India downgraded from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in democracy report
I&#x27;m surprised to see the battleground HackerNews turns into when any topic about India is mentioned. India is going through a huge cultural shift, and the erstwhile liberal establishment is slowly being pushed out of their power seats by the rising Hindutva group. India is so vasly multi-faceted, multilayered, and complex, it&#x27;s hard for western commentators like HNers to comment on it meaningfully without the necessary support. Most people just appeal to western democratic authority and try to see it from the lens of Dems&#x2F;Reps, but it&#x27;s not so simple. Just like a person living in Orissa can&#x27;t meaningfully comment on say Pro 22, we can&#x27;t expect Oregonians to comment meaningfully on democracy report on India.  On top of that there are IT Cells, ISPR&#x2F;ISI LARPers, Khalistani groups, Indian media, NYT&#x2F;Wapo hit jobs, angry nationalists etc that turn the discourse into a shrill shouting match.<p>One trend I&#x27;m noticing more and more is that India is taking a leaf out of China&#x27;s books and paying less and less attention to the criticism western institutes. The next decade when India will rise in stature will make it more and more flippant about such issues. After all if any party (INC or BJP) that rules India, has enough clout and resources to enrich themselves and benefit from the rising fortunes of the country. Western commentators will be used as a classic &quot;Us vs them&quot; trope to further these claims.