
India’s Internet shutdown in Kashmir is the longest ever in a democracy - prad9104
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir-is-now-the-longest-ever-in-a-democracy/2019/12/15/bb0693ea-1dfc-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html
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lonelappde
When does it stop being called a "democracy"?

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pasabagi
Hopefully never. Nazi Germany was a democracy. They cancelled the elections
during the war - but then, so did the British.

I think it's good to be aware of how sick a democracy can get. Anti-Semitism
was very popular in Germany. Islamophobia is very popular in India. You can't
just blame it on a few evil strongmen. Sometimes, it's the culture that's at
fault.

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woodandsteel
It was a democracy, but it was not what is known in political philosophy as a
liberal democracy. A liberal democracy is one that respects human rights. So
India under the rule of the BJP is transforming from a liberal democracy to an
illiberal democracy.

This is not surprising, since liberal democracy is a modern western concept,
but the BJP holds that traditional Hindu culture is best.

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pasabagi
I'm not sure I agree. All liberal democracies have the tendency (and usually
also explicit mechanisms) to transform into illiberal democracies. That's the
whole point of a 'state of emergency'. Most dictatorships (including the
Nazis) are inaugurated by a state of emergency, where some liberal rights are
suspended. However, democracies also do this all the time - iirc, the US has
been in a state of emergency since the 60's.

I also think human rights are distinct from liberal democracy - since liberal
democracies predate the concept, and many liberal democracies (e.g. the US,
UK) don't really abide by the UN charter in lots of ways, or don't have them
constitutionally enshrined.

I think in reality, the line between well-functioning liberal democracy and
scary dictatorship is really thin - and states cross from one side to the
other all the time. For instance, Montana in the USA imprisoned people for
saying anything against the US government in the first world war.

India has obviously been flirting with some scary ideas for some time, most
notably with the treatment of Dalits and Muslims - but it's hard to see this
as just a BJP problem. I think the BJP make the whole situation worse, but I
just don't see how you could avoid this kind of thing in a normal capitalist
democracy with extreme inequality and poverty. It's like in the US south
during apartheid. The only way the ruling group could secure anybody's support
was by convincing their poor white workers they had more in common with rich
white men than poor black men.

Unless you neuter inequality, social divisions - caste, gender, race - are
always going to be an easy way for the rich to ensure the poor don't join
forces against them. So secular, liberal democracy in such a state is just a
moment between various modalities of illiberal ethno-nationalism.

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woodandsteel
I agree with many of your points, but political philosophy does often make a
difference, and the BJP has one that is clearly illiberal.

Part of the reason I am focusing on this is that to the world the BJP often
pretends to support liberal rights when it actually does not.

Let me ask you this: if you were a citizen in India, would you join in
resistance to the BJP's illiberalism, or would you decide it is all inevitable
and just give up?

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pasabagi
I think I would join in resistance - it's just, in my thinking, the non-
liberal character of the BJP is not the problem. I don't think a liberal
resistance centered around classic enlightenment values (secularism, etc)
would work - and if it did work, I don't think it would have an enduring
effect.

I'm not really sure of how you would go about fighting back - but I just feel
like liberalism is really flawed when it comes to divided societies. The whole
secularism/universalism idea really quickly becomes a cover for the dominant
group to pretend that their values are secular, and their beliefs are
universal. Which is why you get crucifixes in Bavarian classrooms, but it's
impossible to get planning permission to build a mosque.

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Halluxfboy009
Kashmiris call the train the Internet Express. It shuttles people out of the
Kashmir Valley — where India has shut down access to the Internet for more
than four months — to the nearest town where they can get online.

On a recent foggy morning, it was full of people hoping to renew driver’s
licenses, apply for passports, fill out admissions forms and check email. They
included 16-year-old Khushboo Yaqoob, who was rushing to register for a
medical school exam. “If I had any other option, I wouldn’t be here,” she
said.

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Gabrielfair
First Hong Kong, then Tehran, then Kazmir...

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reaperducer
When was internet shut down in Hong Kong? I missed that.

