By Aditya Pratap Singh Phogat ’29 (DCI Fellow)
“A democracy dies not only when tanks roll out, it dies when institutions cave in. When constitutional functionaries become partisan puppets. When media becomes a megaphone, not a mirror. When courts begin to delay what they dare not deny. When dissent is sedition, protest is provocation and every question is branded ‘anti-national’–then you know that the Republic is on a ventilator.”[1] -Abhishek Singhvi
The global order of the 21st century in which we live today is marked by the rise of personality-based regimes and their replacement of institutional ones. The ordinary business of the democratic state is no longer dictated by institutions and norms established by general practice of the law, but rather by the demands of both popular leaders and unelected dictators. What are the implications of the supersession of the system by individualistic leaders in the social, economic, and political spheres of life for the prospects of democratic processes, and specifically deliberative discourse? That is the question that this blog post will examine.
It would be apt to begin with an almost-empirical assertion that strong individualistic officers who weaken state institutions for some agenda ultimately cause great damage to the prospects of democracy in their countries. This is something that is very evident in the cases such as post-Cold War Russia, India, and Venezuela. The “cult of personality” leaders may also be seen today in my own country with Prime Minister Modi, who not long ago removed the credibility of the Election Commission of India, a historically apolitical body, by changing the appointment procedure of its commissioners for his own benefit.[2] As a matter of fact, one of the more egregious violations of the principles of democracy also happened in India in the 1970s when the-then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, “packed” the Supreme Court, disemboweled administrative structures, and had a State of Emergency declared soon after her election as a member of parliament was voided by the Allahabad High Court.[3] What soon followed after was one of the darkest periods in the legal and political history of the Republic of India that was marked by the unconstitutional withdrawal of fundamental rights and the corruption of democratic discourse throughout the country. After all, one of the more prolific slogans propagated by the government back then was “Work more, talk less!”[4]
What these examples indicate is that individual-based regimes are antithetical to the desire of a people to govern themselves. This is the very reason why the establishment of such governance coincides with the era of global democratic backsliding. Building off of this phenomenon, when such despotism is disguised under a popular mandate in a democracy, all hope for deliberative discourse is lost, for the leader in this scenario is equated to the state and any opposition posed to either them or their ideas is equivalent to an act of treason. As a result, the backsliding accelerates, and independent state watchdogs, human rights organizations, professors, and students are disarmed by punitive force. In this scenario, political leaders who are democratically elected consolidate power and declare any dissenting opinions to be “against the spirit of the nation.” Behind such leaders also stand electorates that support their populist attitudes and aid and abet this overall process. Despots are able to sustain this support by maintaining control over the narrative through social media and by removing deliberation from the national setting. Consequently, what we see at the end of the day is an environment wherein strongmen monopolize the public sphere for their personal benefit and push people into a seemingly cultural conflict against the “foreign” values of constitutional liberalism and democracy.
The reasons as to why such a global crisis festers in a world such as ours may be many, but an extremely critical factor is us forgetting that deliberation is both a fundamental right and duty when considering the interaction of a single citizen with the state mechanism. Citizens must remember that exercising their duty of dissent and differing with a leader who possesses the ability to literally exercise the power of life and death against both them and their fellow citizens is the most critical charge they have as members of the body politic of their country. In this regard, deliberative discourse–which is founded upon the principles of reasoning, agreement, and disagreement–is both an end and a means vis-a-vis democracy. An extension of this principle, which involves citizens working together to reach reflective, sharable policy conclusions which are then taken under advisement by the government for implementation, is termed as deliberative democracy and can be used by the political system to preserve its foundational values.[5]
The global order of the 21st century is a war against mindless violence and unwarranted tyranny. The freedom and greater good of the masses are on the losing side of this conflict. Our liberty to think differently and still be able to come to a mutually-acceptable conclusion is at risk here today. It is in the supreme interest of people worldwide to assert their rights in a cooperative fashion and not an adversarial one: as a result, it is the duty of civilization itself to preserve this possibility for its present and its future.
[1] ‘Won’t Allow India to Become Nation of One Voice, One Party, One Ideology: Abhishek Singhvi – The Economic Times’. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/wont-not-allow-india-to-become-nation-of-one-voice-one-party-one-ideology-abhishek-singhvi/articleshow/123059927.cms?from=mdr (November 8, 2025).
[2] ‘Appointing Election Commissioners: The Government Must Not Control the Watchdog’. 2023. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/appointing-election-commissioners-the-government-must-not-control-the-watchdog-8917864/ (November 8, 2025).
[3] ‘The Emergency 50 Years on | Echoes from Courtroom No. 24: Verdict Unseated PM Indira Gandhi, She Struck Back at Nation’. 2025. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/long-reads/the-emergency-50-years-on-echoes-from-courtroom-no-24-verdict-unseated-pm-indira-gandhi-she-struck-back-at-nation-10061483/ (November 8, 2025).
[4]July 6, Forty Years Ago: Talk Less, Work More’. 2015. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/july-6-forty-years-ago-talk-less-work-more/ (November 8, 2025).
[5] Layman, Daniel. 2016. ‘Robust Deliberative Democracy’. Critical Review 28(3–4): 494–516. doi:10.1080/08913811.2016.1264161.
