Gandhi’s expulsion: Bad for Indian democracy, good for opposition?

In January, a euphoric Rahul Gandhi finished a monthslong march to “unite India” against the religious divisions sowed, he says, by his political opponent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now, the star of the Indian National Congress party stands expelled from Parliament, and possibly barred from India’s upcoming general election, in what political observers and rights groups are calling an assault on the integrity of Indian democracy.

A court in Gujarat, Mr. Modi’s home state, found Mr. Gandhi guilty of defamation last week for a 2019 speech that compared the prime minister to corrupt businessmen who shared his surname. “Why are all thieves called Modi?” Mr. Gandhi had said. The court granted Mr. Gandhi 30 days bail to appeal the verdict, but the lower house of Parliament – which is controlled by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – expelled him from the legislature the next day. 

Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification “signifies the systematic, repetitive emasculation of democratic institutions by the ruling party,” Congress politician Abhishek Sanghvi said in a press conference. “It signifies the strangulation of democracy itself.”

While Mr. Gandhi is expected to file an appeal soon to reverse his conviction, political analysts say what has happened to him could be a boon in disguise – a rallying point for India’s opposition ahead of the 2024 elections. Members of Parliament from more than a dozen different parties wore black during parliamentary sessions in Delhi this week to protest Mr. Gandhi’s removal and the weakening of Indian democracy, while Congress supporters rallied against the BJP in demonstrations from Jaipur to Hyderabad.

“The opposition needs to come together,” says Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in Delhi. “In order to make a dent in Mr. Modi’s popularity, [it] needs to have a narrative that says how the Indian democracy is coming under strain.” 

An unexpected opportunity?

Once a dominant force in Indian politics, the Congress party has struggled to rebuild itself since Mr. Modi came to power in 2014, and it only controls a handful of states today. In addition to the Congress, there are numerous regional parties and a handful of communist parties that make up India’s opposition. Their leaders seldom agree on policies or ideology, says Mr. Kidwai. “They’re fragmented and the vote gets divided,” which prevented the opposition from mounting a significant challenge to the ruling BJP in 2019, he explains.

Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification presents a rare opportunity for the Congress to unite India’s fractured opposition against the BJP, says Mr. Kidwai. Leaders of several opposition parties have already come out to support the convicted lawmaker. “Resist and defeat such authoritarian assaults,” a communist party leader tweeted. Others called his disqualification “vindictive and shameful,” and “the last nail in the coffin for constitutional freedoms in India.”

Mr. Gandhi’s expulsion from parliament has bolstered the opposition’s line of attack against the ruling party, more so, some argue, than his time in parliament did. 

“It’s politically more beneficial for Congress if he remains outside the parliament than if he gets reinstated,” says political commentator Ashok Swain, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Congress leaders and supporters have been demonstrating in several cities this week. But with elections more than a year away, Mr. Kidwai says the Congress needs to generate a greater buzz among voters to sustain momentum. 

“If [Mr. Gandhi] wants to play the victim card, he needs to get the entire opposition to fan out in their respective states. Otherwise, it has every chance to fizzle out,” he says.

And despite the unifying effect, the ruling against Mr. Gandhi and his expulsion from parliament still raise questions about the integrity of India’s institutions. 

Threatening the integrity of India’s institutions

Navika Harshe, an economist in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, walked alongside Mr. Gandhi for a short span of his unity march last November. The news of his disqualification came as a shock to her.

“There are lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of people whose aspirations he represents. You have just dismissed all of that in one stroke,” she says, adding that the actions against Mr. Gandhi evoke “a sense of dread and fear.”

Some find the ruling unfair. When compared to what other politicians, including BJP leaders, have said, Mr. Gandhi’s remark “is absolutely nothing,” says Mr. Swain, adding that such statements are made every other day in India.

Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification is part of a broader pattern of democratic setbacks, according to the United States-based advocacy group Hindus for Human Rights.

“This comes at the end of a week of anti-democratic actions taken by the Indian government, including a massive internet shutdown in Punjab and the strengthening of the draconian [anti-terrorism] law,” Nikhil Mandalaparthy, the deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights told The Christian Science Monitor in a text message. “In recent years, the Indian government has cracked down against any voices of dissent in the country, including students, academics, human rights defenders, and politicians from opposition parties.” 

Indeed, Mr. Gandhi had emerged as one of the prime minister’s most relentless critics, questioning him in parliament about the government’s ties to billionaire Gautam Adani, who was accused of fraud earlier this year. 

But the BJP denies that the case was politically motivated. “The law has done its job, the BJP had nothing to do with it,” says spokesperson Khemchand Sharma. “First they defame and now they are spreading misinformation. [The Congress] won’t get any sympathy from the public.” 

On Tuesday, Mr. Modi addressed the opposition backlash, saying “Conspiracies are being hatched to end the credibility of our institutions” and to undercut the BJP’s efforts to weed out corruption.

Mr. Gandhi was sentenced to two years for the defamation case, effective late April. That’s the minimum sentence required to trigger a parliamentary expulsion, per Indian law, though reports suggest the law is implemented inconsistently.

Ms. Harshe, the Congress supporter, says she has faith in the integrity of India’s judiciary and is hopeful of Mr. Gandhi’s return to parliament. For his part, Mr. Gandhi has vowed to “keep fighting for India’s democracy” and questioning Mr. Modi, whether he’s reinstated as a member of Parliament or not. Next week he will kick off a nationwide protest called the “Satyamev Jayate” agitation – which translates to “truth alone triumphs” and is also India’s national motto – in Kolar, Karnataka, the same place he made the controversial Modi comment.