By Choosing Not to Condemn Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, India Defies Its Own Belief in Democracy

When I came to the United Nations earlier this week to appeal to world leaders to take action on Russia’s carpet-bombing of my country, Ukraine, my hometown had been reduced to rubble, and its people were refugees in their own city.

They have been living through the horror: terrified families hunkered in bunkers, bombs raining down on civilian convoys, people dying of disease, food supplies running out, maternity hospitals being bombed.

In Kharkiv, in the east of Ukraine, the shelling has destroyed 600 buildings and killed people indiscriminately, tragically, including an innocent Indian student, Naveen Shekharappa. And at the borders, it has been chaos. Ask any one of the 20,000 Indian students caught up in the war, who lived through hell for simply wanting a good education, to understand the fast deteriorating situation.

India is not new to war, having recently survived many, including Kargil. Why does the largest democracy in the world want to be singled out among the free nations for standing alongside brutal authoritarian regimes such as China, one that tried to annex Indian land? What has prompted the Indian refusal to condemn what is not just an immoral act of violent invasion, but now the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in the world?