Agreed; my point was more of that they are comparably bad; India is not orders of magnitude worse. By some yardsticks, India is better, by others the US is. That should be enough to call India a democracy (if you call the US one).

Totally agree that direct democracy won't help. I'm saying it is the only way that you have a chance of getting rid of the kind of identity politics present in India by changing the system itself. I made that point just to highlight how the undemocratic nature of identity politics was not a feature of the system. I mean, with a direct democracy propaganda can and will still entice people to vote against their own interests, and minorities will be in a bad situation as you said. It introduces new problems; but it is the one way you have a chance of getting rid of this problem (identity politics) by changing the system. The actual fix for this lies in social change.