This opinion by Kapil Komireddi is published by Washington Post. Here is an excerpt:

Six years ago, India was heralded by the International Monetary Fund as an economic powerhouse poised to overtake China. Now, having become the epicenter of the global pandemic, it has been reduced to supplicating the world for emergency aid.

India’s dire condition today is inseparable from the deterioration of its democracy. The institutions that could have prodded the government to contain the second wave have become hopelessly enervated over the past seven years. In March, the world’s largest democracy was downgraded from “free” to “partially free” by the U.S.-based nonprofit Freedom House, and branded an “electoral autocracy” by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute. Each singled out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strongman rule to support its conclusions.

But to ascribe the debilitation of Indian democracy solely to Modi is to settle for a partial portrait of the Indian tragedy. For a complete picture, we must consider the degeneration of the Congress Party, the main opposition and the “secular” alternative to Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party.

Read the full article here.