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 June 1-30, 2026.International Media ReportsNPR, US, June 7Omkar Khandekar and Leesha K Nair report how the “Great Nicobar Project” will transform one of the world’s most isolated islands into a major port, airport, military base and tourism hub “at the cost of its people’s identity.” The Indian government claims it will help “challenge the dominance” of China in the region, while critics question whether the promised economic and strategic benefits can have “potential negative impacts”. Environmental scholar Manish Chandi called the project an “open invitation to disaster” that threatens biodiversity and Indigenous communities. Opponents warn that up to a million trees could be cut down, while tribal lands and wildlife habitats face disruption. Al Jazeera, Qatar, June 10Gurvinder Singh describes a “detect, delete and deport” policy launched by the new Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal, targeting undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, particularly Muslims. The government has set up “holding centres” to hold people, or sent them to the border to be “pushed back” into Bangladesh. Singh notes the state Chief Minister highlighting that deportations would only target “Muslim Bangladeshis”, leaving non-Muslim migrants exempt. Indian and international rights activists have called the move “completely unethical”. Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said, “even the detainees without any valid documents should be given legal representation so that no Indian citizen is wrongfully expelled from the country.” Financial Times, UK, June 18Michael Stott, Andres Schipani, James Shotter explain the growing partnership between India and Israel under Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu. Their relationship is built on shared views about nationalism, security and fighting terrorism. One expert says there is an “ideological affinity” as both leaders see themselves as fighting “radical Islam”. Cooperation now includes defence, intelligence, surveillance, trade and technology. Critics argue that India is moving away from its traditional support for Palestine and “risking its position as a moral leader in the global south and its policy of maintaining alliances with multiple partners.” They also see similarities in how both have fostered “hostility” against religious minorities, “eroded” the power of independent institutions and restricted the activities of foreign NGOs. The Economist, UK, June 14The Economist argues that while the Modi government’s expansion of India’s airport network – from 74 operational airports in 2014 to 164 today – is a significant achievement, it has prioritised visible infrastructure over connectivity and accessibility. People are limited from using new airports in many places as “there are rarely feeder bus routes, decent pavements or connecting services”. Critics cited failed regional airports as evidence of an “obsession with vote-winning optics over governing substance”. As a result, only about a year later, “many of the new facilities were in terminal decline”. The Guardian, UK, June 30Hannah Ellis-Peterson marks Umar Khalid’s sixth year jailed without trial as one of “India’s most prominent political prisoners”. Umar describes the toll of constantly dealing with allegations and negative propaganda saying that “when you are reduced to just an image, either negative or positive, it becomes difficult to maintain not just your humanity but even your sanity at times”. He says the long incarceration have “wreaked havoc on my mind and body”. Yet being jailed “has not softened his position on the Modi government, Khalid describes his horror at the normalisation and glorification of hate speech and genocidal language”. He expresses disappointment at silences from the political opposition and civil society and endures a sense of isolation. Indian diaspora and civil society groupsNandini Singh Mehra with NRI Affairs hosted an India-Australia roundtable on June 19 through an online panel discussion with India and Australia-based journalists, activists and commentators, focusing on pressing issues in India and their effects on Australia-India relations. Issues discussed included the state of press freedom in India, fractures in India’s foreign policy, the risks of dissent in India, and complexities of the Indian-Australian diaspora. On June 27, Just Peace Advocates, a Canada-based human rights organisation, held an online panel to share reflections on political imprisonment, law, and resistance. The panel focused on the case of Asiya Andrabi to draw out broader patterns of detention of Kashmiris through the use of preventive detention and terrorism laws and the limits on advocacy. The panel illustrated how incarceration reshapes family life, lived experiences, and political and public discourse in Kashmir, to shed light on the “human, legal, and political costs and consequences of imprisonment”. South Asia Solidarity Group posted a video on Facebook of an audience member at an international conference in London in which the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was present as she highlighted the “growing hostility to dissent within India”. She stated that this hostility was reflected in the CJI’s recent remarks referring to “Indian youth and journalists and Right to Information activists as cockroaches and parasites”, and sought a response from the CJI while her questioning was blocked by the conference host. Parliamentarians and public officials advocateIn a tweet on June 11, the Embassy of Iran in India rejected Indian media reports of shortages and economic distress in Iran, stating that despite “three wars and extensive pressures,” supplies of essential goods remain “normal, stable, and uninterrupted.” It urged the media to rely on “credible, official, and verifiable sources”. Members of both the Democratic and Republican parties are critiquing proposed changes to India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) due to apprehensions that these will adversely impact civil society groups in India, including Christian organisations, by blocking access to foreign funds and seizing assets. Senator James Risch, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act imposes onerous and opaque constraints on non-governmental organizations and groups that receive foreign funding, making their daily operations nearly impossible”. Experts sayChristophe Jaffrelot, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute and Research Director, CERI-Sciences Po, argues that Hindu nationalism in India increasingly uses a narrative of victimhood to mobilise support, in an article published on June 5. The article is titled, “Circulating Victimhood: The Transnational Repertoires of Hindu National-Populism in Modi’s India,” featured in the Journal of Illiberalism Studies. Jaffrelot writes that Narendra Modi presents himself as the defender of Hindus against threats from Muslims, Pakistan, Bangladeshi migrants and, more recently, “Hinduphobia” abroad. This is described as a “politics of fear” that portrays Hindus as being “under siege” despite being India’s majority community. This messaging has gained a global dimension through the Hindu diaspora and international allies. Jaffrelot concludes that Hindu nationalist politics now relies on “circulating victimhood” across national borders. In a press release issued on June 16, Human Rights Watch (HRW) states that Indian authorities are forcibly expelling ethnic Bengali residents, mostly Muslims from West Bengal, to Bangladesh “without due process”. Border Guard Bangladesh are blocking those expelled from entering Bangladesh, leaving “dozens of families stranded at the ‘zero line’ between the two countries”. Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director, criticizes the Indian authorities for “cruelly dumping families into Bangladesh or leaving them stranded at the border”. Ganguly calls on the Indian government to “stop unlawfully expelling people, ensure procedural safeguards, engage with Bangladeshi authorities to verify citizenship, and end this dismaying animosity toward Muslims”. Published on June 25, Apar Gupta, fellow at Tech Policy Press and Founder Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, warns that the Indian government’s week-long ban of Telegram in June 2026 is a “dangerous escalation” of government’s powers of censorship. Gupta argues that the legal precedent allowing the ban can be weaponized by the government “to secure compliance with broad, political censorship of thousands or accounts or platform changes”, not requiring the blocking of an entire platform. He warns to “expect a more confident Ministry across every platform, reaching for whatever excuse sounds best that week ranging from morality, national security, public panic” to push platforms to censor. Ben Choucroun, a writer, analyses the Modi government’s “yoga diplomacy”, using “yoga as a means of marketing India as a place of peace, harmony and safety” while India grows “increasingly authoritarian” domestically. Choucroun highlights that it is in Palestine where yoga diplomacy has been “most problematic”, where yoga and wellness events project an image of peace and friendship while “Indian-made combat drones fly over Gaza”. Choucroun describes it as “masking complicity through the performance of peace,” in a context of occupation and genocide. He criticises initiatives promoting meditation and yoga to Palestinians during violence, calling it a “pose that serves to disguise India’s close ties with Israel”. Christophe Jaffrelot, again, argues in a research paper that violence against Muslims in India has changed from election-time riots to more permanent forms of discrimination and intimidation, in the context that Hindu nationalists “no longer seek to seize power; they exercise it.” Jaffrelot finds that communal violence has entered a “post-instrumental era” where the goal is no longer just electoral polarization but “the most complete possible domination over minorities”. He adds that Muslims are increasingly denied victim status and portrayed as “an existential threat through a process of ‘securitization’ and thus criminalization” to justify discrimination and violence.Read the previous roundup here.