India Archives - South Asia Times

The EU–India FTA reveals a deep structural asymmetry, exposing Indian industry to European dominance while reinforcing dependency through tariffs, CBAM, and non-tariff barriers.

The Asymmetry at the Heart of the EU–India FTA

SAT Commentary January 28, 2026

Presented as a landmark of global economic integration, the EU–India Free Trade Agreement masks a deeply unequal structure. While India dismantles protective tariffs central to its industrial base, European firms retain advantages through subsidies, non-tariff barriers, and green protectionism. Rather than enabling industrial upgrading, the deal risks locking India into a dependent trade pattern, importing high-value capital goods while exporting low-value products, undermining the very logic of Make in India.

Governing by Faith and Fear: Inside India’s Bureaucratic Transformation

SAT Editorial Desk January 26, 2026

Once imagined as a neutral steel frame, India’s bureaucracy is undergoing a profound mutation. As faith becomes an instrument of alignment and fear a tool of discipline, the administrative state is drifting from constitutional neutrality toward ideological enforcement, with lasting consequences for democracy, governance, and state capacity.

The Structural Costs of Hindutva Governance

SAT Editorial Desk January 6, 2026

India’s shift toward Hindutva governance has transformed identity into policy. As citizenship, culture, and power merge, over 28 crore minorities are pushed to the margins—fracturing institutions, normalising exclusion, and leaving long-term scars on the republic’s social fabric.

India’s Offensive Defence Doctrines and Its Strategic Consequences

Syeda Tahreem Bukhari December 31, 2025

From the Sundarji Doctrine to Cold Start and 2025’s Operation Sindoor, India’s offensive doctrines aimed at rapid strikes against Pakistan repeatedly backfired, exposing operational gaps and narrowing its strategic options in multi-domain warfare.

AI, Extremism, and the Weaponization of Hate: Islamophobia in India

Filza Asim December 26, 2025

AI is no longer a neutral tool in India’s digital space. A growing body of research shows how artificial intelligence is being deliberately weaponized to mass-produce Islamophobic narratives, normalize harassment, and amplify Hindutva extremism. As online hate increasingly spills into real-world violence, India’s AI-driven propaganda ecosystem raises urgent questions about accountability, democracy, and the future of pluralism.

Majoritarian Politics and the Erosion of Minority Dignity in India: The Bihar Hijab Incident

Nimra Khalil December 22, 2025

The forcible removal of a Muslim woman doctor’s hijab by Bihar’s Chief Minister was not an isolated lapse of conduct but a revealing moment in India’s evolving political culture. It underscored how majoritarian ideology increasingly normalizes the public humiliation of minorities, particularly Muslim women, and weakens constitutional guarantees of equality, religious freedom, and personal dignity.

India’s Missing People’s Revolution: Democracy, Electoral Erosion, and the Prospect of Popular Upheaval

Prof. (Dr.) Akhilesh Chandra Prabhakar December 17, 2025

India’s democracy was born without a revolution. As electoral integrity weakens and institutions hollow out, this absence of a popular rupture may now be returning as a structural crisis—one that could yet provoke mass political upheaval.

The New Bollywood

SAT Editorial Desk December 12, 2025

Bollywood, once India’s most effective soft-power tool, is undergoing a dramatic ideological overhaul. Films like Dhurandhar and The Taj Story reflect a new cinematic nationalism rooted in historical revisionism, internal othering, and aggressive anti-Pakistan narratives, reshaping both India’s identity and its global cultural reach.

Criminalising Dissent: How New Laws and “Public Order” Politics Are Shrinking Democratic Space in India

Jerome Enriquez John December 10, 2025

India is witnessing a steady erosion of democratic freedoms as broad security laws, digital surveillance, and administrative restrictions redefine dissent as a threat rather than a constitutional right. From expanded use of UAPA and IT Rules to routine protest crackdowns and shrinking academic space, the cumulative impact is a quieter and increasingly constrained civic sphere.

India’s Coercive Foreign Policy in 2025

Farwa Imtiaz December 9, 2025

India’s foreign policy in 2025 marks a clear break from its earlier soft-power orientation, shifting toward overt coercion and interference. Once seen as a restrained global actor, India now increasingly relies on hard power, diplomatic pressure, and transnational repression to shape external outcomes. Through cases in Canada, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Türkiye, this article shows how India has adopted a more assertive—and often destabilizing—approach to protect its expanding ambitions, using tools ranging from foreign interference to military escalation and economic coercion.