democracy Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

Arts & Culture

“Khela Hobe” to “Khela Over”: Pendulum swings from Left to Right to Centre during Election

By DU Beat May 5, 2026

India’s 2026 Election verdict signals generational change, ideological fatigue, and the rise of new political alternatives.

Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala in 2026 were no ordinary poll-bound states. These assembly elections jolted pollsters, unsettled analysts, and challenged some of the most entrenched assumptions of Indian politics. While several states broadly conformed to expectations, the outcomes in the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu election marked something closer to a tectonic shift. The meteoric rise of TVK in Tamil Nadu resembled a political “first-day, first-show” blockbuster, while what was projected as a close contest between TMC and BJP in West Bengal culminated instead in a decisively one-sided verdict.

As Prannoy Roy once observed, elections in India are fought as much in the mind as on the ground. Any post-poll analysis, therefore, must grapple with multiple and often competing interpretations. Even so, certain patterns offer valuable insight into a rapidly evolving political landscape stretching from the North-East to the South. These, however, must be approached with caution: there is no singular “Indian voter,” and no single explanatory framework can fully capture the complexity of these outcomes.

One of the clearest signals from this election is the quiet but decisive consolidation of the youth vote. In West Bengal, this was not visible in rallies or rhetoric, but in mood. As a voter from Asansol and student of Delhi University noted, “the shift from Durga Pujo to polling day was stark”—deserted TMC offices, guarded conversations, and a single refrain cutting across communities: “Poriborton toh chai chai.”

The silence was strategic. Beneath it lay accumulated grievances—stalled government recruitment, corruption, concerns over women’s safety, and the political aftershocks of cases like RG Kar. When it finally spoke, the student vote did so not in fragments, but as a bloc.

Tamil Nadu reflected a very different, yet equally generational churn. The rise of TVK is less a conventional political story and more a cultural mobilisation. For a Gen-Z electorate raised on cinema and immediacy, TVK offered disruption without ideological baggage. It broke the fatigue of the DMK–AIADMK binary not through policy depth, but through identification and momentum. In the Kerala election, the shift was sharper in ideological terms—sections of young voters appear to have turned away from the Left, driven by a growing discomfort with centralised authority. As one student put it rather bluntly, “the authoritarian CM had to lose; his Left was not right.”

Alongside this generational shift is a quieter rejection of political inheritance. Across states, familiar surnames no longer guaranteed electoral comfort. The message is not the end of dynasties, but the erosion of their immunity. Voters are no longer willing to underwrite legacy without performance. The disruption in Tamil Nadu’s entrenched bipolarity only reinforces this trend—new entrants are no longer fringe experiments; they are viable vessels of aspiration.

For the Congress, the picture is deceptively flat. On paper, there is little immediate gain—Kerala’s victory comes in a space where the BJP is not a primary contender. But politics rarely moves in straight lines. The party’s position today resembles the early, incremental phases once seen in states like West Bengal—small footholds preceding larger relevance. With limited downside, Congress has room to manoeuvre: deepen its Kerala base, negotiate more assertively within a potential TVK alignment in Tamil Nadu, and cautiously expand in Bengal where the search for alternatives is clearly underway. The opportunity is narrow, but real.

What ties these strands together is not a uniform swing, but a pattern of voter impatience—with stagnation, with entitlement, and with unpredictability. Indian elections, as Yogendra Yadav reminds us, have a way of defying both political calculation and analytical certainty: “Indian voters are wiser than the politicians who seek to manipulate them—and often wiser than the analysts who try to predict them.”

Image Credits: Frontline

Madhav Choudhary

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Features

The Voter That Democracy Imagines

By DU Beat February 22, 2026

Voting is a right, but only if the system can recognise you. History, fragility and everyday loss of our most fundamental rights lead us to ask: why does a government which is “by the people” still decide who counts?

We like to believe that democracy is loud, participatory, and forgiving. That once a right is granted, it stays granted. That voting, at the very least, is something the state does not ask you to earn again and again. But this belief rests on a fragile and transitory assumption that all citizens are equally visible, equally legible, and equally easy to recognise– they are not.

Every democratic system, no matter how expansive, carries within it an unspoken imagination of the “ideal voter”. From its earliest articulations, the idea of the voter has been shaped less by equality than by eligibility. In ancient democracies, participation was a privilege. Some people were political by default. Others were never meant to be.

In ancient Athens, this imagination was not subtle. Only free men could participate in political life. Women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded not because they were invisible, but because they were never meant to count. Even Aristotle, often invoked as a foundation thinker of democracy, was clear that political participation belonged to those capable of reasoned speech and leisure. To vote was not to express oneself, but to signal that one already belonged to the correct moral and social category.

Rome refined this logic. Early modern societies tethered the right to vote to the right to own property—the voter must have a “stake” in society. Even under British rule, voting was a way to manage, not empower–rationed through educational qualifications, income and property. “Prove that you are responsible”. The logic is paternalistic, yet familiar.

We like to tell ourselves that we no longer ask who deserves to vote. That question sounds crude now, embarrassing even. Instead, we ask something softer. Something administrative: “Can you be verified?”

This shift matters because verification always asks for proof, and proof assumes stability. It sounds clean until you remember how easily lives fall apart. Even privilege does not guarantee permanence. Documents are lost. Names change. Paper yellows, tears, burns. Files slip out of folders during relocations that were never meant to be temporary. In bastis and slums, papers are damaged by rain, by fire, by evictions that arrive without warning. None of this is malicious. None of it is fraud. It is simply what living does to paperwork.

And yet, when participation hinges on uninterrupted proof, the burden quietly shifts. The right to vote stops feeling like something you possess and starts feeling like something you must maintain. The system does not say you do not belong. It only asks you, again and again, to show that you do.

This is where the idea of the “ideal voter” returns, not as a moral figure, but as a logistical one. The ideal voter is someone whose life does not interrupt the system. Someone whose citizenship does not require explanation.

History helps us recognise this pattern because it has repeated itself in different disguises. Once, voting was tied to property, education, lineage, and gender. Later, to literacy and rationality. Each time a barrier was dismantled, another took its place. More defensible and easily justifiable. Times changed, but the instinct did not.

India’s decision to adopt universal adult suffrage was radical precisely because it resisted this instinct. It trusted people before they were orderly. It did not demand coherence. At a time when many democracies hesitated, India chose inclusion as a starting point, not a reward. That choice feels under strain today.

Processes like the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls are presented as technical necessities. Accuracy. Clean lists. Integrity. On paper, this is very difficult to argue against. Who doesn’t want correctness? Who would defend error? But correctness is not the same as justice. Systems that prioritise order inevitably privilege lives that are already ordered. Exclusion, hence, rolls in like a fog of delay, confusion, missed deadlines and unclear notices. A fog you cannot cross without a level of attentiveness and stability that, simply put, most lives cannot afford. Disenfranchisement here does not announce itself. It accumulates.

What should trouble us is not that systems require maintenance, but that those who bear the cost are rarely brought to light. We choose to reassure ourselves with perfectly rational explanations that function in an inherently flawed system. These explanations are not wrong, but they are incomplete. They allow us to avoid the discomfort of admitting that democracy, when made too tidy, begins to shrink.

We imagine political progress as linear: more rights, fewer exclusions. But as history would suggest, another undeniable truth exists–as rights expand, the conditions attached to them mutate. Participation becomes conditional not in law, but in practice. The definition of the voter remains unchanged on paper, even as the experience of voting grows more fragile.

So, we return to the question that refuses to stay buried: who is the voter the state designed its systems to recognise? And perhaps, more importantly, who is the voter who must constantly keep proving that they belong?

If old age, poverty, displacement, or simple misfortune can interrupt political visibility, then democracy is no longer about voice. It becomes about endurance. About whose lives are resilient enough to survive bureaucracy.

There is no quick fix for this tension. Democracy is not tidy. People move. Records fail. Lives refuse to align neatly with databases. A political system that prioritises order over access risks mistaking control for legitimacy. If democracy is to mean more than ritual, it must tolerate messiness. It must accept that inclusion requires patience and that trust cannot be fully replaced by proof.

A democracy that treats participation as conditional will always shrink itself, quietly and efficiently. The danger is not that it will collapse overnight, but that it will continue to function smoothly and procedurally. Leaving more and more people standing outside its frame. Narrowing the circle of those who remain visible within it, and narrowing, as history tells us, is never neutral.

Image caption: Unlike many other democracies, India chose inclusion as a starting point, not a reward. That choice feels under strain today.

Image credits: Paytm Blog

Suansh Dembla

[email protected]

Keep Reading

DUB Speak

The Three Acts of a Magic Trick

By DU Beat November 21, 2025

Where capitalism towers and faith flickers, Mamdani performs, turning promises into tricks, doubt into devotion, and New York into a restless audience.

Magic. It is why this society dreams. A little part of us that industrialisation couldn’t take away. A part that remains with us, even after the ripe age when we all become machines. The concept which makes materialism thrive, which makes money an agent. A gateway to the impossible. It replenishes faith and births belief. And when it intersects with reality, we call it a trick.

A magic trick typically has three separate acts. The first one is The Pledge—when the magician presents something ordinary, something without a story, like a hat. The second is The Turn—when that ordinary turns into something extraordinary, something stupefying and confusing but believable; a pigeon out of a hat. The last is The Prestige—the most difficult part. The part which validates the audience’s hope for the existence of magic, something that gives them a reason to turn it into instinct. Revealing that magic is no secret—by the show of empty hands. Becoming a story with an ultimate cliffhanger.

In my world, Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a magician. Now, let’s walk through his acts together.

The Pledge

A very simple man has become the new mayor-elect of the world’s richest country’s richest city. A self-proclaimed socialist on the throne of New York City—arguably the most capitalist city in the world and home to most billionaires. His campaign was strong, as it was straightforward. He is now set to become the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor and its youngest in over a century. He began by walking the streets of NYC and asking people about their problems. Later, he designed a campaign targeting these issues and announced that he would be standing for elections—defying all rules of politics, economics and statistics.

His agenda, to me, is simple—find where it hurts and promise a 100% effective painkiller. And he did just that. He focused on an agenda, something that can be absorbed by the common person. Something that objectively promises a better life. And for New Yorkers, it was affordability, an issue that his predecessor, Eric Adams, a fellow democrat, didn’t address. This instilled a belief in people—a desire to trust something bigger than themselves. Ordinary, yet powerful.

The Turn

This is where the extraordinary part comes in. He appealed to the people of NYC with claims of taxing the rich. He stated an increase in the corporate tax from 7.25% to 11.5% and a 2% income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $1 million per year. Just enough to get the wealthy annoyed, but not touching their core wealth—their assets at all.

Contrary to popular belief, real estate is the engine that runs NYC, not finance. The city’s growth is directly measured by its unaffordability. And Zohran is targeting that ruthlessly. This could easily backfire with extreme economic losses because of the reallocation of investors and the wealthy moving their capital elsewhere to escape taxes. This is not sustainable. A socialist city surrounded by a capitalist world suffers capital flight. It just means a reallocation of the cause of inequality.

But Zohran wants regulation, not a total structural reform. His aim is to accomplish the impossible—to give his best try towards equity for all. He limits his beliefs to what is practical. But he faces backlash for the river of his ideology, not the cup of water from it that he’s offering to NYC. What he wants is public infrastructure parallel to the lavish private ownership in the city—more public housing, city-run grocery stores, and free transit—that provides relief and alternative structures without dismantling the entire capitalist system.

The Prestige

Finally, the last act. The part where his crusade becomes inscrutable, mystifying. So much so that people (his audience) become almost mesmerised into placing their entire trust in him. The part where his illusion becomes so strong that it becomes instinct for the people of NYC, that even when evidence suggests otherwise, their faith denies it. Until now, NYC has been shaped by neoliberalism. Zohran isn’t an extremist, but the one word which defines him is. Socialism. People unable to understand the nuances of a socialist economy become victims of bigotry. Their attachment to a leader becomes an attachment to an idea that they can only half comprehend. This is what gives rise to debate, making Zohran’s campaign immortal.

He faces criticism for describing “Globalise the Intifada” as a symbolic call for Palestinian human rights, not for violence or antisemitism. It reflects his very evident thought pattern—supporting whatever is morally right. He focuses on the core strength of an idea but ignores its effects, just like the impact of socialist agendas on NYC’s capitalist economy. But that’s what makes his magic real. His own belief in the illusion, irrespective of the reality.

Conclusion

As it is with all tricks, this story remains unfinished. The ultimate cliffhanger becomes whatever manifests when he claims his office. His image—the illusion he created to win the campaign—is one thing. He owes his win to the loophole between realists and relativists. But now it’s time to act on it. If he actually pursues his claims, he will have to face the New York State jurisdiction and the cumulative force of all the most powerful people in the world against him. And if he doesn’t, he faces massive protests by the common people of NYC who were promised more affordable lives.

But there’s another option. What if he accomplishes both? What if he finds a way that promotes his idea of affordability without facing a backlash from the wealthy? Right now, he faces capital flight, operational risks and long timelines—most of whose cost is imminent before benefits. However, perhaps he gradually implements progressive taxes with tied incentives (like credits for investment in housing or green projects) or private-public partnerships so that the growth seems mutual, not anti-rich. This would mean him calling the first-row audience members up on the stage before the curtains roll.

Nonetheless, in my world, Zohran Kwame Mamdani remains a magician—living his illusion.

Image Credits: The Financial Times

Shreya Bhushan

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Editorials

Jashn-e-Satta

By Shikhar Pathak October 1, 2025

Amidst the festive fervours of the electoral season, laden with processions, celebrations, and dynamism, the critical question persists: does the participatory spirit of DUSU elections still survive?

The month of September adorns the nation with a wide range of festivals, every weekend bringing to the fore another tile of the cultural mosaic that pieces Dilli together. True to its microcosmic nature, the University of Delhi steps into the season of retreating clouds with the festival of election, the jashn-e-satta. Streets dazzling with the chaos of participatory measures, music concerts and bhandara-like freebie stalls floating through the lanes, processions flow not in devotion to gods but allegiance to people, to democracy. The satya-ki-galiyan and kamla lanes turn into epochal grounds of jubilation, marked profoundly with the political propaganda of all the competing factions. In a nation that has borne the curse of giveaways for decades, the students don’t usually get driven away by the gluttony of political theatrics but rather opportunistically immerse themselves into the joy of the ‘free’. What’s left behind is the debris, not just of the material, but also of promises and initiatives that ought to have lived in these streets instead.

The Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections might appear loud, chaotic, or even the prodigal child of Indian politics. However, dismissal on those grounds strips away the political and intellectual imperatives it holds that are almost reflective of the paradoxes and possibilities of Indian democracy. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas situated democracy within the ‘public sphere’, the space where political opinions can be cultivated in the social arena through discussions and deliberations that fuel publicised discourse, which then influence governance and political action. Universities, when functioning optimally, represent a similar sphere where students formulate and refine their political beliefs and opinions.

At Delhi University, the DUSU elections transform everyday spaces into stages of political practices. The chai-ki-tapris near the colleges, the packed metros en route to academic spaces, and the student accommodation areas, all echo discourse on the political season. Albeit often divergent and contrary to each other, these discussions ensure that at least a certain degree of participation seeps into every stakeholder. Habermas’ construction of the ‘public’ holds profound relevance here: democracy cannot just be reduced to institutions of governance; it lives in the spaces of everyday discussions, the ‘public sphere’. And so, the cacophonous chaos of DUSU is not a distorted version of democracy but plausibly one of its most authentic enactments.

Carole Pateman’s theory of participatory democracy further strengthens this view, drawing upon earlier proponents of the same, in Rousseau, Mill, Cole and others. The refined theory argues that democracy cannot just be reduced to the act of casting a vote; it needs to sustain an active involvement in the decision-making and pre-electoral processes. Participation itself, she argues, is of educational value; it empowers citizens with the ability to deliberate, claim rights, and hold accountable their chosen representatives. The pre-election canvassing, the student interactions, and the presidential debates; all lead one to appreciate the didactic model of participatory democracy that DUSU elections embody.

However, the data speaks in a different code. While the voter turnout has witnessed a steady increase every year, it still stands at nearly half the voter turnout of the general elections of the nation, brewing questions for the voters: Does the participation from students restrict itself to the performative phase of the pre-election phases? And by extension, does the practice of deliberation and accountability dissipate once the vote is cast, creating a void where participatory temperament once held ground?

However, to see the elections through the lens of Pateman and Habermas allows for knowledge of only fractional perspectives of the election season. Gramsci’s reflections on hegemony extend into all institutional spaces, and inevitably into Delhi University as well. National and regional parties treat the DUSU elections as training and testing grounds, investing significant capital into shaping the candidates and their public perceptions. While some of them practice it overtly, others do it from behind drawn curtains. Thus elections, even in hyperlocal forms, risk reproducing the dominance of the privileged classes, with the apparently subordinate groups in agreement with it in most cases.

The sub-localised nature of the elections also attempts to ensure that the political arena remains a fluid space, wherein every movement births a counter-movement that finds expression—campaigns led by the diverse groups, independent candidates, and collectives might not always lead to electoral victory, but they do succeed in establishing a narrative alternative to the popular discourse. In essence, the DUSU elections uphold a central paradox of practicing democracy; they become simultaneous mechanisms for reproduction and contestation of prevailing ideologies.

Despite embodying the features of a participatory democracy, the DUSU elections fall short in most other avenues. The passive disengagement from a larger section of students, reflected in the less than 40 percent voter turnout, reveals the inconsequential temperament attached to the votes. This creates an enigma, wherein participatory measures exist, but their effectiveness lies in the students realising their own agencies. In the noise of campaign slogans and the clutter of posters, then, lies something far more enduring: the rehearsal of democracy itself. To participate in DUSU is to learn, however imperfectly, what it means to be a citizen in the largest democracy of the world.

Image Credits: DU Beat

Shikhar Pathak

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Features

To Free or Not to Free?

By DU Beat February 3, 2025

A distortion of democracy? A betrayal of a social contract? A passive receipt of benefits or an active political participation towards a welfare state?

The language of democratic exercise often employs, not merely as its endorsers but also its practitioners, various sweet shop owners who incentivize capital-based campaigning. The Delhi state elections are a display of such a state of war, which has as its highlights, the various monetary biddings made over very selective and political demographics.

It is not unknown that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), in its manifesto, has promised a sum of INR 2100 to women under the aegis of the ‘Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojna’. The certainty of this scheme is contingent on the party securing a majority. However, a serious delirium of such schemes is the incompetent and biased nature of such claims. While it is true that a welfare state works for its marginalized citizens, the composition of Delhi and its voters demands serious scrutiny. The marginalized of the capital are an extremely heterogeneous group, and certainly, when a distinction is made in the category of women by the state, the exclusion of migrant and transgender women disallows any serious engagement towards actual welfare.

Nitara, a transgender woman and a student of Delhi University told DU Beat:

There are about four to five thousand registered trans voters in Delhi, the official number of which I believe to be much higher. Women are promised INR 2100 in monetary assistance by AAP, following which the Congress and BJP have promised INR 2500. While it’s good they do it, why don’t trans women get similar aid? Don’t we deserve it? In fact, a trans woman is more vulnerable than a cis woman is. This is the bare minimum we can be provided with. We are not promised incentives because our numbers are low. Nobody wins elections with 2-3 thousand votes. Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections tell you that you’ll only be cared for if you are a big vote bank, else nobody is with you.”

Nitara’s statement underscores the transactional nature of electoral promises where welfare is not a matter of rights but of electoral arithmetic. The exclusion of transgender women from such schemes reveals the shallow inclusivity of political manifestos, which are tailored to appease large vote banks rather than address the systemic vulnerabilities of marginalized communities. This is not merely an oversight but a deliberate strategy to prioritize electoral gains over equitable welfare. The Delhi elections, in this regard, are a microcosm of a larger national trend where democracy is reduced to a marketplace of freebies, and voters are treated as consumers rather than citizens.

With the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct, a partial hiatus has been put to the mockery of democracy and development. However, desperate attempts to milk out this inconsistent idea have not stopped. AAP, for instance, has included a ‘Pujari-Granthi Samman Yojana’ for temple and gurudwara priests. Arvind Kejriwal, the National Convener of AAP explained the scheme in a Economic Times report,

Pujaris and granthis are an important part of our society, but they are often a neglected section. For the first time in the country, we are introducing a scheme to support them, under which they will receive a monthly allowance of INR 18,000.”

This circles back to questioning the intentionality of such a culture of voting. Lest it be taken as a pitting of one religion against the other, it is a certain fact that other religious minorities such as the Muslims and Christians undergo neglect and invisibility at much deeper scales but any affirming reality escapes them during election season. The culture of freebies, while seemingly beneficial on the surface, is a hollowing democratic practice that undermines the very essence of governance. Political parties, in their bid to outdo each other, have turned welfare into a competitive sport where the highest bidder wins. For instance, in the 2021 Tamil Nadu elections, the DMK and AIADMK engaged in a bidding war, promising everything from free laptops to cash transfers, with little regard for the fiscal sustainability of such schemes. Moreover, the freebie culture perpetuates a dependency syndrome among voters, where electoral choices are driven by immediate monetary gains rather than informed deliberation on policies and governance. This undermines the democratic ideal of an engaged and informed citizenry, reducing elections to a transactional exchange of votes for cash or goods.

The critique of freebie culture is not a dismissal of welfare schemes but a call for their rationalization and equitable implementation. Welfare measures must be designed to address structural inequalities and empower marginalized communities, rather than serve as tools for electoral manipulation. For instance, schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have been lauded for their focus on creating sustainable livelihoods rather than doling out cash handouts. While the hollowing of democratic ideals is saddening, it is not very different from what we as participants are used to believing as development at all times. This makes one question if a democratic ideal is but a sweet shop economy?

Featured Image Credit: Sourav Rai for Indian Express

Bhavana Bhaskar

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Arts & Culture

Bullied, Bought, and Berated: The State of Opposition on Popular Demand

By DU Beat May 17, 2020

The current status of opposition in our country is extremely feeble, and it’s not a healthy sign for a democracy.

If not Modi, then who? This rhetoric, which doesn’t even qualify being called a question, is suggestive of a weak state of opposition in our country, which makes people elect terror accused and hate mongers for the sake of one person. However, this question was asked after the strategies aimed to weaken the opposition were set in motion which were relatively easier, owing to their lack of competency in the first place. But what made them touch a new low and cease their existence as an alternative altogether?

With a heavy PR marketing and ever famous IT cell, the propaganda was diluted very subtly. With huge corporate backups and resources, the opposition fell short drastically. A lack of better leadership and money as compared to the ruling party sowed seeds for cynicism against opposition. Very strategically accountability was shifted to opposition, everything started to go back to Nehru and Gandhi, and lost in this never-ending process were actual public concerns. Things were such that allegations were ensued of buying of opposition leaders in Karnataka. It’s shameful that the representatives of dissidents are thrashed so blatantly that dissidents would not want to associate themselves with such an embarrassment.

People might think why a popularly elected government with a heavy majority is problematic? Why is the opposition displeased with the works of the government aimed at national interest? Why do people speak ill of the ruling party? Well to answer that, we have to understand that democracy is not confined to a majority opinion. It’s inclusive of all the opinions by all of the people. If there’s representation of just one kind of view, it’s not sufficient. In a democracy we need to have counter opinions, checks and balances, and so far the onus of this was on opposition which has failed us and also been constructed to fail us, that we are now sinking.

Such a bereftness led to students, activists, satirists, and artists composing a voice of dissent as opposition. Although their cause is helpful for maintaining some counter opinions thus saving us from a site of an all majoritarian crisis, unless it’s not on the political grounds as oppositions, it would do no good.

A very basic definition of democracy taught us that it is of the people, by the people, and for the people. It’s time we see who these people are. Can you see yourself or can you see only yourself getting a representation?

Featured image credits: News 18

Umaima Khanam

[email protected]

Keep Reading

DUB Speak

Democracy, Conservatism and Echo Chambers

By DU Beat March 19, 2020

As we shut our ears to the cacophony of the other side, the institution of democracy loses its ability to hold people together.

If the numbers are right, we are moving towards a world where everything is stretched and tied to two ends. Cass Sunstein, a Professor at Harvard University, argued whether the new public sphere woven by the internet acts as ‘echo chambers’ or not. In a paper published in 2002, Sunstein uses activities on Facebook to quantify people’s engagement with the other side. Several studies suggest that while interactions across the ideological divide are almost negligible, the ability to selectively exclude certain pages and people to pop into one’s feed can lead to both polarization and convergence.

Birds of a feather flock together

The idea of homophily is intrinsic to human beings. There’s a tendency to bond and associate with similar others. That is why people of a community tend to hold together in foreign lands. It is also the reason why Indians and Pakistanis bond so well as immigrants in a western country, particularly due to a South Asian affinity.

The feathers begin to rot when they’re painted with political colours. People begin to ignore facts and constantly attempt to prove the other side wrong. Political polarization then extends to sensitive issues like LGBTQ rights, climate change and abortion. The Red states in the US actively deny climate change, even after being exposed to facts which claim the opposite. Groups, therefore, have shared opinions on most issues.

Political Echo Chambers allow think tanks and entrepreneurs to exploit voters by fooling them using certain tactics. They help leaders to present different images to different people, which helps them to secure a place in the heart of every voter. A single leader can be present at many places ideologically, by presenting themselves differently to different kinds of voters.

The Internet as a ‘Public Space’

The bricks of these chambers are placed by the invisible hands of the Internet. With its invention, people believed that the world will now be able to interact with each other in a better manner, thereby filling chests with tolerance and empathy. As a fact, on Facebook, 99.91 per cent of the two billion people on it belongs to a single huge component, and hence everyone is connected to everyone in some manner. Unfortunately, none of this has led to fruitful conversations among people.

For one, sites like Twitter and Facebook function as echo chambers. The design of such websites allows people to adopt a homophilic approach, which narrows the divide between the Internet and the real world. A study of 2.2 million politically engaged users on Twitter in the US finds that while there are roughly 90 million network links among these users, 98 per cent of first retweets of Republican voters come from conservative voters. The corresponding number for Democrats is 86 per cent.

Offline Polarization

But polarization is not limited to the internet users. Fake news was invented long before Facebook, and partisanship existed through newspapers and TV channels. News Channels, to maintain their viewership, picked sides and broke their supposed vow of remaining unbiased. While Fox news moved towards the right, channels like MSNBC started appealing more to liberal voters of the US. A homogeneous audience pushed them towards their extreme sides, something that these channels might not have anticipated. Polarization has increased the most for an older audience, who are least likely to be on the internet and consume articles produced by traditional media houses.

Effect on Preferences

Economists like to assume that preferences are both stable and coherent. But the former might lose ground if the idea of Echo Chambers yields the expected results. Absurd preferences, such as a hatred for blacks, can get intensified with repetitive exposure to similar views. Such peculiar opinions keep persisting due to limited exposure to the other side. Furthermore, the opportunity to choose the news one consumes adds fuel to the fire.

An Ailing Civic Discourse

An understatement would be to say that Echo Chambers do not encompass matters of civic importance. Social media has made it easier for news to originate and circulate, which means that virtually anyone can produce a rumour within seconds, and these chambers can, in turn, empower such people. It kills the production of reliable news and analysis. Moreover, original pieces aren’t credited, since copying something is easier than ever now.

Facts cease to matter after a point. Constant repetition of certain ideas targeted at certain people pushes them into a cult. Ideas become elements of belief for people, an ideology they must hold onto to ‘prevent’ the other side from attacking them. Conversations become violent and stop yielding results. Lack of confrontation in the virtual world erodes mannerism, which encourages sharp language that only results in chaos. As Plato pointed out in Allegory of the Cave, ridiculing the uninformed is the worst form of enlightenment, and radicalization is the only fruit.

The Democracy of the Future

As people get disconnected over a network of connections, the idea of democracy weakens. Polarization, as is evident, happens offline as well, which affects people of all ages. Radical views are supported by numerous people now, and the truth loses its value. Democracy, which is supposed to work for everyone, folds itself into the world of a group of self-conforming individuals who hold mirrors and reflect similar ideas. The walls prevent interaction with the outside world. An example of how a Radio company’s actions in Rwanda led to a mass genocide of fifty thousand people is chilling. The way out of these chambers is unknown since people can customize what they view.

But this choice itself can be a saviour. Experiments show that people choose to move towards the centre when informed about the leanings of all media houses. But such laboratory customized experiments can only reveal a little about this world. We are yet to solve most of our problems.

Featured Image Credits: BBC Future

Kuber Bathla

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Editorials

The Preamble: How True Does It Stand Today?

By DU Beat January 26, 2020

The Preamble to the Constitution of India is a brief statement that highlights the values and principles of the Constitution and our Country. How far have we strayed from it though?

Thanks to the very first page of our NCERT Books, we are all familiar with the Preamble. Although the Preamble is a concept borrowed from the American Constitution, it highlights the essence of what came out of the Constituent Assembly debates. The debates concluded in making India, a Nation based on the principles of social justice and democracy.

Indian nationalism had always been inclusive, overcoming conflicting social identities for the overall development of the Nation. The Constitution laid down a strong foundation for a newly independent Nation, following the principles of social justice and inclusivity, and promoting the ideology of social liberalism. Despite this strong foundation, it seems somewhere along the line we all deviated from these principles.

The Preamble starts with the words Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, and Republic. While India’s position as a socialist country is open to question, it is no secret that India has deviated from the belief of secularism. What had started way back through identity politics was only heightened during the Babri Masjid demolition and the Gujarat riots. The openly inflammatory speeches, mob-lynching, and the recently passed Citizenship (Amendment) Act are proofs all around us. On paper, India is also the world’s largest democracy. But can a Country, whose Government remains unavailable to questions and criticism on its policies and statements by its citizens, be called democratic?

The first thing the Preamble promises is Justice (social, economic, and political). Social Justice stands for eliminating all forms of exploitation and the presence of socially privileged classes from the society. But, exploitation of women, minorities, and the poor exists all around us- in manual labour, in manual scavenging, and in the very concept of working class. Economic justice stands for equitable distribution of wealth and economic equality, but recent reports say that the richest one per cent of the Country’s population, now holds 73 per cent of the Country’s wealth. Fortunately, the basic rights of universal adult suffrage and equal political participation are still secure.

The next thing the Preamble promises is Liberty (of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship). The lack of this principle in practice is glaringly obvious. Thought and expression are accepted, only when it conforms to the ideals of the Government. Labels of ‘anti-national’ and ‘urban Naxal’ are quick to be attached to anyone and anything that raises a strong argument against the Government. Unsurprisingly, India’s rank on World Press Freedom Index is 140 out of 180. While the liberty of belief, faith, and worship do exist, believing in different Gods has now become a cause of enmity.

The third thing the Preamble promises is Equality (of status and opportunity). But, there’s discrimination on the basis of class, caste, religion, sex, gender, and colour in our daily lives. There is an outrageous gap between the privileged and the less privileged classes of society. While the Country also guarantees us, Rule of Law, a careful look at just the recent events in the Country speak more than enough. George Orwell’s famous words in his book Animal Farm, “All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others,” are intimidatingly accurate in the context of the country. The last thing the Preamble promises is Fraternity (assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation). Fraternity, here, refers to a feeling of ‘brotherhood’, a brotherhood which gets clouded with communalism and casteism too often. Although, seeing the solidarity among the universities across the Nation against violence and police brutality in the university campuses, we hopefully haven’t diverged much from this principle.

Every day, it seems like this Country moves further away from light, and these complex terms- Justice, Equality, and Democracy- lose meaning to become mere ritualistic words. In these testing political times, we must not forget what our Constitution and our Country stand for. In these political times, we must not forget what we stand for.

Image Credits: Aditi Gutgutia for DU Beat

Satviki Sanjay

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Arts & Culture

Is India truly a Democracy?

By Avni Dhawan January 24, 2020

India, known as one of the oldest democracies of the world boasts of registering its name in the list of the most successful governments existing at present. But, to what extent are these records accurate? Do these statistics share a common view with the common Indians? This Republic day, we dive in the history of India’s elective Government and to what level it justifies this title.

Democracy as defined by the Oxford dictionary is – “a form of government that allows the citizens to participate in political decision making, or to elect representatives to government bodies.”

India, is largely considered as one of the greatest democracies of the world, for its unity while housing a huge diversity. But, how far do you think this statement holds true? Do the political leaders in power, indiscriminately represent the voice of the common for real? As per the essence of Democracy, one may doubt that despite of a political party possessing the power the title of “ruling”, is the actual power truly resident in the hands of the Indian voters? Questions like these often pop in our mind when we start our day with our morning dose of chai reading the daily document of latest happenings.

The elective Government of India, in its entire tenure of existence, includes some happenings which make us rethink of us being the citizens of a representative nation. Infact, without any provision to make the person standing in the elections to abide by his words and promises when he gets to rule, one can even perceive the democratic rule of India to be limited only till the proceedings of the election propaganda. The leaders, who at the time of contesting elections claim to invest the people’s money in various developmental schemes, hardly maintain any transparency about the utilisation of that currency after coming into power. Ironically the Government which claims to be belonging to the people, becomes unsuccessful in being truthful and open to the same people.

The common man and woman who, sardonically are of supreme importance in an elective nation, have no direct power to remove the modern day monarch AKA Prime Minister for five complete years, if he proves to be contrary to what he projected himself while seeking the support of the people. All they can do is create pressure on the ruling party by Dharnas, protests or strikes which again by the ultimate power of the modern monarch and his officials are often shunned by their control over the police, as was exemplified by the recent speculation about the incident of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI). The opposition which is meant to play a crucial role in guarding the ruling party often ends up in either using nasty ways to brainwash the people causing a turmoil or highlighting only the self beneficent issues, excluding the matters associated with the good of the masses.

Surely, India has progressed massively since 1950 which doubtlessly deserves all the appreciation but yet, there are many deep loopholes, shortcomings and blemishes which require appropriate treatments to maintain the Nation’s spirit of democracy. So, this Republic Day lets not only celebrate the country’s success but also commit to spreading awareness, and take measures to transform it into a true democracy, not only in words but also in action.

Feature Image Credits: Medium

Kriti Gupta
[email protected]

Keep Reading

DUB Speak

Saffron Politics: A Path To Majoritarianism

By DU Beat January 23, 2020

When the world’s biggest democracy drifts away from the path of Constitutional democracy to majoritarianism, it becomes important to understand the nuances that make it so dangerous.

India in the past few months, has been nothing less than a caged reign of terror and a saffron surge. The country has been riddled with internet shutdowns and police brutality; it becomes hard to compare it to any other democracy in the contemporary World. The ambiance has become one of fear, terror, and rampant Islamophobia. This Government-funded state of terror is evidently a result of a systematic shift in the country’s democratic structure which unfortunately for the Government in power, at this point, has become hard to miss.

Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorised by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. On the contrary, India as a National State was made to be built on a constitutional democratic model- a democracy that takes into account the sentiments of not just the majority, but also of the minority.

Plato, when discussing democracy, asked the question of who should rule-that person being the wisest. But Karl Popper questioned that idea and talked of how this rule could turn into absolutism, where vested power turns tyrannical. It is then that popular vote becomes dangerous- after all, Perón and Hitler were voted into power democratically. Thus, democracy cannot imply that the vote of the majority is “an authoritative expression of what is right.”

A democratically elected Government of a secular state introduced a Bill that discriminated on the basis of religion, and endangered tribal cultural identity. A democratically elected Government of a Republic State gave national orders to oppress its citizens, took away the rights of citizens’ connectivity, and condoned police brutality. A democratically elected State is responsible for widespread Islamophobia throughout the nation, through a systematic way that it has managed to convince its citizens that it is in fact, not with an ideology of “eating the educated” and silencing its dissenters. It is this democratically elected Government that introduced a law comparable to Nazi Germany, where Nuremberg Laws and Reich Citizenship Laws declared who were eligible to be Reich citizens-with Jews being excluded.

It was a unanimous decision to make India a Secular, Socialist, Republic State, after the 42nd Amendment. The world’s longest written Constitution had days and months of discussion to safeguard its minorities. The National Government has passed several laws in recent years that have made life more difficult for religious minorities. India was never meant to be a Hindu homeland, they argue that it sits well with India’s ‘Humanitarian Values’. They argue that it helps safeguard minorities in Muslim majority countries but ignore India’s chequered history of refugee protection, and fail to recognise that the discriminatory nature of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and the crackdown on dissent are signs of in-built minority persecution.

Already, countries like Canada and Australia are experiencing refugees from the ‘Hindu Rashtra’. International Law recognised persecution as a benchmark for asylum, and acceptance of these refugees from India should be a warning concern for us all. It is our duty and responsibility to safeguard the country’s minority- a country full of diversity and rich history. It is important to understand that the nation and the government are not synonymous, and to internalise it when Mark Twain said, “Loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”

Featured Image Credits: Al Jazeera

Shreya Juyal

[email protected]

Keep Reading