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.
Read the fortnightly roundup for February 1-15, 2025.
International media reports
Washington Post, USA, February 1
Karishma Mehrotra reports on the efforts of “India’s right-wing Hindu movement” to “convince millions of tribal people who have long remained outside mainstream religion” that “they, too, are Hindu”. Mehrotra focuses on Vikas Bharati, affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which operates in Bishunpur, Jharkhand.
A Hindu cultural organisation, Vikas Bharti works with tribal communities through several initiatives, including those related to education, health and agriculture. According to Dhirendra Jha, an author who has studied the RSS, these efforts exploit the “absence of the state” but are also helped by government support. Vikas Bharati reports show that “nearly 90 percent of its funding comes from governments”. The organisation not only tries to persuade non-Christian tribal people to identify as Hindu, but also conducts “ghar wapsi” or “reconverting” Christian tribal people to their “original” Hindu status. According to analysts and observers, the work of such organisations has proved “unexpectedly effective” in persuading tribals to “change their religious patterns”. It is also “deepening divisions in tribal communities among Hindus, Christians and nature-worshipers”, writes Mehrotra.
The Economist, UK, February 4
In its comparison between India and China’s performance in South Asia, the Economist notes that regional leaders are going “to-and-fro” between India and China. This is partly because they are “playing Asia’s giants against each other”. There is also the issue of India’s “poor diplomacy”, while China exploits “strategic openings”.
Senior Indian diplomatic and security figures feel that India has been “too heavy-handed” and “failed to nurture links to opposition parties and civil society or promote a common sense of values and identity”. Some lay the blame on the Prime Minister’s “hostility to political opponents and non-governmental organisations” and note that “his Hindu nationalism often backfires too (especially in Muslim-majority Bangladesh)”. Another worry is India’s reliance on Adani in competing for infrastructure projects, with current setbacks in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka both seeking to review major projects. Underlining the fundamental problem, the Economist comments that although Narendra Modi promotes India as “an emerging world power and a champion of the global south”, yet “officials across the region say it is still unclear what India stands for in its own backyard”.
The Guardian, UK, February 12
Hannah Ellis-Peterson and Ravi Nair reveal that the Indian government amended and relaxed security protocols along the Pakistan border to allow for the construction of the Khavda plant in Gujarat, reportedly the “largest renewable energy project in the world”, by the Adani Group. Based on documents, Peterson and Nair write that the Gujarat state government “lobbied at the highest levels” to obtain land in the Rann of Kutch region for “solar and wind construction”. National security rules do not allow for “any major construction beyond existing villages and roads up to 10km from the border with Pakistan, preventing any large-scale installation of solar panels”. Private government communications and documents seen by the Guardian show that the Ministry of Defence “amended security protocols to make sensitive territory on the India-Pakistan border commercially viable”.
Experts say
India Hate Lab, a project of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., released a report looking at social media and hate speech in India. The report analyses the role of social media in amplifying hate speech at mass public gatherings in 2024, including political rallies, electoral campaign events, religious processions, protest marches, demonstrations, and cultural or nationalist gatherings. The report finds that the incidence of hate speech “targeting religious minorities” increased by 74% in 2024 from 2023. It highlights that 98.5% of hate speeches targeted Muslims using language of “jihad-based conspiracies” and “Bangladeshi-infiltrator bogey” and also that “dangerous speech” (defined as “speech that increases the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group”) rose. It says there was a “notable peak” in hate speech in May 2024, a key time during India’s general elections.
Transparency International’s (TI) 2024 Corruption Perception Index reveals how India, among other Asia-Pacific countries, has “failed to deliver on anti-corruption pledges”. India is ranked 96 out of 180, falling one point from 2023. TI notes that India has been “embroiled in a US indictment of a clean energy business due to more than US$250 million paid in bribes to Indian government officials” in pursuing solar energy contracts of billions of dollars. As the recipient of “more climate finance” than other countries in the region, TI says India “must do much more to safeguard clean energy initiatives.”
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders made public on February 13 a brief version of a communication previously sent by her and other UN experts to the Government of India in November 2024 on the “alleged arbitrary arrest, detention and physical assault as a form of torture and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of environmental human rights defender Mr. Bijendra Korram”. The UN experts shared that Mr. Korram was “allegedly arbitrarily arrested” while participating in peaceful protests by Adivasi communities against mining in the state of Chhattisgarh. They highlight the “punitive charges” against him, “which appear to have been fabricated with the intention of hindering his peaceful and legitimate human rights activities”. They point out that he was denied access to a lawyer and was brought before a judge many hours after the mandated time after arrest. The Indian government has not replied to this to date.
Read the previous roundup here.
