Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar, speaking at a Munich Security Conference panel called, “Live To Vote Another Day: Fortifying Democratic Resilience,” pushed back against the hypocrisy of Western lectures about “democracy” and double standards imposed on nations of the Global South:
“I would challenge the equation of ‘liberalism’ in a kind of an international way with democracy. I do think different societies have their own cultures, their own values, their own ways of doing things; and the idea that there is one truth and one judgement and one norm, and that should be preached, propagated, evaluated, and judged, I think that is one of the big issues we are having today in politics…. I think there is a reaction in many parts of the world to self-appointed custodians, people who never fought an election, who have nothing to do with democracy, telling the rest of the world what is right and what is wrong in democracy; and it is to me inevitable that it will be challenged.
