Category Archives: Liberal

Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart brought that concern to the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board

Obtaining information about what happened in an emergency, such as a wildfire or flood, may not be easy to come by as it once was.

An area MLA told the Thompson-Nicola Regional district board at a recent meeting that people seeking information following emergencies are being directed to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act process.

However, as part of updates to that act, the provincial government has added a new fee to those filing requests for information. The fee is $10 per request, double that of a federal FOI inquiry, though some First Nations groups will be exempt from paying the fee, according to the provincial government.

Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart of the BC Liberal Party said Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone has asked for proactive disclosure during emergencies and wildfires.

For citizens who are simply looking for information, this is a barrier and a very confusing process for them, Tegart said.

We were extremely disappointed that the government would not look at an amendment that would encourage people and allow them to get information that is public information.

Minister of Citizens' ServicesLisa Beare has said the reason the $10 fee was implemented was due to a large increase in the number of FOI requests being handled by government employees.

Read the original:

BC Liberal MLA: New FOI fee could hamper those seeking information during emergencies - Kamloops This Week

news, national

The Queensland premier's director-general Rachel Hunter will probe serious allegations the former top public servant was forced to mislead parliament for two years. Former state archivist Mike Summerell says then Housing Minister Mick de Brenni told him in 2018 that he no longer had independence from the department. Mr Summerell said he was then forced to remove sections from his annual reports that were "embarrassing or damaging to the government", and if he didn't, they would be altered anyway before being tabled in parliament. Mr de Brenni says he's "not aware of any wrongdoing" during his time as housing minister. "If any public servant has evidence of wrongdoing they should and are obliged to take it up with the relevant authority," the energy minister said in a statement. Mr Summerell also said he felt pressured to leave his role in May after current Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch offered him a three-month extension on his five-year contract. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ordered her own department's director-general Rachel Hunter to probe the allegations. She says Mr Summerell had a legal obligation to report his concerns to the Crime and Corruption Commission at the time. "Let the director-general have a look at these issues," Ms Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday. "But as I said, with serious allegations the public service know their code of conduct, and they know where to send serious allegations, and that is to the CCC." The premier refused to say whether she asked Ms Enoch about telling parliament last year that Mr Summerell had chosen not to renew his contract. The former archivist said after the 2018 meeting with Mr de Brenni, he was told to remove all references to his probe into an email scandal involving Transport Minister Mark Bailey from his annual report. When he later refused to change his annual reports to "make the government look good", they were tabled by Mr de Brenni with any controversial sections removed. "For 2 years I was directed to create misleading annual reports to parliament by DHPW senior officials with as far as I am concerned only one objective - don't say anything that could be embarrassing or damaging to the government," Mr Summerell said in a statement to News Corp. The former archivist said "misleading parliament" was a major issue for him, and that "I don't believe at all that my experiences were unique". "People need to know how little respect this government has for the integrity of the public record, transparency and accountability," Mr Summerell said. Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli called for the premier to sack Mr de Brenni and Ms Enoch. He said the issues could only be resolved by proper inquiry into government integrity and Mr Bailey should also stand aside while that probe occurs. "The premier has no other choice but to launch a full royal commission into the integrity inferno burning her government to a crisp," Mr Crisafulli told reporters. Katter's Australian Party and Greens MPs back an integrity inquiry after the resignations of Queensland Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov and Crime and Corruption (CCC) chairman Alan MacSporran. Like Mr Summerell, Dr Stepanov has also complained of "interference" in her role, with the CCC probing an allegation that the Public Service Commission confiscated a laptop from her office and later deleted its contents without her knowledge or consent last year. Australian Associated Press

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/6c41cf38-6708-477b-ba40-72777db602af.jpg/r0_74_800_526_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

The Queensland premier's director-general Rachel Hunter will probe serious allegations the former top public servant was forced to mislead parliament for two years.

Former state archivist Mike Summerell says then Housing Minister Mick de Brenni told him in 2018 that he no longer had independence from the department.

Mr Summerell said he was then forced to remove sections from his annual reports that were "embarrassing or damaging to the government", and if he didn't, they would be altered anyway before being tabled in parliament.

Mr de Brenni says he's "not aware of any wrongdoing" during his time as housing minister.

"If any public servant has evidence of wrongdoing they should and are obliged to take it up with the relevant authority," the energy minister said in a statement.

Mr Summerell also said he felt pressured to leave his role in May after current Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch offered him a three-month extension on his five-year contract.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ordered her own department's director-general Rachel Hunter to probe the allegations.

She says Mr Summerell had a legal obligation to report his concerns to the Crime and Corruption Commission at the time.

"Let the director-general have a look at these issues," Ms Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday.

"But as I said, with serious allegations the public service know their code of conduct, and they know where to send serious allegations, and that is to the CCC."

The premier refused to say whether she asked Ms Enoch about telling parliament last year that Mr Summerell had chosen not to renew his contract.

The former archivist said after the 2018 meeting with Mr de Brenni, he was told to remove all references to his probe into an email scandal involving Transport Minister Mark Bailey from his annual report.

When he later refused to change his annual reports to "make the government look good", they were tabled by Mr de Brenni with any controversial sections removed.

"For 2 years I was directed to create misleading annual reports to parliament by DHPW senior officials with as far as I am concerned only one objective - don't say anything that could be embarrassing or damaging to the government," Mr Summerell said in a statement to News Corp.

The former archivist said "misleading parliament" was a major issue for him, and that "I don't believe at all that my experiences were unique".

"People need to know how little respect this government has for the integrity of the public record, transparency and accountability," Mr Summerell said.

Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli called for the premier to sack Mr de Brenni and Ms Enoch.

He said the issues could only be resolved by proper inquiry into government integrity and Mr Bailey should also stand aside while that probe occurs.

"The premier has no other choice but to launch a full royal commission into the integrity inferno burning her government to a crisp," Mr Crisafulli told reporters.

Katter's Australian Party and Greens MPs back an integrity inquiry after the resignations of Queensland Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov and Crime and Corruption (CCC) chairman Alan MacSporran.

Like Mr Summerell, Dr Stepanov has also complained of "interference" in her role, with the CCC probing an allegation that the Public Service Commission confiscated a laptop from her office and later deleted its contents without her knowledge or consent last year.

Australian Associated Press

Originally posted here:

Hunter to probe Qld archivist allegations - Daily Liberal

We reported earlier on the bad situation in Virginia where people were stuck in the snow on I-95 for up to a day. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) was still stuck after 19 hours, earlier this morning.

As we noted, some on the left tried to blame the situation on recently elected Republican Glenn Youngkin. But Youngkin isnt even in office yet, so any government response that should have been done here is all on the current, Democrat Gov. Ralph Blackface Northam and he wasnt doing a great job at it.

People stuck for hours were left to fend for themselves to figure out what to do. So, some were using social media to help each other. This is the best of America, when people respond in this fashion to help each other out.

Now you wouldnt think that anyone could object to the people trying to help each other out in the middle of such a situation. But then, you wouldnt know liberal journalist Jonathan Chait, he who shall be permanently aggrieved no matter the situation.

In the middle of a snow emergency with these people trapped in the snow, this is what he thinks is a proper response? And by the way, Jonathan, this kind of response is pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. When the government fails you, you figure out ways around it to help yourself and your neighbors. Its the very essence of Reaganism, but more broadly, being a good American.

The Reagan account is doing what it can to help people, and the liberal account of Jonathan Chait is carping and mocking people being in danger. Could there be a better example of why one philosophy is better than the other here? How soulless do you have to be when this is what youre thinking about at this point?

This is the same guy who mocked Americans last month who were concerned about the price of milk because of inflation. He has no soul and is all in with the tribalism.

Of course, it shouldnt be about politics now, but making sure everyone is safe, as the Reagan account pointedly told Chait, who doesnt seem to understand that.

My colleague Joe Cunningham does him in nicely here:

Link:

Liberal Journalist Mocks Republicans Trying to Help People ...

WASHINGTON Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is expected to retire after 27 years on the Supreme Court, leaves a legacy as a moderate liberal who worked hard to build consensus and protect the reputation of the court even as it moved sharply to the right in recent years.

He insisted that politics played no role in the courts work, devoting a recent book to the subject. After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, when he became the courts senior liberal, he may have hoped to find common ground with his more conservative colleagues.

But there was little evidence of that in recent months. In cases on abortion, immigration and the Biden administrations responses to the coronavirus pandemic, he repeatedly found himself in dissent.

His voting over the years was generally similar to that of other Democratic appointees, if perhaps a little more conservative, according to a new report from Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin of Washington University in St. Louis and Kevin Quinn of the University of Michigan.

The report found that he cast the smallest percentage of liberal votes among the Democratic appointees with whom he served Justices Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. His disagreements with the other liberals, the report found, tended to fall disproportionately in the area of criminal procedure.

In 2013, for instance, he voted with the majority to allow the police to take DNA samples from people arrested in connection with serious offenses. The other liberals dissented.

Though he made frequent public appearances in all sorts of settings, he was far less prominent than some of his more colorful colleagues. He routinely came in last in public opinion surveys in which respondents were asked to name the justices.

In a Marquette Law School poll released this month, only 21 percent of Americans said they were able to express an opinion about him, the lowest for any member of the court.

Still, when he was promoting a book he could seem ubiquitous. Last year, he gave countless interviews in connection with the publication of The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.

The book explored the nature of the courts legitimacy and said it was undermined by labeling justices as conservative or liberal. Drawing a distinction between law and politics, Justice Breyer wrote that not all splits on the court were predictable and that those that were could generally be explained by differences in judicial philosophy or interpretive methods.

In an interview with The New York Times, he acknowledged that the politicians who had transformed confirmation hearings into partisan brawls held a different view, but he said the justices acted in good faith, often finding consensus and occasionally surprising the public in significant cases.

Didnt one of the most conservative quote members join with the others in the gay rights case? he asked in the interview, referring to Justice Neil M. Gorsuchs 2020 majority opinion in a ruling that a landmark civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination.

Justice Breyer was an idiosyncratic questioner on the Supreme Court bench. Lawyers appearing before the court sometimes resented his elaborate hypothetical questions, which could resemble an interior monologue with a point discernible only to him. They sometimes ended with a simple request: Respond.

At the same time, his questions were evidence of intense curiosity and an open mind, which often contrasted with the more strategic inquiries of his fellow justices.

In his judicial writing, Justice Breyer sometimes drew fine distinctions.

He was, for instance, the only justice in the majority both times in a pair of 2005 cases that allowed a six-foot-high Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol but held unconstitutional the posting of framed copies of the Commandments on the walls of Kentucky courthouses. A conservative bloc of justices would have upheld both kinds of displays, while a liberal bloc would have required their removal.

Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion in 2000 in Stenberg v. Carhart, a 5-to-4 decision that struck down a Nebraska law banning a procedure that its opponents called partial-birth abortion.

He was characteristically balanced in presenting the clash of values.

Millions of Americans believe that life begins at conception and consequently that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child; they recoil at the thought of a law that would permit it, he wrote. Other millions fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty and leading those with least resources to undergo illegal abortions with the attendant risks of death and suffering.

View post:

Justice Breyers Legacy: A Liberal Who Rejected Labels Like Liberal - The New York Times

Liberal mega-donor George Soros will contribute $125 million to his super PAC, which will make him one of the biggest donors to Democratic groups and candidates for the 2022 election cycle to date.

Soross group, Democracy PAC, launched in 2019 and contributed more than $80 million to Democratic groups and candidates leading up to the 2020 elections. It made the most recent announcement before the groups spending is posted publicly next week after filing with the Federal Election Commission.

VEHICLE BELONGING TO REP. CORI BUSH HIT BY GUNFIRE, CONGRESSWOMAN UNHARMED

"Ongoing efforts to discredit and undermine our electoral process, reveal the magnitude of the threat to our democracy," said Alexander Soros, George Soros's son and the PAC's next president, in his own statement citing the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. This "is a generational threat that cannot be addressed in just one or two election cycles."

Only a handful of major donors have made nine-figure contributions to federal groups and candidates in recent years, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks these donations.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The PAC has already made sizable contributions to groups including the Senate Majority PAC, the House Majority PAC, and the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State ahead of the 2022 elections.

Continue reading here:

Liberal mega-donor George Soros gives $125 million to PAC ahead of midterm elections - Washington Examiner

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland scores higher than Justin Trudeau as the preferred choice for leader of the Liberal Party, with a new poll showing Canadians are deeply divided over the Prime Ministers performance.

Ms. Freeland, who does double duty as Finance Minister and is playing a key role in Canadas response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, is the front-runner to become Mr. Trudeaus potential successor.

A Nanos Research poll of 1,049 Canadians conducted Jan. 21-23 for The Globe and Mail found 25 per cent of respondents said Ms. Freeland is best suited to lead the Liberal Party into the next election, compared with 18.4 per cent who said Mr. Trudeau would be their choice.

In voter-rich Ontario, Ms. Freeland is 13 percentage points ahead of Mr. Trudeau and three points ahead in his home province of Quebec.

It suggests, at this particular point in time, that she has a stronger brand than Justin Trudeau, pollster Nik Nanos said. The ironic twist in this is that Justin Trudeau is the one who made Chrystia Freeland who she is today and provided her with the platform for the profile she has.

Ms. Freeland, who appears to be Mr. Trudeaus heir apparent, leads other leadership rivals in cabinet by a large margin, as well as outsider Mark Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England.

Mr. Carney, also touted as a potential Liberal leader should Mr. Trudeau step down before the next election, has 12.1-per-cent support, followed by Innovation Minister Franois-Philippe Champagne at 2.5 per cent and Defence Minister Anita Anand at 2.3 per cent.

A significant 31.8 per cent of respondents said they were unsure who should lead the Liberal Party.

Almost 32 per cent are unsure who they would like to lead, so this also means it is wide open in terms of any of the other potential contenders, Mr. Nanos said. This a measurement of the brand strength of different potential contenders. The key indicator today is that the Freeland brand is stronger than the Trudeau brand.

The hybrid telephone and online survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

More worrisome for Mr. Trudeau, who has said he wants to seek a fourth mandate, is that the poll finds Canadians are evenly divided over his governance of the country. Thirty-five per cent of Canadians believe he has done an excellent job, and 35 per cent think he has done a poor job.

Ms. Freeland appears to have a head start in a potential leadership race. The Prime Minister has given her key decision-making roles and includes her in almost every government announcement he makes.

She is also going to be the subject of a biography that the author calls a portrait of the most powerful woman in Canadian politics and the possible heir apparent to Mr. Trudeau.

Biographer Catherine Tsalikis will feed growing perceptions within the Liberal Party that Canadas first female finance minister is preparing for Mr. Trudeaus departure from political office.

Ms. Tsalikis, who writes about foreign affairs and gender equality, said the biography is to be published in the fall of 2023 but could be released earlier if there is a leadership race and Ms. Freeland throws her hat into the ring.

The Globe has reported that Liberal MPs say Ms. Freeland has become more friendly and outgoing with backbenchers since the fall election. She now regularly returns calls from MPs.

The Globe has also reported that Foreign Affairs Minister Mlanie Joly, who co-chaired the Liberals election campaign, has set up a network of loyalists in Quebec for a potential leadership run.

However, Mr. Nanos said Ms. Joly registered less than 2-per-cent support in the poll.

For subscribers: Get exclusive political news and analysis by signing up for the Politics Briefing.

Excerpt from:

Chrystia Freeland tops Justin Trudeau as preferred Liberal Leader, poll finds - The Globe and Mail

The loudest voices warning against American military involvement if Russia invades Ukraine belong to populist conservatives. On his nightly Fox News show, Tucker Carlson regularly demands an explanation of what vital U.S. interest is served by intervening in the conflict. "We have no dog in the Ukraine fight. Not one American soldier should die there, and not one American bullet should be fired there," said Rep. Paul Gosar, a controversial Arizona Republican. Hillbilly Elegy author and Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance tweeted, "Billions spent on the Kennedy School, grand strategies seminars, and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service has bought us an elite that's about to blunder us into a Ukraine war."

When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the type of libertarian-leaning conservative one can usually count on to balk at foreign military adventures, wrote that "Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tweeted simply, "Agree!"

These Republicans and their allies tend to be close to former President Trump, or at least his attempted redefinition of the party's priorities. They may, for that reason, be able to reach the GOP rank-and-file in a way the party's intervention skeptics have sometimes struggled to do in the past.

But that could also make it harder to have the kind of left-right coalition that existed at the margins of the Iraq war debate and passed a resolution to stop U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. Trump vetoed it, but top allies like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), his final White House chief of staff, voted with Congress' leading progressives to advance the measure.

Progressives never liked Trump, and they like Republicans who continue to defend "the former guy" after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot even less. Liberal attitudes about Russia hardened after the Kremlin's election interference in 2016, though the most extreme reactions to this meddling were practically in "stop the steal" territory.

"We need to stop calling this 'isolationism,'" liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent wrote. "Tucker is pulling the GOP base toward Putinism."

The U.S. probably won't end up at war over Russia-Ukraine this time around, though escalation begets more escalation. If Ukraine joined NATO, the risk would increase. Could populists and progressives work together to stop it? Early results aren't encouraging.

View original post here:

A liberal-populist conservative alliance on Ukraine? - The Week Magazine

Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Senator Mitch McConnell, called out the liberal media for the lack of coverage on the bombshell footage showing illegal immigrants being released into the United States. On "Outnumbered" Thursday, Holmes said the mainstream media is "complicit" given their failure to report extensively on the Biden administration's border policies.

TENNESSEE BILL PROPOSES RELOCATING MIGRANTS TO BIDEN'S AND PSAKI'S HOMETOWNS

JOSH HOLMES: Thank God for Fox News, because otherwise, I don't think anybody would know anything about this. They were talking about having it get out to the media. I think the rest of the media other than Fox is basically complicit in this. There's no sort of curiosity whatsoever. I must have missed the statute that passed the House and the Senate that allowed for transport of illegal immigrants to unsuspecting communities across this country.

I didn't see that happen. I didn't see the White House put a policy paper out on that. I didn't hear anybody talk about what that could mean to the communities where these illegal immigrants end up. Nobody's talked about it. And the reason is they're trying to keep it secret. Thank gosh that this thing has been exposed, and we can hopefully push for some answers. Republicans, should they regain power, 100 percent this needs to be at the top of the list.

WATCH MORE FROM OUTNUMBERED BELOW:

See the article here:

Josh Holmes slams liberal media's silence on bombshell immigration footage: They're 'basically complicit' - Fox News

It starts with the cover photo: a male torso, shirt all the way open, hand lightly resting near crotch. Just the right amount of chest hair. The picture doesnt include his face because really what its concerned with is the body. The book jacket is undeniably sexy, and maybe a little bit embarrassing to carry around or read on the T.

The books title is Vladimir, and its one of the years buzziest new novels, a debut by Julia May Jonas. Mark that name. Shes very, very good.

Set on the campus of a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, Vladimir is narrated by an English professor in her late fifties. Shes arch, wry, knowing, a bit vain (she has little rules with herself for staying at her ideal weight), and given to sharp observations about herself (Ive always felt the origin of anger in my vagina and am surprised it is not mentioned more in literature) and others, from her students to her colleagues to her husband, chair of the English department. The husband, John (our narrator remains unnamed), has been sleeping with students for years, with the narrators knowledge and tacit approval (they have an arrangement), but the situation has proven untenable now that a petition has been signed by more than 300 people demanding he be fired.

I find this post hoc prudery offensive, our narrator proclaims, as a fellow female. The dalliances were consensual, she points out, the women of age. I want to throw them all a Slut Walk and let them know that when theyre sad, its probably not because of the sex they had, and more because they spend too much time on the internet, wondering what people think of them.

She is concerned about the changing social and sexual mores on the campus where she works. Nowadays you must be so careful, she says of the current generation of students. People said this crop of youth was weak, but we knew differently, she adds. They brought us to their knees with their softness, their consistent demand for the consideration of their feelings.

A professor swimming against the tide of a quickly changing culture is of course nothing new, nor is the campus novel. And if this conflict were all that concerned Jonas, Vladimir would perhaps fall flat. But Johns dalliances (or abuses of power) provide just one part of this richly plotted novels background; at the foreground is the newly arrived junior faculty member Vladimir Vladinski.

Although they typically operate these days as more roommates than spouses, the narrator and her husband invite Vladimir and his wife and child for a cookout by the pool soon after the family has moved to town. For John its an opportunity to get to know a new colleague, and maybe win him over in the upcoming deliberations about his future. For our narrator, the swimming party represents an opportunity to see Vladimirs body (a previous meeting, over a book and a martini, had already set something in motion). Even before he strips off his shirt to reveal a hirsute chest, shes pretty far gone. Some fundamental peace within me, already disrupted since spring and the allegations and the petition . . . had been entirely capsized, she thinks. I was swimming in an ocean of electrical impulses. I was a body made of walking nerves.

It doesnt help that Vladimirs wife didnt show up to the party. Our narrator knows a bit about her, enough to already feel competitive about Cynthia, with her credentials, her style, her ability to wear flat shoes and look graceful rather than stubby-legged, her what I assumed was effortless thinness, her buckets of potential, and her book deal based on her traumatic history that I knew a bit about from departmental rumors.

Our narrator has published two novels but hasnt written fiction in more than a decade. Her literary envy of both Vladimir and Cynthia is as powerful a force as the sexual attraction that sets in motion the events of the books plot. I wont summarize any more of it its too delicious to spoil. But its fair to say that Vladimir goes into such outrageous territory that my jaw literally dropped at moments while I was reading it. Theres a rare blend here of depth of character, mesmerizing prose, and fast-paced action.

The titular characters name isnt a total coincidence. Its natural to think of Nabokov and Lolita while reading Vladimir, with its throbbing throughline of inappropriate lust and its terrible consequences. For while Vladimir is not a teenaged girl (hes 40), hes still the object of a mad desire that spins out in dangerous and even violent directions. Our narrator may be more sympathetic than Humbert Humbert (shes not a pedophile, after all), but as the novel goes on its hard not to see some similarities. Anyone in the mood to read about campus politics, outrageous flirtations, moral quandaries, ill-conceived road trips, sexual adventures, and bad ideas in general will fall for Vladimir.

VLADIMIR

By Julia May Jonas

Avid Reader Press, 256 pages, $27

Kate Tuttle is a freelance writer and editor.

Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at kate.tuttle@gmail.com.

Read more:

Sex, secrets, and the liberal arts - The Boston Globe

The poll campaigning in five states conjures up an image of a vibrant democracy at play in India. The campaign noise even drowns out serious reservations about the free and fair character of elections due to opaque electoral bonds and the Election Commissions questionable conduct. Even if these apprehensions werent there, we must remember that there is more to democracy than elections.

It is in the more that we have witnessed less since 2014. The space for public debate has shrunk, institutional structures have been hollowed out, political rights smothered by suppression, the criminalisation of dissent and the crushing of protests. Why, the very idea of citizenship based on the constitutional dictum of civic equality has been negated by the CAA.

The threat to our democracy has been chronicled globally. In March 2021, Swedens V-Dem Institute categorised India as an electoral autocracy, while Freedom House, a majority US government-funded organisation, listed India as partly free. In November 2021, another Swedish think-tank, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, categorised India as the backsliding democracy with the most democratic violations during the pandemic and a major decliner in its Global State of Democracy 2021 report.

All these reports confirm that Indian democracy is in deep distress, though Delhi was invited by the US to the Summit for Democracy in December but so were democracies like Pakistan, Malaysia, Iraq and Angola. Many Indians hope the US will fix Indias democratic decline. They are going to be disappointed. American geopolitical interest in keeping India at the centre of its efforts to counter China gets priority over shared values. It is for us Indians to recognise that our democracy matters not merely for the intrinsic value that it brings to one-seventh of humanity. It is as much a hard power imperative for Delhi in a fragile world order.

It was a very poor and illiterate India, emasculated by two centuries of colonial subjugation, that chose to be a democracy. The principle emerged from the freedom struggle in which our leaders advocated liberal and progressive values for the people, going against the grain of Indias socio-religious structure. Even if the practice of democracy was imperfect, the idea of it took deep roots among Indians who saw intrinsic value in it. Indias multiple diversities could have easily become its weakness but democracy, sustaining our unity in diversity, converted it into its major internal strength.

As Indias democracy backslides, this internal strength is under stress. An already fragile situation in Muslim-majority Kashmir or Christian-majority Nagaland becomes even more threatening, with top generals warning of a two-and-a half-front security challenge for the country. While China and Pakistan are the two external threats, the half front refers to the internal security challenge from border regions like Kashmir and Nagaland. Economic development is bound to suffer when our 22% religious minorities, promised equal rights under a secular Constitution, feel that they are being targeted by a majoritarian government.

A weakened democracy, with ineffective checks and balances, has already made India one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, where the rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer. Rising inequality, seen to be a consequence of cronyism, can eventually lead to social turmoil and instability. A socially divided and economically weak India will not be able to muster the hard power needed to take on China.

One of the challenges from China has come in Indias neighbourhood, where Delhi has exerted maximum sway since independence. Even when it had limited hard power, the moral power of Indias democratic example sustained its influence in South Asian capitals. India was the exception in a region where regimes failed to deal fairly with religious and ethnic minorities. A bulwark against majoritarianism, Indian democracy was the aspirational beacon for neighbouring peoples.

Indias democratic decline opens the doors for China in the region more easily. The vast gap between Indian and Chinese comprehensive national power and Beijings greater enthusiasm in engaging our neighbours accentuate the deficit caused by Indias democratic deterioration. Indias timid response to the Ladakh border crisis has severely dented Delhis hard power credentials while its soft power lies in tatters.

It is only as a bulwark against authoritarianism that India can hope to play a counterweight to China. An Indian democratic failure is a failure of democracy as an idea it strengthens Chinas hand, and allows Beijing to export its growth and governance model to the world. India has to be the example that influences others to pursue the path of democracy, and it is critical for the world that Delhi itself stays true to the democratic course.

Over the years, India had shown that it would not only practise democracy in word and deed but also deliver in ample measure to all its citizens, irrespective of religion, caste, gender, race and ethnicity. It lifted 271 million Indians out of poverty between 2006 and 2016. If longstanding democracies like India show backsliding in their conduct, it is a vote of no-confidence in the belief that democracy can deliver and be effective.

Many Indians mistakenly assume that democracy is merely a catchphrase that has little value in the real world. They forget that ideas have power. Furthering Indias interests requires a wise blend of material and ideational resources. The idea of India provided us the internal stability and strength needed to springboard to great power. If the lived idea of a democracy is allowed to be hollowed out to a mere slogan, India will not be in a position to secure its own interests, let alone rise to global leadership that Indians so eagerly desire.

Read this article:

Staying the liberal democratic course is key to Indias security, ambitions - Deccan Herald