India, the world’s largest democracy, has been experiencing a democratic decline. Since coming to power in 2014 and winning reelection in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party have become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian. The rule of law has deteriorated, rights and liberties have been curtailed, and scholars and the media have been silenced. If electoral constraint, constitutional design, judicial independence, and a free press haven’t slowed India’s march toward illiberalism, what can? In November 2020, India’s farmers began a highly organized protest against the government. In this research note, I ask, how has this protest protected Indian democracy from further degradation, and has it radically altered India’s political future? I argue that the farmers’ protest provides an alternative vision of democracy, one rooted in radical egalitarianism. Protesting farmers have actualized the spirit of dissent enshrined in the Indian constitution by holding the current government accountable to it.
Democratization scholars point to institutional indicators to argue that Indian democracy is consolidated and Indian women are full citizens. I point to another set of data to demonstrate that Indian democracy is at risk because of the gendered nature of citizenship. I argue that institutional indicators tell a very limited story, because they often render women and gender invisible. I analyze situated citizenship through semi-structured, in-depth interview data. I find that respondents naturalize gendered citizenship, which results in a demarcation of home and marriage as the natural space of Sikh women. I find a situation of exclusionary inclusion, where women are an essential part of formal institutional democracy, but are unable to acquire full, substantive citizenship because they are understood as restricted to home and marriage. These results suggest that Indian democracy is weaker than democratization literature would suggest because women experience democracy differentially; women do not have the actual power to be active as citizens, to enjoy a bundle of rights, and to command democratic participation.
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