Lok Sabha Elections 2024: For Western media, democracy in India 'revived' only because Modi lost majority

The Western media, who had declared the Indian democracy dead barely days ago, is suddenly singing praises for it. The Economist termed June 4 results as a 'triumph for Indian democracy'. The Guardian said not Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but democracy is the real winner.

But let me go a step further and say: Not the Indian opposition, Western media is the real loser here.

Throughout the past decade, Western media kept looking down on the world's largest democracy seemingly because it didn't like who the electorate voted for.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

Let's be honest here. The Western media doesn't like PM Modi.

But as his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept across the country's political landscape, Western media extended its hate against Modi towards the Indian electorate.

Indian democracy was sent on a guilt trip even though the country holds the record of organising one of the world's largest, most transparent, free and fair elections over the past seven decades.

Unlike the US, the opposition here doesn't decry election results. Unlike the UK, the governments here have been more stable. The UK has had five prime ministers just within Modi's tenure in India. I wonder how come these nations and their media muster up courage to lecture India on democracy.

But finally, they are now acknowledging the 'revival' of 'dead' Indian democracy, not because the Indian electoral process has further evolved but because the leader that they hated all these years has been humbled through a weaker mandate.

Had the election results given PM Modi a full majority, the same media would have been shedding tears over the death of democracy in India.

For the hypocritical western media, it's the outcome of the results that decides whether democracy is alive in India or not, not the process itself.

The only thing Western elites should worry about is the slow death of democracy in their own nations.

According to a December 2023 Gallup survey, only 28 per cent of the US electorate showed confidence in American democracy.

In 2022, a Carnegie UK report revealed just 2 in 5 people in England (41 per cent) believed democracy is working in their nation.

Close to 76 per cent of Britons don’t trust their Members of Parliament.

These are scary numbers, yet the Western media hardly talks about the backsliding of democracy at home.