Indira was obsessed with being in power.
Thus the Emergency had been imposed to scuttle the swelling waves of
challenge.
(Incidentally, a*ll visible resistance would almost overnight nearly
evaporate once the Emergency was imposed.*)

And the moment she perceived the ebbing of those challenges, rather
inaccurately as only the subsequent developments would demonstrate, she
went back to "democracy" - *very much on her own, without any tangible
external compulsion*.

Like her obsession with power, that* was *also one element of her natural
instincts - the yearning to be recognised as a "democratic" leader.
Even more importantly, *she had no long term agenda to fundamentally
refashion "India" by leveraging the state power at her command.*

With Modi, things are very significantly different.
Of course he is also obsessed about being in power.
He - in the process, as it appears, has, inter alia, shifted the
(traditional) power balance between himself/BJP and the RSS, in his own
favour.
But, the story goes well beyond that.

*He is doggedly pursuing an agenda of transforming the "secular"
"democratic" Indian state into a "Hindu Rashtra", which will be, regardless
of other attributes, stripped of all vestiges of any substantive democracy
and pluralism. *
*On a permanent basis.*

*In this scheme, once the goal is arrived at, there is simply no return to
any meaningful "democracy", even with no visible challenge. *
And, it is just not limited to Modi.
He is the legatee of an entrenched political tradition.

*Hence, the juggernaut has got to be halted halfway, and reversed.*
*Well before it reaches the culmination.*
*Otherwise, it's doom.*

Sukla

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