Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChemSpider | Hacker News Reader

well india is a democracy and that is why you are able read about it here.

India under BJP/Modi right now is as much a "democracy" as Victor Orban's Hungary (in name only):

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/india

India has always been quite far from a perfect democracy. Do we even have proof that this targeting of dissenters and opposition activists only started with BJP/Modi?

doesn't matter because we can't change the past. what's relevant today is that technology has created opportunities for power structures to exploit and take advantage at a much bigger scale.

Planting of evidence (as this title points to) is just one of many things that are a problem when we pretend digital roots of trusts are flawless as is the case with the totally broken Aadhaar: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I'm unable to figure out how this has anything to do with "being a democracy". Can someone explain that please?

The evidence was most likely planted by the investigating government agency. This adds to the several cases of crackdown against dissent, activism and criticism against the government.

So are parents implying that this could not have happened in a democracy? If so, that's most likely wrong.

India openly admits putting activists in prison on bogus charges. What a relief, a shining example of democracy in action.

Although when planting false evidence in the computer I have a bad feeling that unless the victim is some kind of VIP they might have big problems even in the traditional democratic countries.

> India openly admits putting activists in prison on bogus charges. What a relief, a shining example of democracy in action.

Name five democratic countries which has not done this?

so according to you, your neighbors committing murder gives YOU the right to do the same because what ??

why are you bringing other countries into it? the question is on india here. india does this and there should be consequences regardless of what anyone else does or does not do

Never said that. The comment I replied back make it sounds like India is the only democracy which does this and is not a real democracy like the other democracies.

Obviously it's stupid to put activists in jail for bogus claims. And there is no justification in doing it even though other countries are doing it. It's pretty obvious to anyone with a decent IQ.

>"so according to you, your neighbors committing murder gives YOU the right to do the same because what ??"

Problem is when said murderers assume self-righteous position and pontificate how bad everyone else is.

If they punish the perpetrators and fix the situation than sure, full respect. But just for the fuck of it: who for example got punished in UK for deporting and otherwise ruining lives of their own citizens (Windrush scandal)? The answer is most likely zilch. Still they teach everyone else.

And yes I agree that the scale of abuse is way smaller in the countries like the US. But they compensate by abusing citizens of the other countries by dropping democratic bombs.

Lichtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Luxembourg. Can I have a cookie now?

So the population of the countries you listed.

San Marino - Around 33k

Lichtenstein - Around 38k

Monaco - 38k

Andorra - Around 77k

Luxembourg - 600k

With population of 77k, Andorra won't even make it in the top 300 populated cities in India. I bet it's not even in top 500.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_India_by_pop...

The population of least populated state in India is Around 600k. So Luxembourg would barely be a state in India. There are more than 70 cities with bigger population than Luxembourg in India

Honestly it's not a great way to compare democaricies which are not even the size of big Indian cities to India. But yeah. You did come up with 5 democaries that seems like legit good when it comes to Human rights. I didn't investigate about the human right violations. But with population so low I won't be surprised if there are not many.

Textbook goalpost moving.

Can't deny. But to be fair I never said you can't come up with 5 countries either. Tiny nations which are even smaller than cities are always exceptions in all kind of stats. The fact that they had to come up with exceptions validates my point that India not the only democracy which does this. I am not justifying it obviously.

The comment I replied back make it sounds like India is the only democracy which does this and is not a real democracy like the other democracies.

Obviously it's stupid to put activists in jail for bogus claims. And there is no justification in doing it even though other countries are doing it. It's pretty obvious to anyone with a decent IQ.

I completely fail to see how this "Validates your point".

Point is pretty much all democrasies do this and it's not only India(Not justifying). The fact that the OP had to come up with nations with population less than large Universities and tech companies as counter examples validates it.

Point is this is the definition of whataboutism. Just because other countries may have done this does not make it right.

Never said that. The comment I replied back make it sounds like India is the only democracy which does this and is not a real democracy like the other democracies. Obviously it's stupid to put activists in jail for bogus claims. And there is no justification in doing it even though other countries are doing it. It's pretty obvious to anyone with a decent IQ.

The comment actually says the opposite, that even "traditional democratic countries" have big problems. That is to say, it's always possible to improve and all improvement is valuable. Already India, while unquestionably flawed, is regarded as more democratic than some European countries.

I agree. India has a lot to improve on. It's far from perfect. And it's very hard. 1.4 billion people. 20+ languages. So many religions. So many castes. But it still continue to work. With its flaws. But it's one of the thing that I am the most happy about this country. That democracy is still alive. Some more alive in some states than the other. We have come a long way since the British Colonization and the times before that. I think the future would be more brighter for democracy than last 50 years.

Just because the US performs extralegal execution doesn't justify. The same goes for anything and anyone else.

I'm actually going to agree with that. Any country jailing political activists on their position alone is not a democracy.

Sure. But by that definition there would be only a bunch of tiny nations qualified as democracy in the world we currently live in.

Name one political activist jailed by any US court for their position alone.

That's why you never learn about shenanigans in N Korea, Russia and China.Yep!

For the most part we don’t.

Not sure about NL/China but being able to read Russian freely I'd say they make more than enough stink in the media when someone gets problems for political activity. Whether the person gets a relief is of course a different question.

Your logic is impeccable. There is a lot going on that you dont know, but you know it is happening. I suppose you are doing a lot of shady stuff in your basement but we dont know it.

I know you’re casting shade, but we know for sure that China suppresses many kinds of politically sensitive news. They don’t hide that fact.

"Democracy" is not a boolean, and trying to make it a yes/no criterion for any country just collapses into whataboutery.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com