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As someone who has spent most of my time since November 2016 trying to stop the decline of democracy in the United States, I can’t really explain what it’s like to watch what’s happening in India (the country I was born in and am from) right now.
I grew up hearing a few repeated stories about India.

One was about partition - my grandfathers on both sides were refugees from Pakistan to India.

The second was about the pluralism of India. My mom would talk about the mosque, temple and Gurdwara being next to each other.
After 9/11, I heard remembrances of what India was like after Indra Gandhi was assassinated. My dad was so proud that in the US, Bush got on TV and defended Muslims.

Of course, all these stories are incomplete and through just the lens of my families experiences.
We migrated from India in 1991 when I was 9 months old.

My parents always spoke with pride about the unlikely democracy that is India. So many cultures, language, food etc. but still one country.

There is a belief in democracy and self determination that is part of my legacy.
After Trump got elected and I became very vocal politically and started writing more, I took some comfort that if things got really bad, I could go there as a place to live.

It’s been confusing watching democracy erode in India over the last few years and escalate recently.
I don’t know how to reconcile what I see happening in India with the stories I heard growing up.

It’s personally painful to watch the two countries I feel most at home slide towards authoritarianism.

And it is powerful watching people rise up and fight back.
I remember in the US after the Muslim ban being so heartened and relieved at the protests. Collecting numbers for lawyers at airports across the country on here.

I saw an Indian journalist I follow on here doing the same thing recently to help support protestors in India.
I recently came across some protest art from India being shared on here and it reminded me of the work @amplifierart does in the US.
When I was running the Resistance Manual, there was an Indian woman who asked to join our efforts bc she wanted to see what we were doing and how to replicate it there.

I am now watching organizers and activists in India to see what lessons we can learn from them.
One thing I know from my time at @protctdemocracy and reading/learning about the retreat of democracy is that it is happening around the world.

We would be foolish not to watch/learn lessons from other countries.

Our struggles are connected.
Also, that none of this is inevitable. The power is where it’s always been - with the people.

Who we choose to be right now, what we choose to do, will determine the world we and our children grow up in.
Also, my experience on getting accurate information about what’s happening in far away places is: local journalists have the most accurate information and the people actually doing work in movements are almost always women. Listen to them.
Id love reccs on accounts to follow and will add accounts I found helpful/useful to this thread.
Here’s the list I made for India news, will update it: twitter.com/i/lists/121078…
We at @protctdemocracy identified 6 buckets for how autocrats destroy democracies: 1) disinformation, 2) corrupting elections, 3) delegitimizing marginalized communities, 4) executive power grabs, 5) politicizing independent institutions and 6) quashing dissent
Quashing dissent in India. This will sound familiar to protestors around the world including here in the US:
Delegitimizing marginalizes communities in India. The legal arguments and concerns over the citizenship law sound SO SIMILAR to the Muslim Ban in the US.
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