Democracy Playing Its Role In India

Yesterday, India, the world's largest democracy of 714 million people, began its month-long election process, which will be staggered into five separate blocks. Polling started in the northern and eastern regions yesterday where the highest concentration of poverty-stricken Indians will cast their ballots.

The election pits the ruling Congress Party, along with some minor alliances, against the opposition party, Bharatiya Janata, a Hindu-nationalist party. India is predominantly Hindu with a Muslim minority, which should play a minor factor in how the nation votes. The BJP lost power in 2004, and seems unlikely to regain the majority because of inter-party tension.

Likely to play a key role in the elections are several regional parties which could ally with either major party to form a larger majority for one side, or could strip votes from both predominant parties, creating a situation where even the majority government are unlikely to have overwhelming power due to a fragmented government.

Still, it is promising for other pro-Democratic states that India can once again organize an election on such a massive scale. Around 800,000 voting sites will be in use, and guarding those sites from threats and attacks which have been increasingly forthcoming leading up the the election will be 2 million security personnel. Still, by Thursday evening, 14 separate attacks on polling places and trucks carrying equipment had been reported, resulting in at least 17 deaths.

Also encouraging for democracy in India was the appointment of a new lawyer for Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive in the Mumbai attacks that took place last November and left more than 170 dead and 300 wounded.

Abbas Kazmi took the role as Kasab's new lawyer after the previous lawyer was dismissed for a conflict of interest resulting from her defense of an attack victim. Kazmi acknowledged the risks of such an action, as many other appointed attorney's for the Pakistan-nationalist attacker were harassed, threatened, and even had their homes vandalised and damaged.

Kazmi called it his duty and an honor "as a democratic society" to represent Kasab, despite the obvious conflicts and contempt most Indians feel in the wake of the attacks. Mumbai's Bar Association had previously decided not to represent Kasab. Kazmi will receive government protection while the trial is ongoing.

So as India's democratic wheels turn, the pro-democracy states of the international community ought pay attention. If a state with so much diversity, inner-conflict, and class separation can set this kind of example, it may lead others to follow in similar fashion.

Democracy's Meltdown in Fiji

Fiji's President Ratu Josefa Iloilo has taken many steps away from democracy in past days, as he abolished the state's constitution, sacked all judges on the judiciary committee, and appointed himself head of state. He also re-appointed Commodore Frank Bainimarama as interim Prime Minister only days after his Ministership, undertaken in 2006 after a military coup, was ruled unconstitutional by the Judiciary Committee's Court of Appeals.

Bainimarama has also appointed a censor for all of the state's media outlets, and reports that foreign media have been locked out of the country have also been coming out of the island nation. Section 16 of the new language adopted by the president reads that "any broadcaster or publisher must submit all material to the Secretary for Information before publication."

In 2006, after Bainimarama's coup, the military forced Fiji's leading daily newspaper and sole TV station to close after the military attempted to censor their news. Saturday, the Fiji Times, the nation's largest newspaper which has been in print since 1869, was forced to run its edition with huge blank spots after articles relating to the incidents were censored by the government's censor appointed by the Secretary of Information.

Several articles also ran that praised the new government as a "fresh start", probably forcibly printed, as the editor of the paper, Netani Rika, has seemingly been left with no choice. Two managing directors of the newspaper have been deported from Fiji in the past year.

Leaders from around the world, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Australian politicians, have slammed Iloila and Bainimarama for the coups and for the censorship of journalists. Pro-journalism activist groups have also greatly criticised the actions, calling them a push against journalist's rights that they say should be universal: freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

It should be interesting to see how this story develops and whether international pressure will be placed on the island nation, something it seemingly could not withstand. Otherwise, Iloila and Bainimarama are set to have five more years of power, and, without a constitution, power to do whatever they wish. And it is unlikely to stop with the censorship of journalists.