The EU’s expanding engagement with India, notably the proposed 'mother of all deals' free trade agreement, signals a strategic partnership. Yet without clear human-rights benchmarks, this cooperation risks legitimising India’s democratic backsliding, and weakening the EU’s own normative credibility, argues Amit Singh

India: a dying secular democracy

For decades, India was celebrated as the world’s largest democracy. India was once a plural, constitutional republic that held together immense religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity. Today, that image is increasingly untenable. Under the rule of the far-right Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India has undergone a profound political transformation. It has transformed from a flawed but competitive democracy into what many scholars now describe as a hybrid regime, combining electoral processes with authoritarian practices. This shift has been accompanied by systemic violence, legal discrimination, and everyday intimidation against Muslim and Christian minorities.

India has transformed into what many scholars now describe as a hybrid regime, combining electoral processes with authoritarian practices

What is less discussed, however, is the role of the European Union and the wider Western world in enabling this democratic backsliding. Through strategic silence, economic pragmatism, and selective application of human-rights norms, the EU has become complicit in the erosion of Indian democracy.

Religious populism and the manufacturing of majoritarian consent

At the heart of India’s democratic decline lies Hindu nationalist populism. The BJP’s political project is rooted in Hindutva, an exclusionary ideology that defines India primarily as a Hindu nation, relegating Muslims, Christians, and other minorities to conditional or suspect citizenship. Hindutva portrays religious minorities as internal enemies — disloyal, foreign-influenced, or demographically threatening.

The BJP routinely associates Muslims with terrorism, 'love jihad', and demographic conspiracy theories. At the same time, they accuse Christians of forced conversions and cultural subversion. This narrative legitimises violence on the ground: lynchings in the name of cow protection, targeted riots, attacks on churches, and the everyday harassment of minority communities by vigilante groups aligned with the ruling ideology.

From democracy to hybrid regime

India’s transformation has been gradual rather than abrupt. Constitutional guarantees formally remain, but their substance has been hollowed out. Independent institutions — from the judiciary to investigative agencies — have been increasingly aligned with executive power. Journalists, academics, and human-rights defenders face legal harassment under draconian laws. The BJP subjects Muslim-majority regions like Kashmir to prolonged militarisation and the suspension of basic civil liberties. This is the hallmark of a hybrid regime: democratic form without democratic spirit.

The danger lies precisely in this ambiguity. Because elections continue and courts still exist, international actors can plausibly claim 'engagement' rather than confrontation. Yet it is within this grey zone, that democratic erosion becomes normalised.

The EU’s complicity: values for sale

The EU’s response to India’s democratic backsliding has been marked less by concern than by calculation. Even as violence against Muslims and Christians intensifies, civil liberties shrink, and dissent is criminalised, the EU has chosen engagement without accountability. Nowhere is this more evident than in its pursuit of what European Commission officials have openly called the 'mother of all deals' — a sweeping EU–India free trade agreement. Negotiations on this agreement have accelerated precisely at a moment when India’s ruling Hindu nationalist government has normalised religious majoritarianism and state-enabled discrimination.

In negotiating the EU–India free trade agreement, the EU sends a message that systematic violence against religious minorities and the hollowing out of democracy are acceptable costs of doing business

This is not benign pragmatism; it is political complicity. Trade agreements of this scale are not neutral economic instruments. They confer legitimacy, strengthen governing elites, and signal international approval. By deepening strategic and economic ties with India’s current regime without meaningful conditionality, the EU sends a clear message: systematic violence against religious minorities and the hollowing out of democracy are acceptable costs of doing business.

The contrast with the EU’s internal posture is striking. Within Europe, democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland has triggered legal action, funding conditionalities, and sustained political pressure. In India — a country far larger, with far graver human-rights violations — the EU has responded with muted diplomacy and studious avoidance. This double standard erodes the EU’s claim to be a global normative power. Moreover, it reinforces the cynical view that 'European values' apply only when politically convenient.

Legitimising an authoritarian state is weakening resistance

Worse, the EU’s silence strengthens the ideological project of Hindu nationalist populism. The ruling party in India routinely presents Western engagement as proof that its policies enjoy international validation. When European leaders shake hands, sign trade frameworks, and celebrate 'shared democratic values' while ignoring religious persecution, they inadvertently bolster domestic propaganda and weaken local resistance.

Since 2014, multiple resistance movements have challenged the ruling establishment’s increasingly autocratic tendencies. These include the Award Returning Movement (2015), mass protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, and the nationwide farmers’ protests of 2020–21. Notably, even in Varanasi — the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi — head priests of prominent temples have publicly resisted Modi’s divisive Hindutva ideology. In addition, an inclusive civil society and opposition has emerged in defence of secular democracy in Varanasi.

If the EU truly believes in democracy, pluralism, and minority protection, it cannot continue to compartmentalise trade and human rights

The EU growing trade relations with the current Indian regime is certainly discouraging resistance voices struggling to save Indian democracy. If the EU truly believes in democracy, pluralism, and minority protection (its foundational values), it cannot continue to compartmentalise trade and human rights. The mother of all deals risks becoming the symbol of an historic failure: a moment when Europe chose markets over minorities, access over accountability, and strategic comfort over democratic principle.

Aligning engagement with declared values

The death of Indian democracy is not inevitable, but its survival depends in part on external accountability. The EU still has tools at its disposal: principled diplomacy, public condemnation of religious violence, support for independent civil society, and the integration of human-rights benchmarks into trade and strategic agreements. None of this requires severing ties with India — only the political will to align engagement with declared values.

Image credit: MEA photogallery. Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.