Lessons from the US

American institutions show how to speak truth to power

Contrasting recent developments in the United States, the world’s most powerful democracy, and India, the world’s most populous democracy, highlight the robustness or otherwise of public institutional structures. The ability to speak truth to power is one of the most compelling tests of the health of democratic traditions. In India, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launches raids on questionable pretexts against the owners of a TV channel that has been restrained in its support for the ruling dispensation. In the US, a thin-skinned President condemns critics from the liberal press as “fake news” and unabashedly favours friendly media. In