India, explained.
Trump and Modi during an Washington meeting in February (White House Photo)
One on a fast track, the other a slow burn, both leaders are rewriting democratic rules to suit themselves.
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Trump and Modi’s shared blueprint for concentrating power and repressing dissentTrump and Modi’s shared blueprint for concentrating power and repressing dissent
How does a democracy transform into an oligarchy or an authoritarian regime? The accepted wisdom is that it’s the salami strategy, slice by slice.
That the salami slice analogy was coined in Hungary, which is currently considered a hybrid regime, or only partly free according to Freedom House, is a mere coincidence. It’s a cutesy term, and one that is evocative of, say, a cozy deli in Budapest. But authoritarian regimes have agendas of concentrating power and resisting and repressing dissent, and there is nothing cute about that.
As someone who’s watched democratic freedoms be sliced away in India over the past decade, now observing the kind of changes taking place in the United States feels disconcertingly familiar, albeit at a much faster pace.
Undergirding their different approaches is that both align with the general authoritarian agenda.
Do would-be authoritarians have a master plan that they’re working from, I wondered? It didn’t take me long to find it. The internet is full of references to “The Authoritarian’s Playbook”, a step-by-step guide to transferring from democracy to autocracy in seven to ten easy steps. It’s not actually an established charter, but rather a title used by media and rights groups or projects examining the ways would-be authoritarian leaders adhere to similar methods of collecting and preserving power. For example, this one – www.authoritarianplaybook2025.org – by the US NGO Protect Democracy, is a reporting handbook aimed at journalists covering the early part of Trump 2.0.
In the United States, the speed of change has been unrelenting as President Donald Trump boisterously works through his apparent agenda for reshaping the American system. The US still registers at a healthy 84/100 on Freedom House’s Freedom in the World status, which falls into the “free” ranking. However, the benchmark Bright Line Watch survey in April found that a majority of the 500-plus political scientists surveyed believe that the country is sliding from liberal democracy towards authoritarianism.
Protesters hold signs and flags near the Mar-a-Lago residence of US President Donald Trump (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
In contrast, India is rated as “partly free” by Freedom House, and is otherwise described as a hybrid regime, which is neither a full democracy nor a full autocracy. Other rankings include “electoral autocracy” (V-Dem) or “flawed democracy” (Economist Intelligence Unit) These descriptors come after more than a decade of the erosion of norms that support democracy, such as a free and fair press, independent institutions, religious freedoms and civil rights.
Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are far from the only strongmen helming nations in democratic decline – others include Hungary and Italy (strongwoman), while Russia under Vladimir Putin is easily the exemplar in the space. But there’s a Kahnemanian correlation that can be observed in comparing Trump and Modi, where Trump’s bombastic style has brought forth rapid, “flood the zone” change, while under Modi, change has unfolded in a more gradual, deliberate way.
Undergirding their different approaches is that both align with the general authoritarian agenda, to centralise and cling to power for as long as possible by whatever means possible.
The Authoritarian Playbook is a good framework to examine how in both nations, democratic norms are being rolled back. Using Protect Democracy’s list, here is a comparison of how these changes have been or are being enacted.
United States: Trump has, in this term, been determined to ensure independent agencies and institutions fall into line. Among them are: the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the Federal Reserve, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the CIA. In his previous term he tackled others, including the CDC, the postal service and the US Census Bureau.
India: Under Modi’s tenure, there have been rising concerns around the independence of: the country’s judicial system, including around the government’s attempts to influence appointments to the supreme court; the Central Bureau of Investigation; the independence of the Electoral Commission (although critics may be mollified by last year’s national election results); and the Reserve Bank, among others.
A billboard featuring a Bharatiya Janata Party advertisement featuring India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising a developed India, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh (Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images)
United States: The Trump administration has exercised executive power to implement policy change, hire and fire key officials, gain control over national security and intelligence agencies and interfere in law enforcement.
India: Under Modi, decision-making is concentrated in his own office. His government has also often used ordinances, or temporary laws, as a way to bypass parliament. Modi has often made snap decisions on his own, such as the hugely controversial demonetisation move in 2016, which nobody knew about ahead of time. He has also used emergency powers to push through major changes (Jammu and Kashmir; the Citizen Amendment Act).
United States: Under Trump, disinformation has flourished. There are numerous examples, from the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Covid pandemic, climate change denial, public health, crime and immigration.
India: The spread of misinformation and disinformation in India is rampant, but is rarely directly attributable to the administration. Rather, the past 15 years or so has seen the very rapid rise of an online army of trolls, with solid links to the BJP’s IT cell, a department of the party responsible for managing its digital and social media work, which has roundly been accused of spreading disinformation online.
United States: The Trumpian approach to managing dissent is vilification (such as Black Lives Matter protestors), attacking the media or individual journalists, threatening or aiming to suppress protest and using personal attacks to discredit political opponents, such as Hilary Clinton in 2016. He has also threatened to deport opponents.
India: Early in his reign, Modi’s administration sought to limit NGOs via an act to restrict their ability to receive foreign funding. Excessive force and violence against protesters, internet shutdowns, the criminalisation of dissent such as the use of sedition and anti-terrorism laws against protesters, and employing rhetoric to delegitimise protesters, such as calling them “anti-nationals” have also been used.
United States: Marginalised communities in the US face direct policies and actions that increase existing inequalities and stigmatise vulnerable groups. These include immigrants, Muslims, members of the trans community and others. The most notorious policy was family separation at the US-Mexico border, during which thousands of children were taken from their parents.
Various right-wing groups such as the Bajrang Dal have been emboldened, even enabled, over the past decade, partaking in or initiating violence.
India: Members of India’s Muslim population are regularly portrayed as outsiders and a threat to national security. The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and accompanying National Register of Citizens essentially granted fast-track Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which many saw as a tacit way to isolate Muslims. There has also been an uptick of caste-based tensions.
United States: Trump’s electoral loss in 2020 triggered his ongoing and repeated claims around voter fraud, despite no evidence of this. He filed dozens of lawsuits and promoted a campaign to reject the election results, which led to the 6 January insurrection.
India: There have been repeated claims by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi about electoral interference by the BJP. There are concerns around the independence of the Election Commission of India; unfair control over the media, social media manipulation, issues around electoral bonds and corporate donations, the way that “delimiting” constituencies might be harnessed to manipulate electoral boundaries, voter suppression, and more.
United States: The most potent example of violence that’s directly linked to the Trump administration is the January 6 insurrection. A close second is the far-right march in Charlottesville in 2017, after which Trump commented that “very fine people on both sides” exist. The far-right cause flourished under Trump 1.0 and is still on the rise.
India: Modi doesn’t issue direct calls to violence. However, various right-wing groups such as the Bajrang Dal have been emboldened, even enabled, over the past decade, partaking in or initiating violence. Other examples of violence include the 2020 Delhi riots, after which rights groups decried inaction by authorities.
To this list of seven I’d add a couple more: cronyism with billionaires, and the reorganising and muzzling of the media, both of which have been seen in both countries. For any would-be authoritarians, these two salami slices will be particularly thick and tasty.
About the author
Aarti Betigeri
Aarti Betigeri is a multi-platform journalist and former foreign correspondent with a keen interest in India.
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