This kind of "transnational repression," to use a political science term, is a practice much more commonly seen with openly autocratic countries. That India is joining the ranks of Russia and China reflects the degree to which current Prime Minister Narendra Modi has moved his country away from its democratic tradition.
Modi, whose government is responsible for India's policy of harassing Americans, has been assailing Indian democracy in one way or another since taking office in 2014 (and especially since winning reelection in 2019). He has arrested political opponents, silenced critics in the press, demonized Muslims, rigged the campaign finance system in his Bharatiya Janata Party's favor, and much more.
The result is that the "world's largest democracy" may not be a democracy for much longer, especially if the BJP wins the currently ongoing Indian election (as experts expect it to do).
That's the reality the Modi government is trying to cover up in repressing critics abroad. They don't want Americans hearing about what's really happening in India, let alone organizing to do something about it. And they're willing to go to extraordinary and (allegedly) criminal lengths to keep American citizens in the dark.
India wasn't supposed to be this way. Sunil Khilnani, an influential Indian scientist, once described his country's birth as "the third moment in the great democratic experiment launched at the end of the eighteenth century by the American and French revolutions." If India continues down its current path, this experiment might prove a failure — a catastrophe for the world and a heartbreaking development for those of us who care about India and democracy alike.
If you want to learn more about this situation — including some damning and never-before-reported evidence of Biden administration inaction — I'd encourage you to go read the entire story. It's hard to report a piece that revolves fundamentally around people being afraid to speak their minds, but giving them a way to do so safely — and exposing something terrible in the process — felt like it was worth the effort.
I hope you, reader, agree.
You can see the full story here.
And if you're interested in more of my work on politics and the dangers to democracy, please sign up for my forthcoming newsletter On the Right.
—Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent
