Would you like to take your mind off Twitter and our worries about how they're destroying free speech in America? Then read about India instead, and its last big independent television station:
Some Indian observers say that the impending hostile takeover by Gautam Adani, the third richest man in the world, of what in 1998 became India’s first 24-hour news channel could signal the death knell of independent voices in India’s mainstream media outlets. NDTV, they say, has been the only remaining Indian broadcast network that continues to question Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda. The other nearly 20 English or Hindi news channels across India, they assert, have taken to brazenly touting the party line.
....The future of NDTV, founded by Dr. Prannoy Roy and his wife, Radhika Roy, came into play in August when Adani covertly acquired a third-party company that had the largest stake in the network. The Roys tried to fight him off, but apparently in vain. As of last week, Adani owned a 29% stake and has an open offer on another 26%. As a result, the Roys have resigned as directors.
Now that's a threat to free speech:
Adani and Modi both hail from the western state of Gujarat and have had a lengthy relationship. When Modi became prime minister in 2014, Adani’s net worth was $7 billion. Today, it is $147 billion, making him India’s richest man.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Adani addressed concerns that his taking over NDTV could end its independence. “Independence means if the government has done something wrong, you say it’s wrong,” Adani said. “But at the same time, you should have the courage when the government is doing the right thing every day. You have to also say that.”
All things considered, I wonder how long India will continue to be the world's largest democracy.
India will bumble along as a mostly democratic country. It's amazing it has held together for so long in the face of religious, ethnic and political tensions. It helps to have a federal structure, and some State governments are able to fend off the Union politicians.
But the thing with suppression of free speech is real. However I don't think India is going to be setting up a Great Firewall any time soon.
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If it's full of Hindu nationalists how use the state to perpetuate their power then it ain't a democracy.
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In the sense that political divisions often relate to cultural divisions, it’s unclear to me that India has ever been a democracy in any way that we would recognize.
I don’t think I’m saying anything terribly new here when I point out that Asian cultures tend to be more collective while we in the west (and perhaps especially in the USA) tend to be more individualistic.
That being said, I don’t think democratic outcomes in India were ever determined, to any great extent, by independent minded voters; rather, communities, castes, and other associations determined outcomes.
On one trip to India years ago, I remember asking a young Indian man I was acquainted with who he’d be voting for in an upcoming election. He responded, as if it was the most obvious statement in the world, that his father would tell him who to vote for. And that was a well educated young man. Not only did he see nothing wrong with his assumption that his father would decide who all family members vote for, he likely saw it as the height of virtue to be unquestioningly obedient to his elders.
And I have long wondered what the term “democracy” even means in that kind of culture.
If you take this alien-visitor-from-Mars approach to understanding a democracy, California would also come across as a place where people’s voting choices seems fixed, results of elections seem fore-ordained and it’s not even clear what democracy means to the natives.
That’d, of course, be a nonsensical take. It’s similar in India. Elections are most certainly consequential events with high participation, contested by parties which differ significantly on ideology and the ruling party can suffer dramatic defeat. The largest Indian state certainly has more frequent turnover of power between parties with very different ideologies than, say, the largest American state.
Regarding this:
“California would also come across as a place where people’s voting choices seems fixed, results of elections seem fore-ordained and it’s not even clear what democracy means to the natives.”
But we would see most of that as a bug, whereas in the various cultures of India your description may be seen as a feature. What we view as problems, they may see as goals and accomplishments.
This is not a question of relative perspectives, it’s an issue where one type of culture tends to value autonomy highly and another set of cultures tend to look upon autonomy as an abomination.
And it’s an entirely valid question (and, in my opinion, a fascinating topic) to ask what impact these differing cultural perspectives have on the understanding and practice of democracy.
Also, this is more than an academic situation. For reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, large segments of the Left have ruled out any discussion of “culture” as ignorant if not malevolent. I believe that approach has something to do with an attempted repudiation of right wing reactionaries who blame any problems among African Americans on their culture.
Nevertheless, it’s just not a productive approach to respond to one reductive view with another reductive view.
Culture is real, and it has very real-world effects: on democracy, education, relationships, business practices, etc. And it’s going to be more and more of an issue for the USA to deal with as we grow more multicultural.
Adani has massive investments in coal mines and coal-fired power stations, some of which are still being developed. People like him are one of the reasons it's a pipe dream to talk about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
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