Ashraf Engineer
August 16, 2025
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
A lot has been written and said about the decline of India’s democracy. And I’ve tried to explore some of that in the previous two episodes of this series on India’s democratic backsliding. In this final episode of the series, I wanted to examine how it affects our international relationships. Because it’s not just you and I who care about the erosion of national values but also our allies. What we are determines how other countries work with us.
The West has long seen India as a counter-balance to China. However, the wearing away of India’s democratic credentials would alter how it is seen globally and maybe even prompt the West to review the relationship.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and India’s economic rise, its once-stagnant relationship with the US was reviewed and eventually grew into a wide, multifaceted strategic partnership. This included even military cooperation, which we are seeing in various forms – including the Quad alliance between India, the US, Japan and Australia. Over time, the US and India found that their diplomatic, defence and other interests are complementary. So, as is often said, ties went from being as “flat as a chapati” to one of the “defining partnerships of the 21st century”.
There were several reasons for this. Communism shattered and India awakened its economy in 1991 through liberalisation under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. That made India interesting for the West. As India displayed its nuclear capability, the US helped incorporate India into the global civil nuclear regime, despite its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Today, India and the US work together on fronts as diverse as education and space. The Indian military conducts more joint exercises with the US than any other country and bilateral trade grew from $20 billion in 2000 to $129 billion in 2024.
While I have already outlined some of the reasons for this, the foundation of this relationship was a commitment to democracy. That is what greased the wheels of regional security cooperation and the flow of capital, goods and services. Today, India and the US are invested in each other’s success.
However, as we’ve seen in this series, India’s democracy can no longer be taken for granted. I’m not suggesting that the US is doing great on that front either but the anxieties about democratic backsliding will not leave the relationship untouched. America is struggling too but its institutions are stronger, the country is richer and it has a longer democratic heritage.
So, an erosion of democracy in India will certainly impact its ties with the US and with the rest of the world.
SIGNATURE TUNE
Democracy is the underpinning of relations between India and the West. For example, central to the US-India narrative is that one is the world’s oldest democracy and other is the largest. This foundation led to the assertion that the two countries are ‘natural allies’. The term was first used by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a visit to the US in 2000. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh repeated the sentiment in an address to a joint session of the US Congress in 2005. And it’s been the narrative since then.
The Joe Biden government’s 2022 National Security Strategy said the US must work with likeminded states in “creating a latticework of strong, resilient, and mutually reinforcing relationships that prove democracies can deliver for their people and the world”. India’s message has been similar. In Manmohan Singh’s 2005 address to the US Congress, he said: “As democracies, we must work together to create a world in which democracy can flourish.” It was then that the US and India established the Global Democracy Initiative in order to share best practices and strengthen bilateral cooperation in capacity-building and institution development. The two countries also took a leading role in the UN Democracy Fund that year and India was the second largest contributor after the US.
Similar commitments have cemented India’s ties with Europe. The ‘2030 Roadmap for India-UK Future Relations’, released four years ago, listed democratic credentials as the spark for a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The proposed cooperation streams included trade, defence, climate and health, with democratic principles serving as the “mainstay for maintaining a rules based international system and respect for universal human rights”.
It’s similar when it comes to the European Union or EU. India is only the second country after the US with which the EU has a Trade and Technology Council. It indicates the importance the EU attaches to the relationship.
The 25th anniversary of the India–France strategic partnership in July 2023 witnessed the adoption of a roadmap for a bilateral relationship to 2047. It underscored the countries’ commitment to strengthen the partnership “in keeping with universal values of liberty, equality, democracy and the rule of law”.
Similar language can be found in joint statements between Indian and European leaders.
Now it seems that the nationalist aggression being unleashed within India will spill over into the foreign policy domain. It has started with soft assertions, such as the attempt to position the country as a Vishwaguru or the increasing use of ‘Bharat’ as opposed to ‘India’ at international platforms. This is benign but it’s possible it could take on more aggressive forms.
The erosion of democracy, whether in India or internationally, looks similar at a broad level. Autocratic leaders get elected and reelected. If they continue to push democracy backwards, it is possible that global relationships could change.
This is a potential fault line in the trans-Atlantic relationship India has.
Further backsliding in the world’s largest democracy imperils social stability and erodes the foundations of the US-India relationship. So far, the decay has not resulted in a major shift in the way the West looks at India. That is because it is seen as better than China when it comes to its political system and also because the West needs India to counter the dragon.
However, the weakening of democratic foundations – through Constitutional changes, attacks on minorities, undermining of the federal structure, capture of institutions, etc – would change how India is perceived. It could prompt Western countries to rethink cooperation with India.
Meanwhile, New Delhi wants to be seen as the voice of the Global South. For that to happen, India needs to be an enabler of democracy rather than being seen as a hypocrite. Support for the role India seeks is predicated on its commitment to a rules-based order. A weakening of these credentials would be a setback for India’s ambition.
An erosion of India’s democracy could limit how much other countries cooperate with us, particularly in sensitive areas such as intelligence sharing. Also, a less democratic India, with human rights concerns, could affect its attractiveness as an investment destination and take away from the strategy of diversifying supply chains away from China.
In a climate of democratic backsliding, there would be limits to Western cooperation. And that would leave India far from being the global force it wishes to be. Instead, it would be left scurrying to salvage its reputation.
Thank you all for listening. Please visit allindiansmatter.in for more columns and audio podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter at @AshrafEngineer and @AllIndiansCount. Search for the All Indians Matter page on Facebook. On Instagram, the handle is @AllIndiansMatter. Email me at editor@allindiansmatter.in. Catch you again soon.
