The (possibly) declining right wing politics

With the recent general elections in India serving a sour punch in a silver platter to the ruling party, which saw a reduction in its majority of 303/545 to 240/545, a curious thought crossed my mind. These days, political parties that espouse right-wing politics often tend to have dictatorial tendencies (e.g., making draconian laws that curb free speech, elimination of government oversight, consolidation of the news and print media) all of which were seen in India for the past couple of years. During elections, there was even talk that by gaining a 400+ majority, they will rewrite the constitution, which in all seriousness would have eroded fundamental rights of minorities and may have made India a one-party state similar to Russia. What happened? 

The people rejected the incumbency in a spectacular manner. Similar things are happening around the world. In the last week, France rejected their ultra right wing party uprising. UK too put brakes on 14 years of (recently tumultous) conservative rule that ended up with Brexit.

Let's have some comparisons. Like the US, France is a presidential democracy, whereas like UK, India is a parliamentary democracy. However, the way the French elections are setup is slightly complicated as explained in this video. In brief, it is a two-stage system: First stage is like a knockout round where only the parties that gain over 12.5% of the vote share move to the next round. The party that wins the majority in this round, becomes the ruling party. This is in stark contrast with the US elections where there are only two competing parties. So, the right wing leader Le Penn rose in popularity recently and everybody thought they are gonna win the primaries. While she went through in the first round with a majority, the consolidation of the liberal left and centrist vote made sure that democracy prevailed another day. 

In UK as well, conservative leader of Indian origin Rishi Sunak (to be fair, the conservative party) saw an unprecedented defeat in the hands of  the Labor party. Love's Labour's not lost ;). Although, I felt that the UK politicians handled the success and defeat in a more civilized manner. Can't believe I am saying this, but all the world leaders could take a page out of this book on civilized political discourse. 

What's best. the INC sweeped the bypolls that happened in 7 states. While this is not a clear indicator of the political winds in India, it is evident that people are becoming more and more aware of the current state of the Indian polity and are voting accordingly, as much as 'Godi' media is trying to ostensibly side track the real issues, such as economy, unemployment, Manipur civil war, NEET paper leak, Electoral bonds, and Delhi CM arrest. 

In an almost dramatic manner, there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump yesterday. The killer was shot and killed by the secret service. Unfortunately, an innocent civilian was killed too and several are being reported to be injured. Violence is never the answer. Sadly, even this wouldn't bring reasonable gun reforms in USA. I saw several tweets on twitter asking if Republicans would now support a gun reform lol. Most likely not lol.

Fin.