The other country is world’s most populace democracy winning its independence, only seventy years ago, from its colonial power. But, it was more like an overnight “transfer of power” from the rulers to the country’s elites. Still, the country had adopted democracy since its birth, giving citizens the power of “one voice, one vote”. However, the journey so far has not been an easy one. Poverty, corruption, caste-system along with many other societal ills effected the country’s forward advancement. But the democracy persisted along with country’s becoming a regional super power. Now a new, tech-savvy leader, under the guise of modernizing the country with technological innovation, unleashed the members of his right-wing nationalistic religious base to turn a secular country into a religious one. Ms. Gauri Lankesh, a fierce and independent woman reporter and a staunch critic of the current government had been watching the development and speaking out against the injustices in her own newspaper. On a recent evening, she was returning home when a motorbike sped past her. Citizens of another democratic country in a different continent heard a similar chilling scream. Ms. Lankesh’s bullet-ridden motionless body was lying on the sidewalk, just in front of her home.
As the citizens of both America and India, world’s two strongest democracies introspect, they are coming to realize that only constant vigilance will shield their precious democracies, for not to be imploded from within.