#anti authoritarian

[reasonsforhope]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, by some measures, the most popular leader in the world. Prior to the 2024 election, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held an outright majority in the Lok Sabha (India’s Parliament) — one that was widely projected to grow after the vote count. The party regularly boasted that it would win 400 Lok Sabha seats, easily enough to amend India’s constitution along the party's preferred Hindu nationalist lines.

But when the results were announced on Tuesday, the BJP held just 240 seats. They not only underperformed expectations, they actually lost their parliamentary majority. While Modi will remain prime minister, he will do so at the helm of a coalition government — meaning that he will depend on other parties to stay in office, making it harder to continue his ongoing assault on Indian democracy.

So what happened? Why did Indian voters deal a devastating blow to a prime minister who, by all measures, they mostly seem to like?

India is a massive country — the most populous in the world — and one of the most diverse, making its internal politics exceedingly complicated. A definitive assessment of the election would require granular data on voter breakdown across caste, class, linguistic, religious, age, and gender divides. At present, those numbers don’t exist in sufficient detail. 

But after looking at the information that is available and speaking with several leading experts on Indian politics, there are at least three conclusions that I’m comfortable drawing.

First, voters punished Modi for putting his Hindu nationalist agenda ahead of fixing India’s unequal economy. Second, Indian voters had some real concerns about the decline of liberal democracy under BJP rule. Third, the opposition parties waged a smart campaign that took advantage of Modi’s vulnerabilities on the economy and democracy.

Understanding these factors isn’t just important for Indians. The country’s election has some universal lessons for how to beat a would-be authoritarian — ones that Americans especially might want to heed heading into its election in November.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024. Article continues below.

A new (and unequal) economy

Modi’s biggest and most surprising losses came in India’s two most populous states: Uttar Pradesh in the north and Maharashtra in the west. Both states had previously been BJP strongholds — places where the party’s core tactic of pitting the Hindu majority against the Muslim minority had seemingly cemented Hindu support for Modi and his allies.

One prominent Indian analyst, Yogendra Yadav, saw the cracks in advance. Swimming against the tide of Indian media, he correctly predicted that the BJP would fall short of a governing majority.

Traveling through the country, but especially rural Uttar Pradesh, he prophesied “the return of normal politics”: that Indian voters were no longer held spellbound by Modi’s charismatic nationalist appeals and were instead starting to worry about the way politics was affecting their lives.

Yadav’s conclusions derived in no small part from hearing voters’ concerns about the economy. The issue wasn’t GDP growth — India’s is the fastest-growing economy in the world — but rather the distribution of growth’s fruits. While some of Modi’s top allies struck it rich, many ordinary Indians suffered. Nearly half of all Indians between 20 and 24 are unemployed; Indian farmers have repeatedly protested Modi policies that they felt hurt their livelihoods.

“Everyone was talking about price rise, unemployment, the state of public services, the plight of farmers, [and] the struggles of labor,” Yadav wrote...

“We know for sure that Modi’s strongman image and brassy self-confidence were not as popular with voters as the BJP assumed,” says Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies India. 

The lesson here isn’t that the pocketbook concerns trump identity-based appeals everywhere; recent evidence in wealthier democracies suggests the opposite is true. Rather, it’s that even entrenched reputations of populist leaders are not unshakeable. When they make errors, even some time ago, it’s possible to get voters to remember these mistakes and prioritize them over whatever culture war the populist is peddling at the moment.

Liberalism strikes back

The Indian constitution is a liberal document: It guarantees equality of all citizens and enshrines measures designed to enshrine said equality into law. The signature goal of Modi’s time in power has been to rip this liberal edifice down and replace it with a Hindu nationalist model that pushes non-Hindus to the social margins. In pursuit of this agenda, the BJP has concentrated power in Modi’s hands and undermined key pillars of Indian democracy (like a free press and independent judiciary).

Prior to the election, there was a sense that Indian voters either didn’t much care about the assault on liberal democracy or mostly agreed with it. But the BJP’s surprising underperformance suggests otherwise.

The Hindu, a leading Indian newspaper, published an essential post-election data analysis breaking down what we know about the results. One of the more striking findings is that the opposition parties surged in parliamentary seats reserved for members of “scheduled castes” — the legal term for Dalits, the lowest caste grouping in the Hindu hierarchy.

Caste has long been an essential cleavage in Indian politics, with Dalits typically favoring the left-wing Congress party over the BJP (long seen as an upper-caste party). Under Modi, the BJP had seemingly tamped down on the salience of class by elevating all Hindus — including Dalits — over Muslims. Yet now it’s looking like Dalits were flocking back to Congress and its allies. Why?

According to experts, Dalit voters feared the consequences of a BJP landslide. If Modi’s party achieved its 400-seat target, they’d have more than enough votes to amend India’s constitution. Since the constitution contains several protections designed to promote Dalit equality — including a first-in-the-world affirmative action system — that seemed like a serious threat to the community. It seems, at least based on preliminary data, that they voted accordingly.

The Dalit vote is but one example of the ways in which Modi’s brazen willingness to assail Indian institutions likely alienated voters.

Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest and most electorally important state, was the site of a major BJP anti-Muslim campaign. It unofficially kicked off its campaign in the UP city of Ayodhya earlier this year, during a ceremony celebrating one of Modi’s crowning achievements: the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque that had been torn down by Hindu nationalists in 1992. 

Yet not only did the BJP lose UP, it specifically lost the constituency — the city of Faizabad — in which the Ayodhya temple is located. It’s as direct an electoral rebuke to BJP ideology as one can imagine.

In Maharashtra, the second largest state, the BJP made a tactical alliance with a local politician, Ajit Pawar, facing serious corruption charges. Voters seemingly punished Modi’s party for turning a blind eye to Pawar’s offenses against the public trust. Across the country, Muslim voters turned out for the opposition to defend their rights against Modi’s attacks.

The global lesson here is clear: Even popular authoritarians can overreach.

By turning “400 seats” into a campaign slogan, an all-but-open signal that he intended to remake the Indian state in his illiberal image, Modi practically rang an alarm bell for constituencies worried about the consequences. So they turned out to stop him en masse.

The BJP’s electoral underperformance is, in no small part, the direct result of their leader’s zealotry going too far.

Return of the Gandhis? 

Of course, Modi’s mistakes might not have mattered had his rivals failed to capitalize. The Indian opposition, however, was far more effective than most observers anticipated.

Perhaps most importantly, the many opposition parties coordinated with each other. Forming a united bloc called INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), they worked to make sure they weren’t stealing votes from each other in critical constituencies, positioning INDIA coalition candidates to win straight fights against BJP rivals.

The leading party in the opposition bloc — Congress — was also more put together than people thought. Its most prominent leader, Rahul Gandhi, was widely dismissed as a dilettante nepo baby: a pale imitation of his father Rajiv and grandmother Indira, both former Congress prime ministers. Now his critics are rethinking things.

“I owe Rahul Gandhi an apology because I seriously underestimated him,” says Manjari Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Miller singled out Gandhi’s yatras (marches) across India as a particularly canny tactic. These physically grueling voyages across the length and breadth of India showed that he wasn’t just a privileged son of Indian political royalty, but a politician willing to take risks and meet ordinary Indians where they were. During the yatras, he would meet directly with voters from marginalized groups and rail against Modi’s politics of hate.

“The persona he’s developed — as somebody kind, caring, inclusive, [and] resolute in the face of bullying — has really worked and captured the imagination of younger India,” says Suryanarayan. “If you’ve spent any time on Instagram Reels, [you’ll see] an entire generation now waking up to Rahul Gandhi’s very appealing videos.”

This, too, has a lesson for the rest of the world: Tactical innovation from the opposition matters even in an unfair electoral context.

There is no doubt that, in the past 10 years, the BJP stacked the political deck against its opponents. They consolidated control over large chunks of the national media, changed campaign finance law to favor themselves, suborned the famously independent Indian Electoral Commission, and even intimidated the Supreme Court into letting them get away with it. 

The opposition, though, managed to find ways to compete even under unfair circumstances. Strategic coordination between them helped consolidate resources and ameliorate the BJP cash advantage. Direct voter outreach like the yatra helped circumvent BJP dominance in the national media.

To be clear, the opposition still did not win a majority. Modi will have a third term in office, likely thanks in large part to the ways he rigged the system in his favor.

Yet there is no doubt that the opposition deserves to celebrate. Modi’s power has been constrained and the myth of his invincibility wounded, perhaps mortally. Indian voters, like those in Brazil and Poland before them, have dealt a major blow to their homegrown authoritarian faction.

And that is something worth celebrating.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

A must read for all of the kiddos getting into organizing rn. Read and print the whole thing here.

[bookmothic-dyke]

Fuck cops

Don’t fuck cops.

Authoritarianism ain’t hot kiddos. It’s just sad.

[clover-wasnt-here]

Capitalism is just exploitative propaganda dressed in pretty words like “liberty” and “democracy” to distract from the fact that we are not liberated or democratic, but rather chained to a system that is essentially economic Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. Who, in this case, is the fittest? Why, the rich, of course. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

[oliverworldbuilds]

I posted this video to tiktok and within like barely a week they had removed #denydefenddepose and muted the audio and I think that’s censorship and that’s not fucking ok so here’s the video

I feel like something is stirring, I’m seeing people getting more and more mad, more and more calls for somebody to take a stand. There is unrest in the people and I think it might not be long before it boils over. You can’t treat this many people this poorly and expect anything good to come of it.

[voltairineandviolethaze]

Anarchism means OPPOSITION to violence, by whomever committed, even if it be by the government. The government has no more right to murder than the individual. Anarchism is therefore opposition to violence as well as to government forcibly imposed on man.

The Anarchists value human life. In fact, no one values it more. Why, then, are the Anarchists always blamed for every act of violence? Because your rulers and exploiters want to keep you prejudiced against the Anarchists, so you will never find out what the Anarchist really want, and the masters will remain safe in their monopoly of life.

- Alexander Berkman & Emma Goldman, “Down With the Anarchists!” (c.1910s)

[trans-girl-azzi]

A friendly reminder! Politicians houses are flammable and are publicly listed!

Have a good day :3

[sapphiccyranodebergerac]

rereading the mysterious benedict society as an adult is very interesting. the book is lowkey a very poignant callout of authoritarian fear mongering.

like what strikes me most is the use of fear as a driver for control, the whisperer assuaging fears in order to get the kids to submit to it and then messages gaining control over the public by creating “the emergency” and then solving it for them.

also the “free market drill” is such an excellent callout of the paradox of late stage capitalism. like:

“The free market must always be completely free. The free market must be controlled in certain cases. The free market must be free enough to control its freedom in certain cases. The free market must have enough control to free itself in certain cases.”

i read that at 11 and was like “silly nonsense word salad” and now at 19 i’m like… fuck.

although considering how neurodivergent that book series is, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s also a tad socialist.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Anarchist Bookfairs & Anti-Authoritarian Gatherings in February.

1.

Derry Radical Bookfair (Ireland)

February 1st.

12pm-5pm

More info

2.

Austin Anarchist Bookfair (Texas)

February 1st

12pm-6pm

More info

3.

Vegan Anarchist Meetup Tucson (Arizona)

Message lettuce.92 on signal for information

4. 14th Mexico City Anarchist Bookfair (Mexico)

February 15th

More info

5. Florida Abolitionist Gathering (Florida)

February 28 - March 2, 2025

More info

[bookmothic-dyke]

Everyone!

Followers, mutuals, and strangers on tumblr. The queer people of the internet. I love you. And somehow, we’ll make it through. Because queer folks before us have. Because we have to. For not just us. But every trans and queer kid in existence, and all those who will exist one day.

We have to go on. We have to fight. We have to live.

For those who are yet to be.

[vintage-tigre]

[sotomato06]

trump isn't even in office yet and companies are already buying up stock to avoid these tariffs. For anybody who was unaware, we pay the tariffs. Not China. Prices are going to rise, it's going to be instant. Trump is going to collapse the economy

[voltairineandviolethaze]

It is this “upper class” which determines what kind of houses (if any at all) the producing class shall live in, the quantity and quality of food they shall place upon their table, the kind of raiment they shall wear, and whether the child of the proletariat shall in tender years enter the schoolhouse or the factory. And when the proletariat, failing to see the justice of this bourgeois economy, begins to murmur, the policeman’s club is called into active service for six days in the week, while on the seventh the minister assures him that to complain of the powers that be is quite sinful, besides being a losing game, inasmuch as by this action he is lessening his chance for obtaining a very comfortable apartment in “the mansions eternal in the skies.” And the possessing class meanwhile are perfectly willing to pay the minister handsomely, and furnish the proletariat all the credit necessary for this if he will furnish them the cash for the erection of their mansions here.

- Lucy E. Parsons, "Our Civilization: Is It Worth Saving?" (1885)

[bubbly-gay-jellyfish]

A Deep Dive into Emma Goldman's childhood, one of the main voices of Anarchism and one of the founders of Anarcha-Feminism

... 🪼 Hello again, dear friend. Are you interested in Anarchism, or Feminism, by any means? If you do, you may already know Emma Goldman, currently considered one of the many foundational voices of Anarchism /neu

... 🪼 Not gonna lie, I'm not an expert. In fact, I would consider myself a beginner, because I still have too much to learn, and I thought: "Why not share what I've learned with others?" And here we are /neu

Content warnings! If one or more of these topics trigger significant psychological or physical distress to you, proceed with caution, or don't proceed at all /srs

Domestic violence /srs

Physical violence against children and adults /srs

Child labor /srs

Childhood sexual abuse /srs

... 🪼 With that being said, let's go now! /pos

Emma Goldman was born on June 27, 1869 into an Orthodox Jewish family in Kaunas in Lithuania, within the extinct Russian Empire. Orthodox Judaism, currently, is one of the major branches of Judaism. It adheres closely to traditional beliefs, practices, and interpretations of Jewish Law (Halakha). It emphasizes the divine origin of the Torah, both written and oral, and maintains a strict observance of Jewish rituals, ethics and customs. It is characterized by several daily practices, traditional gender roles, and resisting changes that other branches of Judaism might adopt. /srs

Within the Russian Empire, during Emma Goldman's childhood (the 1870s), Orthodox Judaism was the predominant form of Judaism practiced among the Jewish population. In fact, the Jewish community in the Russian Empire was one of the largest in the world at the time, concentrated primarily in the Pale of Settlement, a region encompassing parts of modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. Jews were required to live within that area, with few exceptions. However, keep in mind that the state religion of the Russian Empire was Russian Orthodox Christianity, that was the overwhelming majority with approx. 70% of the population at the time practicing this religion; meanwhile Judaism was only about 4%-5% of the rest of the population. /srs

Despite hosting one of the largest Jewish communities in the world at the time, the Russian Empire exerted pressure on the Jews. The Russian Government imposed various restrictions on Jewish life. A few examples are: /srs

Limitations on where Jews could live, work, and attend school. These policies often made it difficult for Jews to maintain their religious practices and economic stability. /srs

Conscription and Cantonist System. Jewish people faced the threat of conscription into the Russian army, which often included efforts to convert Jewish boys into Christianity. And the Cantonist System required Jewish communities to provide a quota of young boys for military service. This system was particularly feared for Jewish people. /srs

As you may have guessed, Emma Goldman was born into an extremely patriarchal society. In Russian society in the 1870s, women generally were subordinate to men in every aspect of their life. Even the family structure was highly hierarchical, with the male head of household holding significant authority. Also, women had limited rights. Married women, particularly, were under the control of their husbands and couldn't own property independently, work without their husband's permission, or easily obtain a divorce. Regarding women in education, the access was limited, especially for peasant and lower-class women. The women who had access to higher education often were educated about domestic skills and social graces, rather than real academic pursuits, like men. It should be added that women's experiences vary according to several factors, such as their socioeconomic class. /srs

Apparently, Emma Goldman, as an Orthodox Jewish woman, was subject to both the patriarchal norms of Jewish society and the broader restrictions imposed by the Russian Empire. /srs

As for her family environment, Emma Goldman's mother, Taube Bienowitch had been married to a man before whom she had two daughters, Helena in 1860 and Lena in 1862. When her first husband died of tuberculosis, Taube was devastated. Emma Goldman later wrote, in her autobiography: "Whatever love she had had died with the young man to whom she had been married to the age of fifteen". /srs

Although it may be shocking to us, at that time, marrying off underage girls was the norm. In many traditional societies, including Jewish communities in the Russian Empire, marriage was seen as a primary goal for women (let's remember how patriarchal the Russian society was back in those years). Early marriage was often encouraged to ensure moral propriety and to align with religious expectations. Women were primarily expected to be wives and mothers, and their education or personal goals were seen as secondary or even unimportant. /srs

In Jewish communities, particularly, early marriage was common. Marriage was highly valued, and matchmaking (often arranged by parents or professional matchmakers) was a central part of the culture. Girls might marry in their mid-to-late teens to much older men, where their consent was rarely a priority, while boys often married slightly older, after completing some religious education that usually wasn't accessible for women and girls. /srs

Once we understand and know the historical context, it's credible that Taube Bienowitch's second marriage was arranged by her family. Taube Bienowitch married Abraham Goldman, who invested all of her inheritance in a business that quickly failed /srs

Emma Goldman didn't have the safe, comforting space that children require; instead, she went through tense family dynamics. As mentioned before, Abraham Goldman wasted all of his wife's money, which resulted in economical hardship. Even before Emma Goldman was born, the environment in the house was already tense due to the distance between wife and husband. Once Taube Bienowitch became pregnant with her third child, her husband hoped desperately for a son; a daughter, he believed, would be a sign of failure. The first child Taube and Abraham had together was Emma Goldman, and eventually they had three sons after Emma's birth. /srs

Abraham used violence to punish their children, beating them when they disobeyed him, which worsened the already tense ambience in the house. Emma Goldman was the most rebellious of them, so, her father used a whip on her. Taube, her mother, rarely provided some type of comfort when these violent episodes happened, and didn't make an effort to ask Abraham to tone down his beatings. In fact, the one that comforted Emma Goldman after these beatings was Helena, her oldest half-sister, who acted more as a mother than their actual, biological mother. Lena, the youngest half-sister, was distant. The three sisters were accompanied by their three younger brothers: Louis (who died at the age of six), Herman (born in 1872), and Moishe (born in 1879). /srs

When Emma Goldman was still a little girl, her family moved to the village of Papilė, where her father ran an inn. While her sisters worked, she became friends with a servant called Pretrushka, who "excited her first erotic sensations", as she said. /srs

Before you get alarmed by the word "erotic" used to describe an experience in Emma Goldman's childhood, I want to clarify that nothing inappropriate happened between Pretrushka and her. /gen

Emma Goldman was known for talking about sexuality in a time when almost everything related to it was taboo. When I mentioned the phrase, I was referencing the autobiography of Emma Goldman, that she wrote (obviously) once she was an adult. She was referring to a sense of attraction and desire that Pretrushka had awakened within her, back when she was a little girl. The passage is about the beginnings of her awareness of her own sexuality, rather than indicating that something inappropriate or even harmful happened between them. Emma Goldman was describing and reflecting in retrospect, with a more mature mind, what can be called a childhood crush. Think about when you were a kid and had a "crush" on a certain actor/actress, a friend, or the older sibling of your friend. Those were the feelings she was analyzing once she became an adult /srs

So, yeah, Emma Goldman was sapphic 🏳️‍🌈✨ /lh

Adding to that, Emma Goldman described Pretrushka as a peasant woman who worked in their home, while enduring difficult conditions and mistreatment. In her autobiography, she reflected on how witnessing the mistreatment of servants like Pretrushka at such a young age, as well as her own experiences of poverty and oppression, molded her commitment to Anarchism and her life long fight against exploitation and inequality /srs

[smallfightercat]

if you claim to want to protect children and yet you:

think kids shouldn't be anything other than straight

think kids aren't old enough to know what gender they are (despite research claiming otherwise)

think kids should be fully controlled by their parents

you don't actually care about protecting children.

[profeminist]

"Orbán’s power grab program runs on two components that you can think of as hardware and software. The populist hardware consists of hijacked institutions. The software is made up of populist discourses and narratives that are used to create and enlist the consent of the ruled.

Dismantling the hardware of the Orbán-Trump project requires first defeating its software, so let’s start there."

Read the full piece here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/23/trump-autocrat-elections-00191281