THEIR SILENCE

 

 

 

TWO news reports have come back to back. The first one is about presence of women ‘erased’ from public life in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. More recent one is about the United Nations (UN) flagging high civilian casualty after Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. While the UN has done its job in this regard, the silence of champions of democracy, rights activists, thinktanks, intellectuals and authors across the world has thrown open certain questions. The first and foremost question is: Is all the talk about democracy and rights and gender sensitisation restricted for the thriving democracies like India? Another question is: Why is there deafening silence of the elitists on democratic backsliding, nay, absence, in fundamentalist, radicalised, and authoratarian regimes across the world? To understand the situation better, one must realise that the Western world has been adopting double standards.

 

The dominating Western powers have, over the years, developed an ecosystem of intellectuals, academics, thinktanks, so-called independent organisations, rights groups, foundations, and trusts and using them as extended arms of diplomacy to further own interests to exert control over resources, narratives, political or economic institutions. However, they ignore the situation in countries with fundamentalist or authoritarian regimes if it does not suit their agenda. The ecosystem groomed by the Western powers has conveniently ignored to comment on happenings in Myanmar where military junta overthrew democratically elected Government. The ecosystem has conveniently forgotten an incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once celebrated the world over. Similarly, silence is observed about Pakistan whose history has been defined by radicalisation, dictatorships undermining democracy, atrocities on Balochis, suppression of dissent etc. The authoritarian regime in Communist China has been accused of atrocities against Uyghurs, Tibetans, other dissenters. However, the ecosystem attacks China only due to ‘competition’ and not out of genuine concern for democracy. The US, Canada, and the UK have been the dominating Western powers. They grant asylums to separatists from other countries and use them for own political gains, as and when needed. That, they celebrate as liberalism.

 

However, their ecosystem hides the dark history of slavery, discrimination, surveillance, cancel culture. Instead, it comes up with reports targetting potential competitors like India. Not long ago, a report on safety of journalists placed India below Afghanistan, Belarus, and Egypt. In academic freedom, India was placed behind Pakistan, Iraq, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan! There are several examples where the Western-bred ecosystem applied skewed logic to downgrade a thriving democracy and rising economy like India. The so-called liberals in such cases prove to be dogmatic, and prefer to twist the narrative instead of offering genuinely convincing answers to above-raised questions. They create modern orthodoxies wherein democratic countries are pressed for values and violators are left untouched. Unfortunately for them, in the changing world, people are becoming smarter and realising such devious games of Western powers and their ecosystem footsoldiers. People have started questioning these ecosystem footsoldiers -- abroad and within India -- on their blindness towards need for democratic restoration in countries with fundamentalist and authoritarian regimes and wilful neglect of rich Indian democratic system. Probably, this is the beginning of the end of Western hegemony in various spheres, and emergence of sustainable and culturally rich Indian thought leadership that aims at global good.