance in the election in Bihar that you mentioned a few minutes ago in that state of Bihar, which has an overall electorate of about, which had an electorate of about 79 million in that about 7 million names were deleted, 2.4 million names were added in the name of cleaning the electoral rolls. The opposition said, well, this is a lot of fraudulence here, but the election commission goes ahead. And the kind of synchrony that you see between the election commission, which is a constitutionally independent body, and the BJP as a political party is astonishing. It's horrifying that the election commission should do the bidding. And the opposition of the country now is out in open saying this is more theft. So this is what's really happening after Mr. Modi is back with claims, but claims which have been seriously disputed on grounds of electoral fraud.
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Right. So let me, let me dwell on this role of the electoral commission and just the process of elections because you've talked a little bit about the Indian media and its capture and consolidation, talked a little bit about the lack of judicial scrutiny at the start, but the elections themselves and the role of the electoral commission in it. And I want to hear a little bit more about that given the centrality of elections to democracy. So you just mentioned this deletion of voters off of the rolls in the election in the eastern state of Bihar. There are lots of people who say that these electoral rolls need to be updated, that there are real problems with it. So how do you Think about separating out quite legitimate revisions of the electoral rolls from the kind of tilting of the democratic field in such a way that one party is consistently advantaged by the rules of the game. So can you just say a little bit more about how we would know if the Electoral Commission was doing something that was really siding it with the ruling party, as opposed to what might be considered more legitimate exercises in the purview of the Electoral Commission.
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Now, the Election Commission of India is constitutionally an independent body, a body which was not known to exercise its autonomy for the first 20, 30 years. But there wasn't much of a problem in the 1990s. The Election Commission of India suddenly woke up and said, all right, we are going to exercise our constitutional autonomy. And for the next 25 years did it in ways which was absolutely surprising. Without any constitutional change, an institution begins to exercise its autonomy, so much so that political parties used to live it in dread of the Election Commission. Unlike any other democracy that I know, the Indian Election Commission, let's say from 1990 to 2014 or so, the Election Commission would order the government not to implement that scheme because it goes against free and fair elections. They would say, remove the following five police officials because they are known to be partisan to any government. You cannot do this. This was amazing kind of power that it exercised, which became almost a model for the rest of the world. And I'm sorry to say the same Election Commission today is the looks like being accused of. And as someone who has admired Election Commission as an institution, I can say with some regret, is today almost acting at the behest of the ruling party. What happened was this, that while the Indian Constitution provided for independence, the mechanism for appointment was not valid. Very bipartisan. The government could appoint. And the idea was that you go by conventions, you don't put someone very controversial or loyal to the regime. But after 2014, Mr. Modi plays what is called constitutional hardball, which is to say, do things just as per the legality. Forget the conventions, forget fairness, forget everything else. So he appoints very partisan persons to the Commission. And in 2019, something happened which transformed it all together. One of Mr. Modi's appointee, Mr. Lawasa, who was appointed to the Election Commission, made the mistake of dissenting. He wrote notes of dissent which were ineffective because he was in minority. But he just wrote notes of dissent to some of the controversial things Mr. Modi was doing in the election there. What followed thereafter? Change the rules of the game. Because Mr. Lavasa's family was hounded, although he was In a constitutional position, he could not be removed. But cases were opened against his wife. 10 year, 15 year old cases were opened against his wife. His son suddenly found himself out of job from a private company. And the message was quite clear. You may be on a constitutional position but you dare not oppose Mr. Modi. And after the election, Mr. Dawasa quietly tendered his resignation and moved out. That to my mind was the turning point. After that the election commission has behaved in ways which are completely in line with the government. I must say before 2024 election, just the week before the national election, the government made two appointments in a three member commission. They ensured a designation, made two appointments, very controversial appointments. And after that the election commission has behaved in ways which are very in line with what the regime would want. Specifically, on the issue of the voters list revision, there is no doubt that voters list needs to be revised. There is a very detailed protocol of the Election commission of India which has had wonderful laws, rules, handbooks, manuals and so on. There is a very detailed protocol about how it should be carried out. What the election commission did this year, beginning with Bihar and now in the rest of the country is that they overturned two established conventions. Number one in India, the onus of being on the voters list was never on the citizen. It was on the government on the system. The election commission officials would come to your home and register you. That was overturned. And now the rule is here is the form, you have to fill it. If you don't fill it, your name would be automatically deleted. That's why 6.5 lakh. Sorry, 65 million. I'm sorry, I'm mixing it. 6.5 million names were deleted in one go because they failed to fill the form. And the second convention over the last 75 years is that there's a presumption of citizenship. If you live in a house in India, you are presumed to be citizen unless there is an evidence to you to the contrary. But this year the election commission changed that as well and said the onus is on you to prove your citizenship. This might look decent, but do remember here is a country where the proportion of non documented citizens, citizens who carry no document whatsoever is so large. And the only one or two documents that most citizens do possess something called Aadhaar Card in India that was disallowed by the commission. So we are looking at a situation where the entire system has been transformed. So it's not merely cleaning off the voters list. It's a tectonic shift in the nature of voting rights in India tectonic shift in the nature of universal adult franchise in a way that its universality is compromised. That is what has happened. Fox News is now streaming live on Fox 1. When news breaks, we don't just report it. We go beyond the headlines to get the full story. Get live coverage in depth, analysis and perspectives from the voices you trust all in one place. Whether you're at home or on the go. Stay connected to the stories shaping our world stream. Fox news on Fox 1 download today.
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And you can see the parallels here with what's happening in other parts of the world. But these are technical changes that have real, as you said, tectonic consequences because it changes the onus of proof. And when the onus is of proof is on citizens, the less advantaged citizens are often disadvantaged in terms of time, in terms of documentation and such like. So that's really interesting and important, I think to underscore. I want to ask about something you mentioned earlier, which is, I think you called it, this is a party of Hindu chauvinism and Indian nationalism doesn't have has been a force that was important in creating democracy in India in 1947. And yet today it's many, many observers of India are talking about the relationship of the rise of. You use the term Hindu chauvinism, maybe you call it Hindu nationalism. But I'm curious about how you think about this relationship of the rise of nationalism and a certain kind of nationalism in India today and its relationship to democracy. And I know it's something you've written a lot about, so I'd love to hear your, your thought.
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Maya, this word Hindu nationalism is how scholars and observers abroad outside India describe bjp. And actually BJP is very happy with this description because they think this actually is a very positive description for them because the word nationalism carries very, very different connotations in certain sections of Western societies. When you say a party is nationalist, what you're saying is it's a xenophobic party, it's chauvinist, it's anti race, it's racist, it's anti migrant. All this is encoded normally when you say a party in Germany is a nationalist party, a party in Turkey is a nationalist party. That's the assumption in a postcolonial society like India, the word nationalism simply does not carry that connotation. And I honestly really hope and wish that we could find two different words for these two different things. If you look at Indian nationalism, which is India's anti colonial struggle, now, the important thing to remember is that India's Anti colonial struggle was at no point racist. There was no anti white element in that at all. India's anti colonial struggle was at no time pitting India against its neighbors. China was one of our major neighbors at that point. And one of the first acts of Indian independent, independent Indian government was to ensure that China becomes a member of the un. So my nationalism did not teach me to be enemies with my neighbors. My nationalism did not actually brought me closer to Latin America, to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, to Palestinians, to other struggling people of Asia. This is what Indian nationalism was. It was a global community of anti colonial forces. So a certain globalism is, a certain internationalism was built into Indian nationalism. On the other hand, internally, my nationalism never taught me to be majoritarian. My nationalism was not about, about uniformity, about assimilation of all cultures into one. If you look at the Indian national anthem, one of the critical parts of Indian national anthem is Punjab, Asyand, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravid, Utkal, Banga. This is naming all the regions and linguistic identities of India. I can't imagine many other countries which would wish to foreground its diversity like this. It's a foregrounding of diversity. It is taking pride in diversity. It is saying India is because of Punjab and Sindh and Gujarat and Maharashtra and Utkal and so on and so forth. And interestingly, Maya, since you do research on India and you understand India, interestingly, in this entire list, there's not a single state of Hindi speaking north India. So you see what is so amazing about this nationalism is that the largest part of India, the part that speaks Hindi, which is about 40% of India, does not find a mention in the national anthem while everyone else also almost finds a mention. This is India's nationalism. Deeply open, deeply respective of diversities, deeply respective of religious differences. Nationalism, which was which after partition, which led to killing of nearly 5 million people after that bloody partition, Indian nationalism said India is not a country only for Hindus. In this country, Hindus, Muslims and every other person will get equal rights. Unlike Pakistan. India took that decision. Now that is India's nationalism. So when people say BJP is a Hindu nationalist party, I feel this is, this is contrary to everything that Indian nationalism stood. Nationalism. And I draw something from your work as well, Maya. Nationalism is as much a positive force, nationalism is a force that it's a resource. It's not merely the way it's been described. And in any case, those of us living in post colonial societies, I see no reason why I should vicariously carry the guilt of Germany. My nationalism is positive and therefore to my mind what the BJP is doing is dismantling a destruction of Indian nationalism. It is important to mention this is a point that, you know, some of our viewers may not have noticed that actually the BJP and its ideological political ancestors played zero role in India's anti colonial struggle. In fact, they have been accused of being in league with the colonial rulers. So strangely, the party, the political stream that had no role in Indian nationalism today has captured Indian nationalism. That is where the problem lies. And the real challenge is to recover that healthy, positive, internationalist and diversity loving nationalism.
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A
I want to now ask you about social movements and I want to ask you about social movements because social movements have been shown in some of the recent work on where you see democratic U turns right where you see countries arresting the kind of backsliding dynamics. Social movements have often played an important role because they signal to politicians that there is mass animation support for preventing that kind of backsliding. So for somebody who's been involved with a number of social movements, the farmers movement, the anti corruption movement, you, as I mentioned, you were part of this, this march before the last election. So can you talk to me about what you think separates out successful social movements from less successful social movements?
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Especially in the case of a society like India. I always felt that our institutional edifice was weak, it could crumble. While we had imported Western institutions in one go, most of those institutions did not take root. You know, some institution did for a time, for a little while, for example the election commission, as I mentioned, our institutional structure has been fragile. So what has saved our democracy Movements? Social movements have filled the gap left by weakness of institutions in our democratic structures. And this is not new. You mentioned some of the movements of the last 10 years that I have been involved in. But if you go back to India, India's resistance to the first anti democratic episode in India's history, which is the emergency during 1975-1977, that also was in a sense a response to a movement and India was liberated from them that through a movement. India's some of the biggest transformations that India has witnessed in our policy structures. For example, India's environmental policies underwent a change because of movement against large dams led by Naradaba Chawandhul and Mehdha Padkar and others. So social movements from disadvantaged sectors of society have been at the heart of India's transformation, resilience of Indian democracy. And in the period that we are discussing, 2014 onwards, where has the resistance come from? Much of the resistance to this authoritarian trend in Indian politics has not come from Parliament. Unfortunately the opposition has been quite muted. I would not compromise, but has been quite muted, at least for the first 10 years. Institutions surrendered one by one. The resistance came from the street. The resistance came from the people. The farmers movement, which is farmers protest against three laws which they thought were anti farmers. Laws that were quietly brought in through the back door. During the COVID period, more than 100,000 farmers sat outside Delhi for 13 months. Thirteen months they kept sitting outside, encircled the city of Delhi, kept sitting there till Mr. Modi was forced to withdraw those laws. Something Mr. Modi is not known to do. You mentioned the Bharat Jora Yatra led by the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi which was a march from the southern tip of India, Kanyakumari to the northern tip of India Kashmir about 4000 km which transformed the mood of the country and resulted in 2024 verdict. There were also lesser known movement but very powerful, the LTCAA movement because there was a move made by Mr. Modi to basically downgrade the citizenship of Indian Muslims. He brought in a law which in effect meant that if you're a Muslim, you're not welcome in India. That's what the law was about. And the protest against that which should be called equal citizenship movement which was led by Muslim women who set up these sit ins across the country. So these movements have really transformed this country. Movements also by their ex untangible communities and ex indigenous communities, the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes. These are movements which have brought in energy. And I as a political activist, as someone who is committed to recovery of the Indian reclaiming the Indian Republic for restoration of democracy. If you ask me, where do I finally pin my hopes on. On elections? Probably not on judiciary and institutions, certainly not social movements. Possibly yes, that's where I pin my hopes.
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A
And so just what do you think has made. Let's take the farmers movement, right? You mentioned it was one of those rare movements that was able to get the regime to u turn on a policy matter. And so what, what makes what made that movement particularly successful? And and more generally when. When you say I'm really hopeful or I'm somewhat hopeful in virtue of social movements. So for our listeners, what aspects of social movements are important in achieving success?
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B
Take the example of farmers movement. It spoke to the concerns of a very large segment of Indian society. Technically, those who are doing on those who own land and do their farming could be about 20% of India's population, but more than 50% of Indians in some way or the other. Are related to agriculture. So number one spoke to a very large segment, number two on issues that connected them all. Indian agriculture is otherwise so diverse that it's hard to bring Indian farmers together on one single platform. Those laws, fortunately for the farmers movement, were such which actually brought Indian farmers together because they dealt with marketing and with issues of prices which connected them all. But three more important, it's not just the demand side of it, it's also supply side. Farmers movement have had a long and deep history in India, especially in the state of Punjab, where they came from, where much of the farmers initially came from. So it's and farmers movement have had a history of a certain progressive action. Indian farmers movement have been tied to secular, democratic and egalitarian perspectives. So these kind of movements are things that I would pin my hope on. What works is of course ability to connect to a very large segment and pre existing networks which can be transactivated. This of course doesn't apply in every single case. And that's why the largest issue of India, namely that of unemployment, jobs, job security, is an issue which is crying for attention. But the absence of pre existing networks and the fact that it's such a unemployed are such a floating and shifting population that makes any political action that much more difficult.
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A
So it's tapping into existing networks, pre existing social networks that exist around these issues. It's connecting broadly to the concerns of everyday citizens. It's also getting collective action which you say is hard and it was possible here because there was a law which energized this broad cross section of Indian society. So I want to conclude by asking you one last question on behalf of some of our listeners. Most of them are going to be committed to protecting democracy. And so for those citizens who want to think about what can I do right, you're talking about large movements, elections, parliaments and media. What is one thing, one practical suggestion you would have for a citizen of India who is committed to protecting its democracy?
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B
I would just wish to remind them that we did not get democracy free. Nowhere in the world did democracy come simply emerge. Democracy came through a series of contestations anywhere in the world world. And there is no way democracy can be protected unless the citizens step in. So in my vocabulary, a republic in the last instance has to be defended by the public. What can the public do? You need not be involved in grand things. Not everyone gets an opportunity to be involved in that. But fortunately we can. Thanks to social media, thanks to open opening up of these opportunities, we can act in small ways. We can act by simply defending the truth. I keep saying to everyone that, you know, in the last 10 years, we have had a huge troll army in the country. And my. And everyone keeps complaining, oh, my God, you know, they come up with lie every single day. And my question to everyone is, why can't we create a truth army to take on the troll army? This need not be an organized army. All of us can be soldiers for that truth army. In our small WhatsApp group, in our family WhatsApp group, in our college groups, in our little meetings, can we not stand up and simply say, well, that doesn't sound like true. Why are we circulating it? This is fake. We can begin with that. We can begin then by stepping up and asking questions that go beyond that. And specifically to the kind of listeners who are likely to hear this, because they are unlikely to be those who don't understand English language, and English language is already a very, very elite section of Indian society. To them, I would simply say, there's India beyond you. You have had the privilege, you know, if you understand English, if you understand what I'm saying, you already are among the very, very few privileged people in this country. And the responsibility that comes with privileges is to understand that we did not earn it. It happened to have come our way. And the responsibility we carry, therefore, is for those who have not had this kind of privilege. Can we speak for them? Can we understand them? And to most Indians who want to do anything, Maya, I have a very simple prescription, especially to those who speak English, who go to the kind of universities that you have the fortune of working in, and who come back to India and say, I want to work for this country. My simple prescription is spend six months in a village. Go to a village. Spend six months. Just understand your country. Discovery of India was the name of a great book written by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime minister. And I feel every Indian, especially every elite Indian, every privileged Indian, needs to do his own discovery of India. And that could begin by spending a few months in an Indian village or in a working class colony in every Indian metropolis. That could be discovery of India. That could also be discovery of democracy. That could also be discovery of hope.
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A
Jurgen the. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure talking to you. That's all for today's episode of Democracy Dialogues from Cornell University's Brooks center on Global Democracy, co sponsored by the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. I'm Maya Tudor, and we hope you enjoyed the conversation and continue to join us in thinking about the challenges and possibilities for democracy today. You can find our podcast on our YouTube channel, the New Books Network website, social media, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks to our guest, Yogender Yadav, and thanks to you for listening. We'll be back soon with another dialogue on democracy. Until then, stay engaged, stay informed, and stay committed to democratic dialogue.
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B
Live free.