Today, a sobering reality confronts us: more than half of the world’s population, around 54 percent, now lives under autocratic rule, outnumbering those governed by democratic systems.
From Russia and China to Turkey, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and till recently, Venezuela, every continent today bears the imprint of authoritarian governance. The uniforms differ, the slogans change, but the concentration of power remains the same.
Then come pseudo-democracies, where elections are held, constitutions remain on paper, and democratic rituals are performed, yet power rarely changes hands.
India increasingly fits this category, where repression is subtle but systematic: opposition leaders face investigations, critical media are pressured or bought, institutions are politicized, and bureaucracy often functions less as a public servant and more as a political shield.
Even established democracies are not immune. In the United States, the world has witnessed worrying shades of authoritarian impulse, most visibly in the current presidency of Donald Trump. Unilateral decision-making, open hostility toward independent media, and disregard for judicial rulings reflect how fragile democratic norms can be, even in the most mature systems.
There was a time when autocrats relied primarily on raw brutality, long prison sentences, torture, and outright bans on dissent. The imprisonment of Nelson Mandela in apartheid-era South Africa stands as a stark reminder of that era’s methods.
Today’s autocrats, however, are far more sophisticated. Tanks have been supplemented by technology and censorship.
Mass propaganda machines operate relentlessly through television, the internet, and social media platforms. Troll armies, fake news factories, deepfakes, and state-sponsored influencers flood the digital space, shaping public opinion until lies feel like truth and repression feels like stability.
Elections are conducted with clockwork regularity, but outcomes are often pre-scripted, through intimidation, disqualification of opposition candidates, gerrymandering, media blackouts, or tightly controlled electronic voting systems. Democracy becomes theatre; the script never changes.
The democratic world responds with sanctions, travel bans, and diplomatic condemnations. Yet history shows that sanctions rarely weaken autocrats, examples are Cuba and Iran. They weaken ordinary citizens. Inflation rises, jobs vanish, medicine becomes scarce, and the ruler tightens his grip while blaming foreign enemies.
Meanwhile, democratic nations and their free media remain largely consumed by their own domestic crises, housing shortages, inflation, elections, and other issues. What happens in faraway authoritarian states barely survives a news cycle.
Adding to this paralysis is geopolitical balancing. Support for democratic movements by one bloc is routinely neutralized by another. On one side stands the Western alliance led by the United States; on the other, the strategic axis led by China, offering financial aid, military backing, and diplomatic cover to embattled autocrats. The military regime in Myanmar is an example.
Hovering above all this is the United Nations, well-meaning, verbose, and largely powerless. Vetoes replace action, resolutions replace results, and statements replace solutions.
History suggests only one force has ever truly unsettled entrenched autocracies: people’s power. Mass public protests, sustained civic resistance, and collective courage, from Eastern Europe to Latin America to parts of Africa, remain the only real catalysts for change.
Until then, humanity continues to suffer, even as we romanticize the idea of a single global village, a village increasingly fenced off by fear, surveillance, and unchecked power.
— Promod Puri
Promod Puri.com 