File photo of Indian P.M. Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are prepping to go to polls next year after previously winning two consecutive elections from “more than 900 million registered voters in the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion people.” The party relies on a Hindutva ideology backed by nationalism and claims an agenda based on welfare and development, which was welcomed by a population tired of Nehruvian “socialism.” As a consequence, India has become less liberal, but governance has improved, with the state continuing to claim the title of the “largest democracy” in the world. This has proven off-putting for Indian secularists, who have accused the BJP’s government of pursuing “authoritarianism by stealth,” even as the rest of the world continues to consider India a robust democracy.
India’s path to democracy has had its fair share of stumbles. In 1975, then-prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency and suspended democratic rule for almost two years, which Modi’s “authoritarian” regime has avoided, maintaining a vibrant opposition, particularly at the state level where the BJP has lost several polls. The most visible impact of the BJP’s policies has been on Indian media, which increasingly kowtows to the state. Nonetheless, India’s claim to be a regional power appears secure—unlike “ideological” Pakistan—in large part due to its pragmatic view toward foreign policy, improving its standing in the eyes of the West. One need look to the ongoing investment of Arab states in India, despite its recent leaning toward Israel, to gauge how states would prefer to reckon with “good governance” rather flawed “friends” like Pakistan.
This policy of pragmatic has encouraged the West to tolerate India’s internal transgressions, regarding its “imperfect democracy” as a “lesser evil” to China, which U.S. President Joe Biden describes as a “dictatorship.” A recent assessment published by Chatham House notes that the “strategic rivalry” between the U.S. and China has benefited India, with the West looking away from its backslide on liberalism so long as it maintains its democratic credentials. The report warns that the only way this could change is either through a “significant escalation” of communal unrest within India or signs that the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is spilling globally. To prevent this, India must halt its recent attempts to silence Sikh critics globally—including in the U.S. and Canada—or risk the West looking for another state to use as its proxy against China in the new looming Cold War.