India, Globally: The Mistreatment of Workers and Religious Minorities in Modi's 'One-Party' State |
The Narendra Modi government frequently posits India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ or world leader. How the world sees India is often lost in this branding exercise.
Outside India, global voices are monitoring and critiquing human rights violations in India and the rise of Hindutva. We present here monthly highlights of what a range of actors – from UN experts and civil society groups to international media and parliamentarians of many countries – are saying about the state of India’s democracy.
Read the monthly roundup for May 1-31, 2026. International media reports
Democracy Now, US, May 1
Amy Goodman interviews Neha Dixit on the state of workers’ rights and freedoms in India describing worsening labour exploitation amid rising fuel costs and labour unrest. Dixit said Narendra Modi’s government has been “trying to dilute labor laws” through policies enabling “hire-and-fire” practices and restricting strikes. She highlighted how migrant workers, especially Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims, endure “acute poverty”, while global corporations profit from cheap labour. Dixit also criticised the Modi government for “systemically” disenfranchising minorities, claiming millions of Muslim voters were removed from electoral rolls in a process critics called “unconstitutional.”
New York Times, US, May 1
Arman Khan writes about how restrictions on online self-expression by the Modi government are “sending a chill through society”. He highlights that “the stakes are particularly high” for Muslims, disclosing that “every word I write, including in this essay, is tinged with fear.” The implications are long-term since “even more liberal future governments might find it hard to resist the machinery of silence being installed”. Other countries also need to watch this “potential template” for a system in which “when people are afraid to express themselves, they don’t.”
Following recent state elections, Andy Mukherjee contends that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally brought the world’s most-populous nation to the precipice of an all-powerful, one-party state”. Mukherjee points to Modi’s use of federal institutions to achieve “what was once thought impossible” which is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) winning the majority in West Bengal. He alleges that the Election Commission oversaw a controversial “purification” drive disproportionately affecting “minority-heavy regions”. The so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR), an “exercise effectively imported the north Indian model of religious polarization by administrative fiat” struck Mamata Banerjee’s electorate causing “a blatant abrogation of individual voting rights, a first in the Indian republic’s 76-year history”. Mukherjee claims Modi achieved “quieter, more efficient ways” to crush dissent, warning that future elections may be fought not against political rivals, but against “the institutional sway of New Delhi.”
Al Jazeera, Qatar, May 6
Tanushree Pandey describes how Manipur’s three-year ethnic conflict has “mutated and deepened,” with killings often left “officially unidentified”. Pandey points to alleged state complicity through government inaction, impunity, and failure to prosecute armed groups.........