Seldom in history, there occurs a natural experiment that allows posterity to draw timeless lessons on political discourse, governance and models of development. A few of these natural experiments are American revolution versus French revolution, Indian secular state versus Pakistani Islamic state, and British colonialism versus French Colonialism.
While incrementalism and constitutionalism espoused by the founders of American revolution laid foundations of a flawed yet robust democracy, French revolution’s gory and totalitarian character paved the way for Napoleon. France had to go through several violent churns before a functioning democracy took hold. British colonialism like its French counterpart was both exploitative and expropriative but institutions put in place to carry out those imperial aims had far reaching consequences. Common law practiced by former British colonies is more consistent with individual liberty than the more rationalist and interventionist tendencies of civil law that is practiced in former French colonies. Closer to home, simultaneous creation of India and Pakistan provides a framework of intended and unintended consequences of a separation between the state and religion. The vision of Indian founding fathers was that Indians got India not Hindus. A secular character undergirded by democratic foundations drove the Indian state, and against all odds the Indian nation endured famine, war, and poverty. Pakistan still grapples with its identity, a resilient society but a weak state trundles on from one dictatorship to another, interrupted by democratically elected governments that were always under threat of a military takeover.
Ever since the Modi government came to power in 2014, the founding ideals of the Indian republic have been under sustained onslaught. If during the first term PM’s studied silence over beef eating lynchings or active inability to curb bigoted rhetoric from within his party raised hackles, the second term of the Modi government has proven to be more divisive and corrosive. From nationwide protests over CAA and NRC to the current farmer agitation over farm acts, the current dispensation is steadfast in its pursuit of governance through diktat rather than deliberation.
Indian polity straddles a very precarious balance between religious amity and animosity. A balance that was achieved after decades of democratic process, practiced right to the level of bottom of the pyramid. Given it’s complex communal history, it's nothing short of a miracle that India has persevered while everything around it is unravelling or unravelled.
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