What the far-Right’s rise in Germany could hold for India

The rise of the AfD addresses whether Germany will remain open and reliable as a place for education & career opportunities for India’s well-educated youth

Ties between India and Germany have been on the upswing over the past several years; in recent months, there has been a push to deepen defence industrial cooperation and technology exchange. The India visit of the German chief of defence, Carsten Breuer, last week underlined efforts on military cooperation and strategic engagement. Given this new round of cooperation — against the backdrop of Trump-injected uncertainty — was nurtured on the German side by a centre-Right dispensation in Berlin, India has watched electoral developments in Germany with keen interest.

Given the new round of cooperation between India and Germany was nurtured on the German side by a centre-Right dispensation in Berlin, India has watched electoral developments in Germany with keen interest. (Press Information Bureau (PIB))

Rarely have state elections in Germany, such as those held in September in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Berlin, generated such an international response. For the first time since the end of the Nazi dictatorship, a party classified as far-Right — Alternative for Germany/Alternative für Deutschland(AfD) — has won elections by a landslide and could now form or participate in governments in two states. The process of forming governments is still in its early stages. It could end without AfD participation only in Berlin, where the AfD became the third-strongest force on September 20 with 16.3% of the vote, behind Die Linke and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU); this is virtually out of the question. Against such a backdrop, many are asking what is going on with the Germans.

This trend is visible in the western part of the country as well: In March 2026, the AfD garnered 18.8% of the vote in Baden-Württemberg, one of the most populous and economically strongest states, nearly double its 2021 result. More state elections in western Germany are scheduled in the coming months and years, including in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state. If the trend continues, the AfD could make significant gains there as well — a pattern already reflected in nationwide polls for the next federal election, in which the party is clearly outperforming the conservative mainstream party, the CDU.

What does this mean for countries such as India when a party that opposes non-white immigration and, under certain circumstances, even seeks to revoke the citizenship of naturalised citizens, rises to become the strongest political force in Germany?

The number of Indian nationals in Germany rose from 86,000 (in 2015) to around 280,000 in early 2025. More than 152,000 of them are employed in jobs subject to social security contributions, often in well-paid IT and engineering professions. Another nearly 59,000 are students. The remaining approximately 69,000 people consist primarily of accompanying family members — spouses and children of workers and students.

The AfD’s governing platform in Saxony-Anhalt explicitly calls for doing without “foreign-culture skilled workers,” without defining the term. A query submitted via the citizen platform abgeordnetenwatch.de to Ulrich Siegmund, the winner of the election in Saxony-Anhalt and likely future minister-president, asking whether a female doctor from India would fall under this category went unanswered. Siegmund has, however, made it clear where his priorities lie: Instead of relying on the 153 Syrian doctors currently practicing in Saxony-Anhalt, he would rather bring back Germans who have emigrated. During a televised election debate, he estimated the realistic number of such returnees to be “hundreds”. This, by far, is not enough to satisfy the German economy’s need for skilled labour.

The AfD has already announced its intention to review naturalisations that have already taken place retroactively. In Bavaria, for example, it called for a retroactive review of all naturalisations since 2016. It cannot implement this because naturalisation law is federal law. In any case, those primarily affected at first would be Indians who have not yet been naturalised: A state or federal government with AfD participation could directly tighten their residency and work rights. Those who have already been naturalised — the number of annual naturalisations of Indians has recently nearly doubled, from 2,775 (2022) to 4,705 (2024) — are significantly better protected under the law. According to estimates by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), nearly two out of five people of Indian origin already hold German citizenship. Since India does not allow dual citizenship, over 90% of them have renounced their Indian passports. The revocation of citizenship for criminal “dual nationals”— as demanded by the AfD — would therefore not affect them at all. The general rhetoric about “cultural alienation,” however, makes no distinction based on passport status.

Unlike in the case of people of Turkish descent or Muslim majority countries, there are no specific surveys available regarding concrete reports from Indian students about hostility linked to the rise of the AfD. Only the general trend is documented: According to the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (2025), more than half of the people the study classifies as “racially marked”— that is, those perceived by others as visibly non-white or foreign, regardless of their own background or how long their families have lived in Germany — report experiencing discrimination at least once a month.

Politically, the AfD could create a point of friction between Germany and India over the Palestinian issue: India has recognised the State of Palestine since 1988, four years before it established diplomatic relations with Israel.Germany, on the other hand, continues to refuse to recognise Palestine to this day: When France, the UK, Canada, and other western nations took this step in September 2025, the German government explicitly opposed it. Foreign minister Johann Wadephul stated that recognition must come “at the end,” not at the beginning, of a negotiation process, even though a majority of Germans themselves are in favour of it. This difference is not merely a diplomatic footnote: Since the 2024 reform of the nationality law, anyone seeking naturalisation in Germany must expressly declare that they do not pursue any efforts aimed at undermining the existence of the State of Israel. It is from India’s decades-old, official recognition of Palestine that the AfD (which portrays itself as “the only truly pro-Israel party”) could construct a political pitfall: an implicit general suspicion that naturalisation applicants of Indian descent are unable to demonstrate this commitment credibly, regardless of the individual applicants’ own views on the matter.

For India, the rise of the AfD directly addresses whether Germany will remain open and reliable as a place for education and career opportunities for its well-educated young population. The Trump administration’s various measures to restrict non-American employment, including the latest proposal to have a $70,000 fee for visa-holding students interested in working in the US, could offer a template to a party that is building on an anti-immigrant sentiment. That would, of course, be a double-whammy for India, given Germany remains the largest non-English-world destination for India’s young. Should the AfD, as current polls suggest, become the largest party in the next federal election as well, the question would arise of how New Delhi can maintain its partnership with a Berlin that has shifted to the right.

Alexander Görlach teaches democratic resilience at New York University. The views expressed are personal