These are my notes for the second set of lectures about Democratic to Authoritarian Rule by Professor Arun Agrawal at the University of Michigan. The rest of my notes can be found here.
In his second set of lectures, Professor Agrawal talks about Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule in India from June 1975 – March 1977. Gandhi was democratically elected as Prime Minister in 1975, but the election was declared void by the Allahabad High Court due to electoral malpractice. Instead of stepping down after her appeals failed, Indira Gandhi had the President of India declare a state of emergency in India – purportedly because the protests were a danger to the country. During the state of emergency, Gandhi broke all five of the key components of democracy as outlined by Professor Agrawal. When she declared a state of emergency, she shut down electricity to media outlets so that the situation could not be fairly reported. She arrested her opposition, and the ones she couldn’t arrest had to go into hiding. Thus, all five of the key components of democracy (as outlined by Professor Agrawal) were broken: rule of law, freedom of expression, presence of a coherent and organized opposition, a free judiciary, and free and fair elections where all citizens have the right to vote.
The scary thing about this situation is how quickly it happened. One night, people went to sleep in a democracy. When they woke up, they were in an authoritarian regime. Just like that.
For discussion, Professor Agrawal asks: What do you see as the two most important institutions of democratic politics whose decline should set alarm bells ringing for citizens and why?
Of the five institutions of democratic politics, I think the most important should be free and fair elections where all citizens have the right to vote and the rule of law. As I see it, these are the most basic ones that define democracy, and are the easiest to break.
The first lecture was by Professor Arun Agrawal, who explained how modern democracy can become authoritarian. In both older and modern authoritarianism, the leader/regime attempts to disable the basic building blocks of democracy, such as elections, free press, check and balances on their power, and rule of law. They may also unfairly enforce laws against people of certain race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. For instance, the regime might promote what they call a democratic election, but undermine the election by keeping some populations from voting (like the modern ID laws, which make it difficult for very poor and homeless people to vote) and by calling the election fraudulent when they don’t agree with the outcome. They might undermine the rule of law by criticizing the judicial system when it disagrees with the regime’s own point of view. (Or by removing the Judicial Branch from the list of government branches on the White House webpage.) They can undermine free press by calling it “fake news” and handing out awards for the “fakest” news. They might claim that they are above the law (for instance, are unable to be sued). [Specific examples aimed at Donald Trump are my own insertions.]
ill patients and the emptying of state-funded mental hospitals. Due to terrible conditions in state hospitals and to the discovery of antipsychotics, many well-intended people wanted to improve the condition of mentally ill people by giving them independence and better living conditions through outpatient treatment. So the founders of NIMH, with the help of President Kennedy, began a federal program intended to care for patients on an outpatient basis, as well as providing resources which were intended on reducing the onset of mental illness in future generations. Unfortunately, as the state hospitals closed en masse, these federal programs didn’t do their job as intended. The federal programs focused too much on trying (and failing) to reduce the new onset of mental illness, and not enough on taking care of people who were released from hospitals. Many people from the hospitals had nowhere to go and/or stopped taking their meds (for various reasons). The populations of homeless and jailed/imprisoned mentally ill people skyrocketed. Violence by and against people with mental illness skyrocketed. Chaos ensued.
Until recently, I’ve been living with my parents – helping them when they needed it. But now it’s time to move on: I’ve moved in with my fiancé and am slowing transferring my books from their house to his. This week was very productive in working out some details in how my sister and I will keep my parents safe and happy now that they are living alone. It was a good week for getting stuff done. It was also a good week for my step-children-to-be, who have been in Disney World for the week – though my heart goes out to their mom who must be exhausted!
I have started a new project: I will be reading through the novels (and histories) as suggested by Susan Wise Bauer in her popular book The Well Educated Mind. (I intend on reading through the other categories, too, but later.) I have completed an outline for questions I’m going to ask myself while reading the first book on the novel list – Don Quixote:
Hibernator's Library 