Once in control, dictators and autocrats brook no opposition, within or outside the government or their political party. Driven by their eagerness to transform a nation, such leaders take big and bold decisions, some of which could backfire with devastating consequences. Can India afford to be led by an autocrat?
Who is happier with the state of affairs in their nation? Indians or Pakistanis?
The answer is a no-brainer. Our estranged cousins, who have been primarily ruled and controlled by autocratic military dictators, admire and envy India’s progress. There is no dispute that the Indian leadership over the last 75 years in politics, military, industry, academics, science, and technology, has done far better than their counterparts in Pakistan.
What about North Koreans and South Koreans?
Once again, there is no dispute that the democratic South Koreans are light years ahead of their brothers in the north, who are trapped in the despotic rule of Kim Jong Un, the third-generation dictator of North Korea since the 1950s. South Korea is a highly developed and industrialized nation with a GDP per capita income of $32,138 (as compared to Japan’s $34,135 and India’s $2,389). Whereas North Korea is in a pitiable totalitarian dictatorship, suffocating state control in the absence of freedom.
What about China and Taiwan?
Both were part of the same nation and have done well for themselves. Communist China (GDP per capita: $12,598) is a superpower today, while tiny, democratic Taiwan is a prosperous nation (GDP per capita: $32,679), leading the world in the manufacturing of semiconductors and other critical electronic components.
Although China has been able to give its people superpower status and world-class cities like Shanghai and Beijing, even the Chinese would acknowledge that Taiwan is a better country because it is a democracy. The people there live in the air of freedom, with a free press, and not in a totalitarian regime as in China.
One of the worst decisions of the autocratic founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, was the Great Leap Forward economic and social campaign (1958-62) to transform China from an agrarian economy to an industrialized one. Mao was a ruthless dictator, and this decision was so very disastrous that millions of people died of starvation as a result of this decision.
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Dictators and autocrats seize power or are popularly elected by the people like Vladimir Putin or Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. Once in control, they brook no opposition, within or outside the government or their political party. Driven by their eagerness to transform a nation, such leaders make big and bold decisions, some of which could backfire with devastating consequences. That too does not matter because it’s a price that the nation needs to pay on its march to glory.
This is what one got to see in Mao’s China or in North Korea.
Such leaders don’t make mistakes and they can only do good and great things. Thus, the entire propaganda machinery of the government and the party is focused on showing the ‘greatness’ of such leaders. A free press is not tolerated because it can puncture tall claims, and there is no reason to hold press conferences and answer uncomfortable questions from journalists.
Their’s is a one-man rule, which is neither good nor desirable for a nation, most certainly not for a nation as large, diverse, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic as India.
We see the personality of a popularly elected autocrat in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is now fighting elections for his third term. As with the previous two elections, the 2024 general election too is all about the personality and leadership of Narendra Modi with votes being asked in his name. In addition to slogans like ‘Modi ki Guarantee’, and ‘Phir ek baar Modi ki Sarkar’, another of BJP’s electoral slogans is ‘Ab ki baar, 400 par’.
From 303 seats in the 2019 general elections, the BJP wants to get 360-370 seats and cross the 400 mark with its alliance partners in the 2024 Lok Sabha of 543 seats. This would be adequate to cross the two-thirds mark in the Lok Sabha to initiate critical amendments to the constitution which is one of the goals of the RSS-BJP.
By now, we are familiar with Modi’s style of functioning. In recent interviews, the former union secretary, Anil Swarup, IAS, has presented an insider’s view of the Modi government. According to him, only two ministers could see PM Modi in the eye and disagree with him during cabinet meetings. One was Arun Jaitley, who is no more, and the other was Nitin Gadkari, who has been clearly sidelined. The rest does not matter.
Autocratic regimes capture academic institutions and democratic institutions one by one and manipulate them as they please. The police machinery and investigative agencies like the CBI, ED, and Income Tax are used to silence or terrorize opposition leaders. The media is held in contempt, harassed, and hounded to snuff out press freedom.
During the unstable era of coalition politics a few decades ago, the late farmer leader Sharad Joshi did not hesitate to speak in favor of coalition politics. He pointed out that the compulsions of coalition politics were such that they prevented any single party from riding their hobby horses. A party with a clear majority can do whatever it pleases, as is happening today. This cannot happen in coalition politics, which has its limitations.
The other big advantage of coalition politics is the compulsion of coalition partners to work out a CMP— Common Minimum Programme. To give an example, the 2004 CMP of the Congress-led UPA coalition spoke of preserving, protecting, and promoting social harmony; pursuing sustained economic growth; ensuring the welfare, and well-being of farmers, farm laborers, and workers, especially in the unorganized sector; empowering women; and work for the uplift of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs, and religious minorities.
Whether it was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MNREGA) or the Unique Identification Number Scheme (UIDAI), better known as Aadhar, both were introduced by the UPA coalition governments.
Undoubtedly, the Modi Government also has good work to its credit. However, while collations, in spite of their collective wisdom, may appear to be slow and ineffective, a one man show backed by single party majoritarian rule can be dangerous.
