Global decline in democracy? The lesson from India may be 'Not so fast.'

Indian cinema is not all light and airy Bollywood.

When the Indian filmmaker Sanjay Bhansali announced the nationwide release early this year of his film “Padmaavat” – a historical drama based on the legend of a 14th century Rajput queen who along with 16,000 women of the Rajput caste chose to die by self-immolation rather than bow down to the Muslim sultan of Delhi – it enraged India’s Rajput community and other conservative political forces.

Violent protests ensued, and the groups demanded that “Padmaavat” be kept off cinema screens, attacking the plot as revisionist – and appalled at rumors of a love scene between the queen and the sultan. As the governments of four conservative states enacted bans of the film in the interest of public safety, some rights activists and proponents of freedom of expression warned that the rage was nothing less than an attack on India’s democracy.

Moreover, they said, the ban was further evidence of

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