Bad Karma

The European Union wants India as a strategic ally. And India loves the positive attention it's getting from Europe. Both sides are trying to speed up a long stalled-trade agreement amid steadily tightening relations. But that only serves to magnify a glaring double standard in EU foreign policy. While the EU openly criticises China for abusing its the mostly Muslim Uyghur population, the EU turns a blind eye to the way India treats its own Muslim minority. The problems run deeper still. India's prime minister Narendra Modi has his roots in a fascist Hindu movement. And like Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Modi is associated with a rise in the kind of right-wing national populism that the EU supposedly deplores. So while the EU still describes India as the world's largest democracy, a looming question is how much longer that will continue to be the case. Journalist Rana Ayyub has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of Modi. She went undercover to investigate the extent of official complicity in mass killings of Muslims in Gujarat when Modi was the state's chief minister. Rana has been profiled in Time magazine and the New Yorker, and she's now a columnist for The Washington Post. She says any rapprochement with India mustn't come at the expense of the truth about Modi's authoritarian instincts and links to brutality against minorities. Also in this episode: Dutch member of the European Parliament Agnes Jongerius on her priorities for trade talks with India. Agnes represents the Socialists & Democrats group within the influential trade committee.

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