Roving Periscope: Biden warns of perils to democracy; Modi extols India’s strengths
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: US President Joe Biden on Thursday opened the first-ever “Summit for Democracy” with a warning that the world was at an inflection point in history to arrest the backward slide of democracy, as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the democratic spirit, including respect for rule of law and pluralistic ethos, is “ingrained in Indians”.
More than 100 countries have been invited to the Summit.
Amid challenges to the American democracy itself, and Russia, China, and others criticizing the two-day virtual Summit, Biden, in his opening remarks, said: “Democracy — government of the people, by the people, for the people — can at times be fragile, but it also is inherently resilient. It’s capable of self-correction and self-improvement. And, yes, democracy is hard. We all know that. It works best with consensus and cooperation. When people and parties that might have opposing views sit down and find ways to work together, things begin to work.”
PM Modi, one of the 12 leaders invited to take part in the principal Leaders’ Plenary Session on Day 1, said the Indian diaspora carries their traditional democratic ethos, contributing to the economic well-being and social harmony of their adopted homes.
The closed-door session saw interventions from 12 select countries, including India, according to the media reports. “Modi highlighted India’s civilizational ethos as one of the original sources of democracy.” He will deliver India’s national statement on Friday, which is open to the public.
President Biden hosted the first plenary session on Day 1, and President Ursula von de Leyen of the European Commission hosted the second Leaders’ Plenary Session.
The Summit opened amid charges from China and Russia that Washington is “weaponizing democracy,” and even some domestic discomfort over lecturing the world when the US’ own democracy, particularly the conduct of elections at home, is ragged and inconsistent.
In particular, his critics referred to the Donald Trump supporters storming the US Congress at the Capitol in January this year, protesting against what they claimed was rigging of elections that brought Joe Biden to power.
Richard Haass, a former US official who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, said the holding of a Summit for Democracy is an ill-advised decision and the invite list is filled with inconsistencies. He said the US cannot preach or provide a model for democracy. “We should focus on getting our own broken house in order.”
America’s twin rivals, Russia and China, accused Washington of hypocrisy, claiming they were “better democracies” than the US. Ambassadors of China and Russia to the US wrote a joint opinion piece in a US magazine claiming that the Summit itself was “anti-democratic”. But they conveniently forgot that such critical commentary would not be allowed in their own press back home.
But President Biden conceded the US is “not perfect nor has all the answers” while maintaining that Washington wanted to lock arms with other like-minded countries and reaffirm a shared commitment “to make our democracies better, to share ideas and learn from each other.”The US President also invoked Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela while acknowledging that “democracies are not all the same…we don’t agree on everything…but the choices that we are going to make today together are going to define the course of our shared future for generations to come.”
