Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, has been an uncompromising critic of the current regime, raising in his public speeches at various forums the issue of assault on Indian democracy and the Constitution. In a recent post, he asked Gen Z to defend democracy.

On October 2, 2025, during his four-nation tour, he addressed a seminar on "The Future is Today" at EIA University in Medellin, Colombia. He stated that the single biggest risk to India is the attack on democracy. It is essential to understand what he is saying. Responding to a comparison between India and China as development models, he said:

"India has tremendous potential. India has a completely different system, whereas China is very centralised and uniform. India is decentralised and has multiple languages, multiple cultures, multiple traditions, and multiple religions. So, India is a much more complex system, and India's strengths are not necessarily China's strengths. They are different. India also has an old traditional spiritual system, very profound old values, which are very useful in today's world. The idea of non-violent political action comes from within the deep Indian tradition. Mahatma Gandhi is the modern exponent of that.

I am very optimistic about India, but at the same time, there are fault lines within the Indian structure, and there are risks that India has to overcome. The single biggest risk is the attack on the democracy that is taking place in India. Different ideas, religions and traditions require space. The best method for creating that space is the democratic system. And currently, there is a wholesale attack on the democratic system in India, so that is a risk.

The other big risk is different conceptions, different religions, and different languages. Allowing these different traditions to thrive and giving them space to express themselves is very important for a country like India. We can't do what China does, which is to suppress people and run an authoritarian system. Our design just will not accept that."

The rise of authoritarianism in India under Modi is quite unsettling. The democratic institutions – the media, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the investigating agencies - all are muzzled and controlled. Central agencies are misused to target political rivals and critics.

Educational institutions are saffronised and have lost their academic and functional autonomy. They cannot organise academic seminars and lectures that are critical of the current government and its policies.

On August 9, an elite educational institution, St Xavier's College, Mumbai, was forced to cancel a lecture in memory of Stan Swamy, who died in jail in 2021, by its own students affiliated with the right-wing students' group Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

And the draconian anti-terrorism and security laws such as Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), National Security Act (NSA), Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), are misused against the critics of the government to intimidate and silence. Any criticism of the government is construed as an anti-national activity, which can invoke the provisions of these laws and result in dissenters being jailed for years without trial, thereby grossly violating their fundamental human rights.

Umar Khalid, a JNU student leader, and eight of his associates are languishing in jail for more than five years, without any chargesheet or trial, the process itself becoming a punishment. The crime they committed was protesting against the CAA, which is considered anti-Muslim, violating the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. This is the state of democracy and the criminal justice system in the world's largest democracy.

Recently, on September 26, Sonam Wangchuk of Ladakh, a veteran Gandhian and an eminent international environmentalist and educationist, was detained under the NSA by invoking the sedition section against him and confined to jail in Jodhpur, without access to anybody. Even his wife was not allowed to meet him, compelling her to file a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court.

He believes in the Gandhian way of non-violent peaceful protest. He and his supporters were carrying out a peaceful protest, demanding the inclusion of Ladakh in the 6th Schedule of the Constitution, as promised by the Centre in October 2024, to protect its unique culture and identity, and the granting of statehood. It is a highly sensitive border union territory, with a large chunk of land in Eastern Ladakh under Chinese occupation.

Just before the conclusion of the last monsoon session, the Union government had introduced another draconian Bill in the Parliament. The Constitution (130th Amendment), Bill 2025, was introduced in the name of 'constitutional morality, public interest, welfare, and good governance' and referred the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The INDIA bloc, en masse, decided to boycott the Joint Parliamentary Committee, not to nominate any opposition party member to the Committee, as a mark of protest against the Bill.

The Bill is designed to destabilise the opposition-ruled states and undermine the federal structure. The Bill proposes to disqualify any legislator or Minister, including the CM and PM, if they are arrested and detained for a month, even without a charge sheet or trial. The intent is obvious; which authority or agency can dare to arrest a ruling party member or a minister, let alone the PM, however serious a criminal charge may be.

Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution ensure equality before the law, freedom of speech, due process, and personal liberty. Automatic disqualification based on a mere, unproven criminal charge contravenes constitutional guarantees. It is a clear case of a brutal attack on democracy and the Constitution.

The governors appointed by the Centre exercise a 'pocket veto' in non-BJP-ruled states, that is, keeping bills passed by the state legislatures pending indefinitely and refusing to give assent; thus, killing the bills and paralysing the elected governments. They neglect their constitutional duties and act as BJP functionaries, exercising parallel power, creating a hostile atmosphere.

The most severe attack is on the independent democratic institutions. The Election Commission of India is acting as an 'agent' of the BJP. No less than a former Chief Election Commissioner, SY Quraishi, charged that the BJP "has become spokesperson of the Election Commission." The Commission has lost its constitutional independence and the trust of the people as a neutral and impartial umpire that ensures free and fair elections. It stands discredited. And the democracy is at stake.

The Chief Election Commissioner held a press conference in Patna on October 5 to review the election process in Bihar and claimed 'purification' of the electoral rolls in the state after completing the controversial SIR exercise.

The very next day, October 6, he held another press conference in Delhi. He announced a two-phase Assembly election in Bihar on October 6 and 11, enabling Narendra Modi to inaugurate the Metro in Patna and Nitish Kumar to make another round of Direct Transfer Benefit (DTB) of ?10,000 to an additional 21 lakh women, just hours before the announcement of the election schedule; benefiting a total of more than 1.2 crore women from the DTB.

This cash inducement is meant to woo the women voters, to sidestep the real issues of unprecedented unemployment, lack of jobs and migration, massive corruption in governance, poor education and health system, paper leaks that frustrate the youth, atrocities on the poor and the marginalised, and vote chori.

The CEC Gyanesh Kumar did not provide the details of the voters finally deleted: how many from the 65 lakhs deleted in the draft list are now included in the final voters' list? There are several anomalies, including duplicate voters, zero addresses, and the failure to provide the names of voters who were deleted and the names of new voters who were added. Additionally, the details of the 3.66 lakh voters who were deleted from the final list are not provided. They were given no intimation or time to appeal. Neither the CEC nor the Modi government had any answer to the charge of 'vote chori' documented by the Leader of the Opposition.

The SIR exercise in Bihar has left much to be desired in terms of accuracy, equity, transparency, and fairness. According to Yogendra Yadav, who is a petitioner in the Supreme Court challenging the SIR exercise:

"90 per cent of adults have made it to the list. However, the big picture has not changed. The SIR has caused the sharpest drop in the electoral-population ratio. In September 2025, Bihar should have had 8.22 crore voters - the state's adult population estimated by the Government of India's Technical Group on Population Projections. The actual figure of 7.42 crore on the final electoral rolls indicates as many as 80 lakh potential voters missing from the list." (IE, October 7)

Yogendra Yadav makes some startling revelations:

"The use of name recognition software brings out an alarming fact: Muslims were 24.7 per cent of the 65 lakh voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls and 33 per cent of the 3.66 lakh names deleted from the final list, against their population share of 16.9 per cent. This translates to nearly 6 lakh exclusive exclusion of Muslims."

"A preliminary analysis of some of the most common errors does not support the ECI's claim of purification of the electoral rolls. The final voters' list of Bihar has more than 24,00 gibberish names, about 5.2 lakh duplicate names. Over 6,000 invalid gender entries, over 51,000 invalid relations, and over 2 lakh blank or invalid house numbers. In substantive terms, there are now more than 24 lakh households with 10 or more electors, housing 3.2 crore electors in total. In most of these, the final electoral rolls are worse than the draft rolls."

And what about the oft-repeated claim by the BJP leaders, endorsed by the CEC, of cleansing the rolls of foreigners, allegedly Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. Even Narendra Modi and Amit Shah claimed at public rallies that the SIR was meant to identify and throw out the 'infiltrators,' while accusing the opposition - RJD-Congress of doing vote-bank politics to protect them.

The CEC did not answer this question during his press briefing. Nor does the final list provide the names of the 'infiltrators' who were deleted. This is how Modi and Shah utilised the SIR exercise to polarise voters and garner electoral dividends. The BJP did not file a single objection to any elector on this ground. The whole electoral process is seriously compromised.

The Indian democracy is derailed. There can be no bigger attack on democracy than one Rakesh Kishore, a Supreme Court advocate, religious bigot of Hindutva ideology, hurling a shoe in the open court on October 6, at BR Gavai, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Democracy cannot be just a rule by majority that is manipulated and manufactured through corruption and electoral malpractices, which doesn't reflect the authentic mandate of the people. Without transparency, freedom and fairness, routine elections and the integrity of electoral rolls are farcical.