New Delhi: Speakers at a pro-government event in New Delhi on Saturday (September 7) attacked secularism, past governments and global democratic norms while lauding the Manusmriti, denouncing India’s syncretic culture as a “fraud,” and accusing “one family” of the “systematic murder of democracy” for 60 years.

At the 'Namo Bharat' dialogue on 'India's Democratic Renaissance', panellists argued for the supremacy of an indigenous "Sanatani" [eternal] culture over Western culture, alleged decades of historical falsification in school textbooks and dismissed international democracy rankings as “motivated perversity.”

Anant Vijay, Associate Editor of Dainik Jagran, delivered the most provocative cultural arguments, comparing French feminist Simone de Beauvoir with the mythological Savitri.

"Is Simone's feminism better or Savitri's feminism, who brings her dead husband back to life...? This is India's feminism," he said. "I am deliberately taking the name of Manusmriti today where for women, it is written [in the third section]... no decision can be made without her permission after she enters the in-laws household."

Vijay attacked the concept of a composite Hindu-Muslim culture. "There was also an attempt to replace [Sanatani culture] with a fraud culture which was called Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb," he stated. "In that, there is only Ganga. You will not see Jamuni anywhere." He claimed India has "only one culture... Indian culture. Where we celebrate the diversity."

He alleged that academia had deliberately distorted Indian history. "We were told in the education system that Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a Maharashtrian Brahmin," he said, claiming it was "never told to the students that Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi was killed by some Muslim mobs." He also accused an IIT Delhi professor of conflating the "varna ashram" with the "caste system."

Redefining a journalist's role, Vijay said, "A journalist can be neutral, but not impartial. Because if every journalist does not have a side, then he is useless." He accused past Congress governments of stifling the media, citing Rajiv Gandhi’s 1986 defamation bill and Manmohan Singh’s changes to the Cable and Television Regulation Act, which empowered officials to stop broadcasts.

Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha MP Sujeet Kumar attacked post-independence governments, claiming that "civilisational values" were ignored "to our own peril for the first 60 years."

He accused "one family and their supporters" of the "systematic and institutional murder of democracy." His list of "misdeeds" included curbing press freedom in 1951, dismissing Kerala’s communist government in 1959, and abusing Article 356 to dismiss over 70 elected state governments. He also cited the 1975 Emergency and the creation of the "utterly undemocratic" National Advisory Council (NAC), which he claimed ruled by proxy.

Kumar also alleged that national honours like the Padma Awards were once reserved for an "entrenched coterie of Lutyens' Delhi" of "loyalists, the chamchas, [and] influential journalists."

The event’s keynote speaker, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Lakshmi Puri, who is also the wife of BJP leader and former Indian diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, dismissed global indices that have downgraded India's democracy as resting on "questionable surveys, Eurocentric assumptions, and selective evidence."

"At times they even rank Afghanistan or Pakistan above India. An absurdity that exposes methodological bias and motivated perversity," she argued, challenging foreign critics: "To the jealous, reflect on why a plural billion can thrive in freedom. To the contemptuous, come to the Gram Sabha."

Puri suggested freedom of speech required new limits. "I had never seen so much freedom to abuse as I have been witnessing in these last few years," she said. "There is in fact need for a code for public discourse to be within decency limits." She also defended the Election Commission as "a widely trusted umpire."

Warning of new threats to sovereignty, she described "Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference" (FIMI). "Foreign interference today comes through bytes, not boots," she said, citing the misuse of AI, deep fakes, and "lawfare."

She contrasted India’s handling of the farmers' protest with Canada's, noting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "had imposed emergency when the truckers were on strike" while lecturing India.

The event, organised by The Indian Futures, was held at the Dr. Ambedkar International Centre. Host Dr. Manish Dabhade said the dialogue would explore how "post-2014 India redefined the relationship between state, society, and citizen."

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