It has been a short January so far. How much could the Government of India possibly have revealed about itself in such little time?A lot.On the world stage, its ‘strategic autonomy’ is visibly in tatters; regionally, it finds itself further besieged; and internally, with a spectrum of renewed faultlines among its own people, 2026 so far has shone a harsh light on India’s regime. If global positioning, regional security and internal cohesion are three concentric circles that any country should draw its strength from, then alarm bells should be ringing out loudly for all well-wishers of India.Vishwa-swag is down, if not outThe nasty kidnapping of the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, under US President Donald Trump’s orders, not a covert CIA op, has evoked concern of a Monroe doctrine gone rogue and the world finding itself repeating old, dangerous patterns. But even if we are in completely ‘precedented times‘, as a commentator remarked, the ‘old United States’ – with the country re-enacting what it did with Manuel Noreiga in Panama in 1989 – spells serious trouble for the rest of the world.Acts in the backyard are never just muscle flexing, as historian Greg Grandin once wrote on the US’s actions in 1989. It is about “warm-up acts” for the US in West Asia and “super-charging US militarism”. This plot to invade and “rule” Venezuela is not the end but the beginning of a serious challenge to a rules-based international order and possibly wider attacks and outside its ‘backyard’. China, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, others – any country with an interest in being counted – has stood up and called out the US. India, the self-anointed ‘leader’ of the Global South has only managed to issue two non-statements.Neither of the two statements mention the US or spell out the cause for concern. “Recent developments in Venezuela are a matter of deep concern. We are closely monitoring the evolving situation,” says the second statement. The first statement was a travel advisory and only about Indian citizens in Venezuela. Whether it fears the US or Trump, or is somehow hoping to get the unprecedented 50% tariff come down by behaving like this, is unclear. But given Trump’s history so far, it is unlikely to help India in any way, and only burn through its self-conjured Vishwa-swag.“Bad neighbour”? Bangladesh says helloThe Board of Control for Cricket in India has thrown out the most valued Bangladeshi cricketer yet, left-arm bowler Mustafizur Rahman aka ‘Fizz’, from the Indian Premier League. (Rehman was bought for Rs 9.2 crore by the Kolkata Knight Riders, a Shah Rukh Khan owned-team.) The days of dog-whistling seem behind us. The shrill cries and protests by those in the Sanghverse have been clear and openly bigoted, even calling for boycotts against India’s most celebrated star. BJP’s controversial leader Sangeet Som called Khan a “traitor”. Other voices of BJP leaders, spokespersons, former MPs and friendly babas have been upped in a coordinated way by news agencies that use their microphones as propaganda-amplifiers. The grounds for “releasing” (read, abruptly throwing out) ‘Fizz’, are spurious – that it is hurtful of Indian sentiments to have a Bangladeshi cricketer play, because anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh has claimed Hindu lives.India, acting like a Hindu nation – with its leaders terming Bangladeshis as “infiltrators” and other dehumanising language – has pushed its neighbour into a corner about coming around to ‘normalising’ ties after the departure of Sheikh Hasina. Bangladesh on January 4 (Sunday) formally asked for its games in the T-20 Cricket World Cup to be co-hosted by India to be shifted out. If India is not secure for ‘Fizz’ to play in, how can the rest be secure, they argue?Foreign minister S. Jaishankar’s attempts to mend ties with Bangladesh – going and shaking hands with Tarique Rehman and offering condolences for his mother Begum Khalida Zia’s death, and furtive secret meetings with the Jamaat-e-Islami – have been cancelled out by this Fizz ‘release’. India’s ruling party, with its sway over both mobs making ‘demands’ and the cricket establishment, has scored another own goal.Jaishankar discussed “bad neighbours” this week, warning the “one on the west” against promoting terror. China is another neighbour never named by India nowadays, as the power differential between the two countries has zoomed. We have ended up adding fuel to the fire in a third neighbour in the region, as it heads to the polls. This is bound to only feed anti-India sentiment on the ground.The inside storyJanuary 1 saw six Bajrang Dal members arrested for disrupting and vandalising Christmas decorations and celebrations at Raipur’s Magneto Mall in Chhattisgarh being released on bail by a sessions court. The accused, like the rapists of Bilkis Bano, were “welcomed with drums, garlands and chants, projecting the incident as cultural defence”.The Bajrang Dal members being released quickly from custody was expected, as it seems that only the victims of harassment this Christmas are facing any state action. As last year closed, a man from Tripura was killed – lynched in Uttarakhand after racial slurs spearheaded an attack by a mob. A birthday party in UP’s Bareilly saw another mob attacking the birthday girl for inviting two Muslim friends to the party in a café. The hosts of the party and the two Muslims were proceeded against by the police. It was only a week later that the attackers were acted against.All this is not scattered, garden-variety hooliganism but the effective downstreaming of messaging consistently put out by the Sangh and BJP leaders. After all, it was the home minister and prime minister being the most polarising about “infiltrators” (ghuspathiye); Amit Shah was the one who used the term deemak or termites. Most of its chief ministers, especially in UP and Assam, consistently attack Muslim and Christian citizens.A tight fist over big media results in such identity attacks being portrayed as ‘fringe’ or tucked away on the inside pages. But to anyone who can draw a line, it is clear that they flow straight from ideas and statements made at the top and from the top. The bravado is reserved for minorities now being attacked as individuals by brazen mobs, as the Modi government has rapidly ceded the monopoly on violence.This matters, as it is severely damaging social cohesion in India.In the face of the shrinking of its reputation globally, its pusillanimity on display as in the case of Venezuela, and further loss of support in the South Asian region after this ill-conceived attack on a Bangladeshi cricketer and its own superstar, the one non-negotiable for India should be its internal cohesion as a cushion. In a rapidly changing and insecure world order, its internal strength would be what would help it ride out all storms. But the fraying social cohesion makes India look weak and in free-fall – with its national security endangered directly by the ruling party’s politics and ideology.A dark politics underlines threats to India globally, regionally and internally. Unless we are able to call it out and force its practitioners to back off and give up trying to disfigure India into a country for people of one faith, diet, belief, language, politics and region, India can expect only further dents to its credibility, authority and positioning.We didn’t get here in just a few days in January. But January also offers a moment to reset.