Washington: In a subtle and understated, yet sharp, message to each other, United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and external affairs minister S Jaishankar spoke about the idea of democracy and what it entails at their joint press appearance in Washington DC on Tuesday.
The messaging comes at a time when the US is struggling with its own challenges to democracy — most visibly exemplified by January 6, 2021, mob insurrection at the Capitol to block the certification of election results — and India has been widely criticised for its own democratic backsliding — particularly a crackdown on dissent and anti-minority politics.
In his opening remarks, while emphasising the importance of the world’s two largest democracies cementing their partnership, Blinken said, “As the world’s two biggest democracies, we are also committed to an enduring project – as our founders put it – of striving to form a more perfect union. This is a project for both of us. We have to work together to show that our democracies can meet our people’s needs, and we must continue to hold ourselves – both of us, as well as our fellow democracies – to our core values.”
Blinken defined these core values as including “respect for universal human rights like freedom of religion and belief and freedom of expression, which makes our democracies stronger”.
{{/usCountry}}Blinken defined these core values as including “respect for universal human rights like freedom of religion and belief and freedom of expression, which makes our democracies stronger”.
{{/usCountry}}His comments on freedom of religion and expression come amid a spate of reports in the American media and advocacy by both human rights groups and Muslim organisations about India’s record on these metrics.
For his part, Jaishankar spoke about locating democracy in a country’s historical context and traditions. He said that the two sides have spoken, over the last two days, of their commitment to “practicing and furthering democracy, human rights, and good governance”.
The minister said, “Each country approaches the set of issues from their history, tradition, and societal context. Our yardstick for judgement is the integrity of the democratic processes, the respect and credibility that they command with the people, and the non-discriminatory delivery of public goods and services.”
India has consistently emphasised how the current government is a democratically elected legitimate government that has won the mandate of the people and put forth its welfare delivery model which has benefited all religious communities as a way to counter the perception of authoritarianism and prejudice.
The point about the integrity of democratic processes echoes what the minister had also said at a book event in New York last week, when he pointed out, with a smile, that everyone accepts election results in India — only to quickly clarify that he was speaking only about India. But the message was not lost given Donald Trump’s rejection of the 2020 presidential election even now.
The minister also hit out, again, at the idea of “vote banks” which he had, in April, suggested was driving some of the American positions on democracy. “India does not believe that the efficacy or indeed the quality of democracy should be decided by votebanks.”
Jaishankar said they look forward to a healthy exchange of views. “There will be convergences and best practices that we can both profit by and perhaps even share with third countries.”