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 December 1-31, 2025.International Media Reports Politico, US, December 1Daniel Block chronicles lessons for American journalists “for how independent media can survive-and even fight back-when starting down autocracy” borrowing from Indian news organisations like The Caravan. Block writes that “a small but mighty free press” in India shows “determination and ingenuity”, withstanding “over a decade of attacks”. Strategies include by teaming up to cover stories, “supporting each other when under assault”, and innovating on ways to raise funds that are difficult to obstruct. Reuters, UK, December 2Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil report on Apple’s plans to decline the Indian government’s order “to preload a state-run cyber security app” called Sanchar Saathi on its smartphones. While the telecom Ministry describes this as a “security measure”, the government’s order has sparked “surveillance and privacy concerns”. The order requires companies like Apple to install the app on new phones within 90 days and ensure it cannot be disabled. Apple said “it doesn’t follow such mandates anywhere in the world, citing privacy and security issues”. Privacy advocates are concerned “it is a way for the government to gain access to India’s 730 million smartphones”. Bloomberg, US, December 12Andy Mukherjee describes India’s “latest aviation fiasco” as exposing the impact of “leaving two-thirds of a fast-growing market in the hands of a single player”. Mukherjee writes that not only was IndiGo airlines in a “relentless pursuit of profit”, the government also prioritised maximising revenue from the market for air travel. This included jacking up taxes on jet fuel to “discourage new entrants”, corporatisation of airports, and insufficient investment in Indian railways as an alternative. In face of the recent crisis, the government’s move to withdraw the new rules on pilot fatigue raises serious concerns, as does the damage caused to India’s image among tourists and business travellers worldwide. Indian diaspora and civil society groupsOn December 7, 84 civil society organisations across countries, issued a statement following the state killing of Madvi Hidma, indigenous Adivasi activist and Naxalite leader, and 12 others. The signatories stressed that they “unequivocally stand with the Adivasi villagers and human rights defenders, and India’s civil society, who have strongly noted that Hidma and the others were captured unarmed” and “tortured and killed extrajudicially in two groups over two days”. They accuse state authorities of torture and extrajudicial killings against the Naxalite movement. Compounding this, they point to continuing violations of constitutional safeguards as corporations sign agreements to exploit Chhattisgarh’s mineral wealth. The signatories demand an end to extrajudicial killings and state violence, an independent judicial inquiry, and genuine dialogue with Adivasi communities to address autonomy, land rights, and resource control. International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India) held the seventh session of its webinar series on the Indian state’s counterinsurgency measures on December 8. The session was titled “Corporate Influence on the Indian State’s Policies and Actions in Adivasi Regions”. Speaking to the relations between corporations and the state, Amit Julka, scholar of India’s foreign policy, sketched the history of state protectionism toward industrial elites. Nitin Sethi, of the Reporters’ Collective, described how land confiscation by corporations in Adivasi regions has been enabled through legal amendments in tandem with corporate financing of the electoral system. Lawyer Nihalsing Rathod highlighted instances of successful grassroots resistance to mining projects. On December 23, the Indian American Muslim Council organised a congressional briefing at which global interfaith activists condemned “the Hindu far right’s escalating attacks on visibly Muslim women under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule”. The briefing was convened in response to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar forcibly pulling down the hijab of a Muslim woman at a public event. Experts spoke about the “erosion of constitutional freedoms and (state) impunity for hate crimes against minorities” in India. Shreen Mahmood, British-Pakistani philanthropist, said these violations are a result of “decades of political discourse” that continue to dehumanise the Muslim identity. Reverend Neil Christie, the co-founder of the Religious Nationalisms Project, a ministry of the New York State Council of Churches, made important connections between the rising religious nationalisms (Hindu nationalism in India and Christian nationalism in the US) and attacks on Muslim women manifested in the form of hijab bans, as one example. Experts sayChristophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, traces the arc of the recurring “appetite for surveillance” in governments headed by Narendra Modi in Gujarat and at the Centre, in a piece published on December 17. He describes illegal phone tapping in Gujarat, the use of Pegasus spyware to break into phones, and the growing use of facial recognition technology without safeguards as surveillance tactics of governments under Modi. Jaffrelot concludes by explaining two major loopholes that can violate privacy in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, passed in 2023. The World Inequality Report 2026 finds that in India “inequality remains among the highest in the world and has shown little movement in recent years”. The top 10% of earners enjoy a share of 58% of national income, while the bottom 50% only 15%. The richest 10% hold around 65% of total wealth, and the top 1% about 40%. Female labour participation remains at 15.7%, with no improvement over the past decade. The report states that “overall, inequality in India remains deeply entrenched across income, wealth, and gender dimensions, highlighting persistent structural divides within the economy”. A group of leading international experts, including Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Isabelle Ferreras, Research director FNRS, Professor University of Louvain (UC Louvain), Senior research associate at the Center for Labor and a Just Economy, Harvard Law School, Thomas Piketty, Professor, EHESS and the Paris School of Economics, Co-director, World Inequality Lab & World Inequality Database, and many more, have sent an open letter to the Modi government in support of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). They ask for a “recommitment to this landmark legislation”, warning that its repeal would be a “historic error”. The letter stresses that “MGNREGA has captured the world’s attention with its demonstrated achievements and innovative design” and dismantling it would abandon a “proven instrument for poverty alleviation and social justice”. Read the previous roundup here.