I grew up in India, lived there as an adult and while I live in the US, I visit frequently and read Indian newspapers and watch Indian news channels regularly.

I couldn't disagree with this more. There are lots of things wrong with Indian democracy but the absence of media freedom or widely publicised robust debate is not one of them. If anything the Indian media absolutely loves to troll and embarass the government, particularly the Central (federal in the US) government, even if they have to do this by allowing opposition or fringe figures to spread very easily debunked misinformation in the interest of creating controversy and hence ratings.

I would suggest the media in India is far freer of government influence than the mainstream media in the United States. Something like the NY Times parroting the Pentagon's line regarding the justification for the Iraq war simply would not happen in India.

Two recent cases in point:

1) In the current farmer protests, they are demanding that minimum price supports not be removed. The bill does not remove them. The status quo is that only certain government entities can buy directly from the farmers. They always pay the government set fixed price. The bill simply allows other entities to bid more and buy directly from farmers so long as they pay more than the price the government entities would pay.

The bill doesn't harm the farmers. It harms corrupt elements in the current Punjab State government. These elements would demand bribes from companies purchasing from the government entities that were the only entities allowed to buy from the farmers. Essentially they would receive the difference between fair market value for the produce and the government minimum as a bribe. Now the buyers can simply buy directly from the farmers and the farmers get full market value unless market value drops below the minimum. The bill explicitly stipulates that the farmers have the absolute right to sell to the government at the government set price if they choose to.

Half my family is Punjabi, many live in Punjab. The vast majority, including the vast majority of farmers, strongly support the bill.

2) Recent protests around the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Act only codifies into law commitments the Indian Government made when India split into India and Pakistan. The Supreme Court has ruled that those commitments are binding. However, before the act actually getting the paperwork through the bureaucracy meant lots of bribes, for bureaucrats, for politicians and whoever could get on the gravy train.

Just like in the case of these protests, the protests against that Act were against things the Act actually did not do.

I was born in Kashmir. Half my family is Kashmiri. I lived there until I was 7 when our family moved due to increasing terrorism. I have friends and family there. Cutting off the Internet in Kashmir has nothing to do with keeping the truth out. Mobile communications can be used to get the truth. They can also be used to coordinate terrorism. If Russia decided to send Eskimo infiltrators into Alaska routinely with the goal of creating an insurrection, b) these infiltrators and certain brainwashed local individuals had killed 50,000 people over 20 years, c) Russia was determined to recover Alaska at virtually any cost, d) there was clear information that a few thousand infiltrators had already entered and were using VPNs running over mobile phones to coordinate, and e) if the US government had been unable to crack the encryption in real-time, I suspect mobile internet would be cut off in Alaska. Only 3000 people died in 9-11 and the US government did far more to restrict freedom that the Indian government has ever done.

As far as the current protests are concerned, it wasn't that long ago some of the same groups who are currently involved in the "farmer" protests were coordinating with Pakistan to try to create an independent Punjab. This eventually led to the Indian government having to execute Operation Blue Star, after it became clear that Pakistan intended to start a war within 24 hours in hopes of a local insurrection helping them. I was in Amritsar during Operation Blue Star. We found spent bullets (likely fired into the air miles away) in our back yard after it was all over. According to army officers who were involved in the operation, who our family has known for years, and who came over to our house for a meal after it was all over, there was enough ammunition stored at the Golden Temple to supply an infantry battalion for a month.

The same elements in the Punjab government who receive bribes due to price controls on agriculture have also been turning a blind eye to the massive drug influx into Punjab, drugs which originate in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and fund the ISI. The reality is that in India these groups were allowed to rehabilitate themselves, and these individuals actually hold positions in state government. If the same had happened in the US, they would have been locked up in Supermax prisons and the keys thrown away. Don't read this as whataboutism. I frankly think the Indian government has been far too soft in handling this sort of thing. Democracy and the fundamental rights embedded in a free country's constitution are not a suicide pact.