| Knowledge-Net for a Better World |
January 2021 |
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Dissent and Democracy in Modi’s New India
Ramesh Thakur
Professor Emeritus in the Crawford School of Public Policy,
Australian National University |
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| "Civil resistance in Modi’s India: How Protestors are Fighting for a Democratic Future" |
It has been more than one year since protestors took to the streets of Delhi in opposition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Designed to reconfigure India’s citizenship laws by preventing Muslim immigrants from applying, many Indians are concerned that the CAA is but another attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to undermine the country’s secular foundations. Ramesh Thakur, Professor Emeritus in the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University, outlines how Modi is attempting to reimagine India as a Hindu nation and goes on to examine the ways in which broad and varying groups of Indians are combating his vision. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic has since hindered these efforts, he argues that Modi’s opponents are effectively combining methods of peaceful civil resistance with new conceptions of how democratic governance, constitutionalism, and minority rights are consolidated to form a counter-narrative to the government’s insular understanding. For Thakur, the re-solidifying of India’s traditionally unifying national identity have the potential to prevent the BJP, or any future government, from discrediting protests and overturning the open and tolerant underpinnings of the world’s largest democracy.  |
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