The west’s investment in India is now strategic, emotional, intellectual and financial. But the sunk costs of that investment mean that western countries are reluctant to acknowledge the dark side of Mr Modi’s India — in particular, threats to minority rights and the erosion of democratic norms.
Financial Times
https://amp.ft.com/content/a4fe1974-0461-11ea-9afa-d9e2401fa7ca
Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist now resident in the US, told The New Yorker magazine that his friends are reluctant to criticise the government on the phone, adding, “People are afraid. I’ve never seen this before.”
Alarmed by the increasingly compliant judiciary (and much of the media), Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an eminent Indian academic, has written that: “The noose is tightening around all independent institutions in India.”
Mr Trump and Mr Modi are ideological soulmates. They are both assertive majoritarians, scornful of liberal concerns with minority rights.
They have promised to crack down on illegal immigration and have stoked fears of Islamic extremism — partly as a way of consolidating their political base.
Mr Modi’s many defenders argue that one of his great strengths is that, like Mr Trump, he is in touch with “the common man” — he cares little for the opinions of urban elites.
There is little doubt that religious and ethnic minorities have fared worse in many of India’s neighbours — including Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and China.
But India used to take pride in its status as a tolerant, multifaith democracy. The Modi government’s increasingly strident Hindu nationalism is putting that achievement at risk.
The west’s fear of China means that it is likely to continue to give Modi’s India a free pass for some time. But a failure to talk openly about the failings of the Modi model is not cost-free.
The danger is that the west is embracing a comforting illusion — that democratic India will act as an ideological bulwark against authoritarian China.
The reality is that India’s slide into illiberalism may actually be strengthening the global trend towards authoritarianism.
KK Adeeb
James Wilson
1World
Prashant Tandon
Mohit Singh
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