An Indian blogger has attacked western experts and ratings agencies for repeatedly branding India an electoral autocracy just because Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP has been winning elections after elections. He said a country can either be a democracy or an autocracy, but western 'experts' have categorized a form of governance that is neither and "yet is both".
Elaborating on his point, Kishore Asthana of Gurgaon wrote that several western countries have had leaders who ruled for several years.
"Did we say that the UK became an autocracy when Robert Walpole was the Prime Minister for nearly 21 years from 1721 till 1742, or even when Margaret Thatcher was the PM from 1979 to 1990? Mark Rutte has been the PM of Holland for 12 years. Has Holland become an electoral autocracy? Did Angela Merkel make Germany an electoral autocracy when she was Chancellor for 16 years, from 22nd November 2005 to 8th December 2021?"
He said PM Modi has been the prime minister of the country for eight years, during which his party -- the BJP --won some elections and lost some others. His party won the general elections twice, but the elections were not one-sided.
"In 2019, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)received 37.36% of the vote and won 303 seats with their National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning 353 seats out of a total of 543 in the lower house. In the previous election in 2014, BJP had won 31% of the vote and 282 seats, while its National Democratic Alliance won a total of 336 seats. No one has said that these elections were rigged in favour of BJP," he wrote.
He said Modi is the subject of criticism by opposition leaders and journalists and left-liberal intellectuals; yet he remains in power.
"Isn’t that how a democracy is supposed to function?" he added.
He discarded the notion that a leader as popular as Modi must be an autocrat.
"If racism and hypocrisy can be combined, it would give birth to ‘racist-hypocrisy’. This would be something like a mule which is more real than a cat-dog. A mule is the hybrid offspring of a jackass and a mare, and is a viable animal. Indeed racist-hypocrites are more real than electoral autocrats. This hybrid would aptly describe the experts at the helm of the rating agencies, however much they try hiding their racism and hypocrisy behind the mask of academia through self-designed criteria, slanted survey questions and flawed research methodology," he added.
He said there were two reasons for the rise of Modi -- the appeasement of minorities by previous governments and a poorly led opposition.
He added that Modi has been delivering as far as development is concerned.
"A second reason for Mr. Modi’s popularity is the divided and poorly led opposition. Indian National Congress, with its emphasis on the infallible superiority of the Gandhi family, in the face of undeniable evidence of their incompetence and lack of any experience at governing, is constantly shooting itself in the foot. Till this family is the only glue holding together Congress leaders, the party’s decline is bound to continue," he added.
He accused AAP of being immature and unsuitable for national leadership.
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