suffered a setback this week. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party fell many had predicted in the Indian elections. As Modi becomes India's prime minister for a third time, his party will have to enter into a power-sharing agreement with alliance partners.
It's a chastening lesson from the Indian electorate for Modi, who, while boosting India's global standing, has been accused of stoking division and weakening India's democracy. On the same day as the Indian election results, of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which saw a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. In the decades since, China has slid back into Maoist-style authoritarianism.
The events this week highlighted how the competition between India and China is about more than raw power. It's also a competition between two very different political ideologies. India is the world's largest democracy.
Its first elections were held in 1951-52 after it gained independence from Britain. Free elections have been held in nearly every election cycle since, with a coup in 1975 briefly threatening India's democratic status. It is a rare bright spot in a world where democracy seems to be in retreat.
Even in the US, the global champion of democracy, former president Donald Trump is accused of launching an attempt to cling to power illegally after losing the 2020 election. "India isn't a perfect democracy but it is still a role model for developing nations, large or small. And given trends in some Weste.
