The Economist Or the Pulp Fiction?

The Economist editorial is an example of frustration of a section of the British who feel jealous that India under Modi is becoming stronger by the day. For them, the Congress Party implies a continuation of the British Raj and they want it back so that the loot can continue.

In its issue dated 4th May 2019, the Economist, London has published an editorial[1] by Anonymous which makes various baseless allegations against Indian Prime Minister Modi. It is obvious that the editor has written the 820-word piece without enough research. Probably, the idea was not to present facts backed by credible evidence but just engage in bad-mouthing Modi and his successful tenure of last five years. It also raises a doubt whether it is a ‘sponsored’ article by the Congress Party – India’s main opposition.

In the following paragraphs, I expose the Economist’s editorial piece with evidence.

Under India’s leader Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party poses a risk to democracy.

The Economist admits that Modi was not ‘as bad as his critics, including this newspaper imagined’. Yet it considers that under Modi’s leadership the BJP poses a risk to democracy. It doesn’t offer any rationale how this conclusion was arrived. But is the BJP under Modi really a threat to Indian democracy?

To answer this question, the international framework for assessment of democracy, will be helpful. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)[2] assesses democracies based on five attributes and sixteen subattributes: (a) representative government (clean elections, inclusive suffrage, free political parties and elected governments), (b) fundamental rights (access to justice, civil liberties, social rights and equalities (c) checks on government (effective Parliament, judicial independence, media integrity) (d) impartial administration (absence of corruption, predictable enforcement) and (e) participatory engagement (civil society participation, electoral participation, direct democracy, subnational elections.

The Economist doesn’t tell us under which of the above five attributes, Indian democracy got compromised in Modi’s rule.

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