It's not drastically more authoritarian than it ever was. Indian democracy has always had a strongly authoritarian streak legislatively. The key difference is that it is difficult to unlock this level of authoritarianism unless you have a supermajority in Parliament, which basically didn't happen from the early 1990s-2016. 2016-Present is a re-repeat of the 1970s-1989, but with less guns.
That said, the end of the BJP majority is near. Traditionally strongly BJP states have started voting for regional parties or opposition national parties (though tbf those parties have also started embracing the Development+Hinduvta+Freebies model BJP leveraged in 2019). You know the BJP High Command is worrying when Modi gave a speech 2 days ago to the party leadership about the need to build a dedicated campaign to lure Pasmanda (OBC/lower caste Muslims) in the same way Modi leveraged OBC Hindu votes in 2012. That will cause the grand coalition within the BJP between the Janta Party types and the RSS types to start fracturing.
It is not, it is just more and more attack on Modi whenever some critical elections are impending. I'd claim that India has never been more democratic. Every side is free to not just talk but shout on top of their lungs, Indian judicial system still works, journalist and media (despite being absolute junk and corrupt) still function on their own. Now, there are incidences here and there, but these are exceptions not the rule and my claim is that by and large India is most democratic country. Given true democratic nature of India, whoever didn't like these exceptions (from either side of political fence), cry foul loudest. Whoever controls media better, appears to be having majority voice.
Indian politics is different than other countries, even within South Asia, I'd say. It was dominated by one single political party (Indian National Congress or INC) headed by a single family. In fact, it is funny that English media blames Modi to be authoritarian, who is duly elected both by people and within his party, compares to INC which is actually autocratic (It's always one Nehru family which is head of party and has first right to be PM if in power). However, since 2014, INC been uprooted with Modi's rise. While INC believed in status-quo approach (hence, no progress of India since 1947 until 2000s and was considered to be extremely corrupt), Modi completely turned political game over. Almost 45% of India voted for Modi's party, BJP in last election (total 800million voters). He has exceptional work ethics, both opponents and supporters admire his integrity and dedication towards serving India (Modi calls himself prime servant instead of prime minister). People on ground can see changes his party has ushered, like transportation infrastructure, digitization, focus on cleanliness and environment and much more. Sure, Modi is also head-strong may be even adamant. But given what India's state was with respect to corruption and rotten state affairs, probably this attitude was needed to bring the change. I'm glad that given mass support he enjoys and adamancy he has, Modi is not the authoritarian, some Indian elites claim to be and uses his power for development of India.
Since 1947, every Prime Minister has found some way to censor and ban whatever they don't like.
The first PM - Jawahar Lal Nehru - banned a certain musical instrument from state radio as he personally disliked it. He also introduced the 1st amendment to our constitution which ironically is the exact opposite of the US 1st amendment.
Ours allows the government to ban any speech!
This was because someone wrote an article critical of him personally.
His daughter, Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi better known as "Mahatma Gandhi"), took this to another level, introducing drastic censorship during an "Emergency" which was triggered by her election being nullified by a court.
> The first PM - Jawahar Lal Nehru - banned a certain musical instrument from state radio as he personally disliked it.
That is false. It was rather yet another colonial endeavour:
"In 1940, the harmonium was banned from All-India Radio, theretofore the largest single employer of harmoniumists in India. John Foulds, a prolific composer and the European music director of All-India Radio, Delhi, was largely responsible for this ban. [...] In 1938 Foulds published an article called “The Harmonium” in which he suggested that it be banned because its tuning was incompatible with Indian classical music. Echoing a term coined by fellow theosophist Margaret Cousins, he called it the “Harm-Onium” in this article. But more significantly, he called it “un-Indian.” Shortly afterward, Lionel Fielden, the Controller of Broadcasting at the time, sent out a circular banning the use of the harmonium as an accompanying or solo instrument in Indian classical music broadcasts." (Matt Rahaim (2011). That Ban(e) of Indian Music: Hearing Politics in The Harmonium. The Journal of Asian Studies, 70, p. 673)
Interesting. I first heard about the ban from a tabla player in the mid 80s and took it at face value. I couldn't remember which instrument.
I see the paper has quotes from Nehru which aren't exactly supportive of the instrument, so I guess that's why most people still associate him with the ban.
Really feel like alot of answers to this question are more influenced by the commenter's own partisan affiliation within their own country. India's BJP seems to be used as a proxy for conservatism in Western liberal publications, and so their critiques of BJP tend to act as critiques of the right-wing parties in their own countries.
Chile is currently in the process of rewriting its constitution to ensure civil liberties, indigenous rights, and so on. They recently legalized same-sex marriage etc.
Yeah, but have they hacked a journalist to pieces lately. No, but seriously, they have become more open in recent years, the most visible change of which is that women can drive.
Except the country spend a lot of energy trying to defend Russian oligarchs in their banking systems and preventing Ukraine from getting supplies. A « neutrality » that somehow seems to fall a lot on the side of Russia.
You have to find a company that would convince the authorities that they have been looking for qualified workforce on the Swiss/EU market and were not been able to find anyone suitable in 6 months thus you deserve a visa.
meh, just keep your existing remote WFH job, but have your home be in Zürich. You might need to work some offset hours to keep your meetings. Now, you're just on a tourist visa. Check it out for however long your tourist visa allows, and then if you don't actually like, it's a lot easier to leave. One step closer to being a digital nomad
I'm currently ~1k eur/month (altough remote), and I doubt that's a survivable amount for .ch. And a tourist visa is kinda not something could save my life now. If available, at all.
Not exactly; in 1971, it was for one last standing half-canton. On federal level and for most other cantons, women were allowed to vote long ago.
Sadly, women rights are a recent development in many recent countries. In Spain in 1975, women weren’t allowed to open their own bank accounts, for example. There are many other sad historical examples, and modern examples too :(
