The Narendra Modi government frequently posits India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ or world leader. How the world sees India is often lost in this branding exercise.
Outside India, global voices are monitoring and critiquing human rights violations in India and the rise of Hindutva. We present here fortnightly highlights of what a range of actors – from UN experts and civil society groups to international media and parliamentarians of many countries – are saying about the state of India’s democracy.
Here’s the fortnightly roundup for September 1-15, 2024.
International media reports
Reuters, UK, September 2
Krishna N. Das and Aftab Ahmed report on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) increased “populist promises” in the form of “cash handouts, debt waivers and other freebies”. Narendra Modi previously said “the culture of freebies” was “dangerous” for India’s “development”. The BJP’s new stance comes after “reverses in the general election” and the prospect of “facing possible losses in state polls this year”. Public surveys indicate that “inflation, unemployment and rural distress” are “key issues” for the electorate. State governments and Opposition parties are trying to “match the largesse”. Analysts say that this threatens to “upset the fiscal balance” and “disrupt spending on urban infrastructure and other development projects”. They also say the BJP is promoting populist measures “in the absence of emotive issues” like India-Pakistan tensions and “the BJP’s main plank of Hindu nationalism” no longer being “as effective as it has been in the past”.
The Guardian, UK, September 3
Hannah Ellis Petersen writes that India’s backing of Sheikh Hasina has left it “in a bind”. She notes that India “has long been seen as Hasina’s greatest ally”. Ali Riaz, a political scientist in the US, says, “India pursued a very myopic policy with Bangladesh by putting all their eggs in one basket with Hasina and her party, instead of having a state-to-state relationship”. India “turned a blind eye” to Hasina’s authoritarianism and even “used its close relationship with the US to ease pressure on Hasina before the election in early 2024”. Now there are “growing calls” for Hasina to face accountability in Bangladesh. India remains silent on Bangladesh’s political transition. After a phone conversation with US President Biden, Modi recently released an official statement about the need for the “early restoration of normalcy”. A Bangladeshi commentator responded, “We’re not trying to restore normalcy. We’re trying to reclaim democracy.”
BBC, UK, September 3
Anbarasan Ethirajan and Vikas Pandey write that Sheikh Hasina’s “continuing presence” in India poses “challenges” for India to forge a “strong relationship” with Bangladesh’s current interim government. There is much at stake from trade and connectivity, with India gaining “road, river and train access via Bangladesh to transport goods to its north-eastern states”. In economic investment, India has extended “a line of credit to Bangladesh for infrastructure and development projects”. The Indian government “has to work hard to ensure that these gains are not lost.” The threat of China’s growing influence in the region needs to be read alongside “Bangladesh joining the Maldives and Nepal in resisting any attempt at dominance by India”. According to Debapriya Bhattacharya, a senior economist with the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka, “It’s time for India to do some introspection regarding its regional policy.”
In These Times, USA, September 4
In her investigative report Makepeace Sitlhou traces the “treacherous” routes Indian migrants are taking to reach the US in an unprecedented wave of “mass Indian migration”. In 2022, India became the “fifth leading country of origin for individuals granted asylum in the United States” based on “political opinion (51%), membership in a particular social group (27%) and religion (13%)”. Yet, the Biden administration still disregards “the increasing hostility towards minorities in India”, often dismissing Indian asylum seekers as “economic migrants”. Sitlhou suggests that repression of Sikhs in India gets “less attention” than the targeting of Muslims and Christians, even while many are “vocal opponents” of Modi’s government. Sikhs are being “increasingly profiled” by the BJP since the 2021 farmers’ protests in India. Satnam Singh, a local activist, says “scarce jobs”, “growing unsustainability of farming due to climate change” and “political persecution” are driving people to leave.
NRI Affairs, Australia, September 5
The NRI Affairs Special Correspondent reports that the City of Melbourne passed a resolution on September 3 that includes “combating caste discrimination” in the city council’s action plan 2024-26. Melbourne is the “second Australian municipality to recognise caste discrimination” after the City of Monash in March 2024.
The Humanism Project, an Indian diaspora group that has been advocating for recognition of caste discrimination, lauded the decision to “recognise and act against this abhorrent form of apartheid.” Earlier this year, The Humanism Project, and Hindus for Human Rights Australia and New Zealand, made a submission to the City of Melbourne to recognise and combat caste discrimination in its Inclusive Melbourne Action Plan 2024–26. The Australian Human Rights Commission has already recognized caste discrimination as a form of racism.
The Washington Post, USA, September 5
A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, writes an article in the Post (an “esteemed competitor”) underlining the “threats to the free press” in light of Donald Trump’s pledge to go after the “LameStream Media”. Sulzberger chronicles “how press freedom has been attacked” in democracies, including India.
After Trump’s term “fake news” spread and gave authoritarian governments a cover to “punish independent journalism”, he is now “looking abroad” for “inspiration”. Unlike Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia who “systematically censor, jail or kill journalists”, Trump turns to “more subtle” India, Hungary, and Brazil. Their five-part “playbook” includes – building “public distrust”; punishment through “taxation” and “immigration enforcement”; false legal cases; attacks by “powerful supporters” and rewarding those who “demonstrate fealty” including by “helping” ruling parties “gain control of news organizations.” He takes a “final lesson from our brave colleagues in places like Hungary, India, and Brazil. The journalistic mission to follow the facts and deliver the truth must persist, whatever the pressure or the obstacles”.
Al Jazeera, Qatar, September 6
A video report shows scenes of lynching of 35-year-old Mohammad Fareed, accused of trying to rob and assault a woman. Fareed’s family says he was escaping an attack by a street dog and the accusations are cover for an anti-Muslim hate crime. According to them, the attackers took him inside and removed his clothes to check whether he was Muslim. After confirming, they brought him out and beat him to death. The lynching of Fareed illustrates that attacks against Muslims are continuing despite the 2024 election setback for the BJP. Even after the ruling party was forced into a coalition, a “new era of inclusiveness” has “failed to materialise”. Activist Shabnam Hashmi comments about the BJP that “people misunderstood the fact that if they don’t have the same numbers, they would be different”.
The New York Times, USA, September 7
Anupreeta Das and Hari Kumar write about how “sectarian violence remains a serious problem” in India while it tries to “define itself on the world stage as a robust democracy with equal rights for all”. According to ACLED (a global, nonprofit that monitors crises and analyses data), “since 2019, more than a fifth of reported attacks by Hindus on Muslims were related to cow vigilantism, the largest single category.” Commenting on religious violence in India, human rights and peace activist, Harsh Mander says the “attacks are so common that they have almost lost their capacity to shock”.
Mander adds about violence against Muslims particularly that “first it is normalised, second it is legitimised and third it is valorised. So, it is not only normal to do it, but it is good to do it.”
The Guardian, UK, September 8
Mukul Kesavan writes about the links between fascism and majoritarianism in India today. He underlines the connection between “Indian majoritarianism” and “one of its ideological ancestors”, highlighting the “kernel within that ideology which has managed to survive till the present moment”. He reminds us of the inspiration that MS Golwalkar, the principal ideologue of the “Hindu militia” the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), drew from Germany. In March 1939, Golwalkar wrote how Germany has shown that it is “well-nigh impossible” for “races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.” In India, this “majoritarian supremacy through the subordination of dehumanised minorities” continues. Kesavan points to a difference – while Nazism was “majoritarianism speeded up”, “contemporary majoritarianism” is “fascism in slow motion”.
Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany, September 11
DW reports that aviation workers went on strike on September 10 in protest against a proposal for the Adani Group to “lease Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for 30 years in exchange for a $1.85 billion investment”. The Kenya Aviation Workers Union apprehend that an Adani deal would make Kenyan workers vulnerable to job losses. Workers returned to work on September 11. Moss Ndiema, secretary general of the aviation workers’ union, confirmed they did not accept Adani.
Parliamentarians and public officials advocate
In an interview with the Press Trust of India, published in the Daily Star, Bangladesh on September 5, the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government, Muhammad Yunus, called for Hasina to be “brought back, or the people of Bangladesh won’t be at peace. The kind of atrocities she has committed must be addressed through a trial here”. While Bangladesh values strong ties with India, Yunus stresses that India must “move beyond the narrative that portrays every other political party except Awami League as Islamist and that the country will turn into Afghanistan without Sheikh Hasina”.
Experts say
James Manor, Emeritus Professor of Commonwealth Studies in the School of Advanced Study, University of London comments on Narendra Modi’s condemnation of crimes against women, published on September 4. He recounts Modi’s August 2022 Independence Day speech in which he expressed his “agony” and appealed to root out “every behaviour, culture that humiliates and demeans women in our daily lives”.
Manor notes that “on that same day”, eleven men convicted for raping Bilkis Bano “during the Gujarat riots of 2002” and murdering several of her family members “were set free.” Manor says their release was a “true indication” of what Modi and his government “really think”, concluding that Modi was “breathtakingly crass”.
Hindenburg Research tweeted on September 11 that Swiss authorities have frozen “more than $310 million in funds” across several Swiss banks, as part of a “money laundering and securities forgery investigation into Adani, dating back as early as 2021”. This reveals that Swiss prosecutors were already investigating alleged illegality by Adani. These revelations came to be known through the release of court records by a Swiss media organisation.
Indian diaspora and civil society groups
South Asia Solidarity Group (an anti-imperialist and anti-racist group based in Britain) expressed the “deeply concerning implications” of Keir Starmer’s election as Prime Minister of the UK in a statement on September 4. They urge Starmer “to acknowledge the ongoing resistance to the Hindu right amongst large numbers of the Indian diaspora in the UK, and to finally distance himself, the Labour Party and their campaigning groups from supporters of Hindutva in the UK and Modi’s fascistic Hindu supremacist government.” The statement highlights that many British Indians “do not feel welcome in Modi’s India” nor want to “build stronger links with it”. They point to Starmer’s refusal to “name Islamophobia” even in the context of the recent “far-right violence” across the UK.
Sunita Viswanath, executive director of Hindus for Human Rights (a US-based Indian diaspora group) writes from Palestine on September 5 as part of an interfaith delegation. As they “bear witness” to the genocide of the Palestinians, Viswanath notes India’s “direct complicity” from supplying weapons to ideological affinity. She draws parallels between Hindu supremacist ideology and Zionism particularly how “both ideologies are rooted in a vision of ethno-religious purity that marginalizes and oppresses others.” From arbitrary arrests to bulldozing houses to destroying places of worship, the two have shown “increasing collaboration” in the last few years. Afreen Fatima, an Indian Muslim activist, shared with Viswanath that “the way the fascist occupiers work, their modus operandi, draws from the same playbook”.
The Ambedkar King Study Circle held its 5th Annual Conference in Cupertino, California (USA) on “South Asians’ Impact: Shaping America’s Democracy, Exploring the Intersection of Race, Caste, and Class in Political Assertion” on September 7. The conference “unequivocally condemned” a 2023 Fremont city council resolution against “so-called Hinduphobia” and a 2023 Cupertino city council resolution blocking “legal protections for the caste-oppressed”. It was noted that both resolutions “disguise caste-based discrimination under the guise of religious freedom and diversity.” It was also critical of the Indian Consulate in San Francisco for “giving a platform to city council members and Democratic Party donors responsible for the above dubious resolutions”.
Read the previous roundup here.
