pakistan: could this happen in India?

[Charu datt <charuX@lucent.com>]

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I have listened with amazement to the news reports coming from Pakistan
subsequent to the military coup. What surprises me is the near universal

support, in Pakistan,  for the overthrow of the elected government.

My question to those of you in India is: given that there is a high
degree of dissatisfaction with the government, the coruption and the
economic stagnation, is it concievable that the public reaction to
seizing of power by either the military or other non-democratic group
would elicit similar reactions of either support or indifference?

I do recall a, parallel to this situation in the past, the suspension of

democratic rights under the "emergency" declared by Mrs Gandhi, but
there was significant resistance then, though sadly, there was also a
great deal of support expressed among the middle and professional
classes.

In my mind, the worst-case nightmare scenario would be a power grab by a

puppet government controlled by trans-national capital interests that
suspended democracy and, as in Pakistan, justified its totalitarian
position by citing a need to arrest corruption and bring about economic
and political reform.

To those of you with a view from the ground: how far [or how close] is
the state of Indian Politics from this possibility?



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