Mehbooba Mufti warns India risks becoming a 'banana republic' amid Election Commission row and Pakistan crackdowns

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti warns that democratic standards are eroding in India and Pakistan, pointing to controversies over voter roll revisions and the detention of political figures.

PDP chief and Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti have warned that democracy is coming under increasing pressure across South Asia, pointing to growing questions over the integrity of India’s electoral rolls and the detention of peaceful protesters in Pakistan.

In India, a recent media investigation claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised formal objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period. The concerns reportedly related to voter registration processes, the deletion and restoration of names, modifications to Form 6, centralization of electoral-roll data and software, access to databases, and the Special Intensive Revision exercise.

Mufti accused the BJP-led central government of eroding the autonomy of the Election Commission and turning it into a tool for political advantage. The Commission has firmly rejected these allegations, stating that every decision including those linked to the Special Intensive Revision was taken unanimously with the consent of the Chief Election Commissioner and both Election Commissioners. It maintains the exercise is intended solely to ensure clean and accurate voter lists.

The controversy has nonetheless revived fears that any perception of politically motivated additions or deletions from electoral rolls could damage India’s long-standing reputation as the “mother of democracy.”

Across the border, Pakistani authorities detained all three sisters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan, and Noreen Niazi days before a planned Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf march on September 27 demanding his release. The sisters were held under the Maintenance of Public Order law.

Mufti described the detentions as a flagrant violation of the rights to peaceful assembly and free expression, noting that the women were unarmed and protesting peacefully in support of their brother.

Drawing a parallel between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, Mufti observed that India and Pakistan often cast as rival “sibling states” appear to be competing not in development or good governance, but in the erosion of democratic norms at home. In India, the test is whether institutional checks, including internal dissent within the Election Commission, can resist executive pressure. In Pakistan, the detention of political figures and family members under public-order laws is seen by rights groups as further evidence of shrinking space for dissent.

Mufti cautioned that if these patterns persist electoral rolls viewed as open to manipulation in India and peaceful protesters routinely detained in Pakistan both countries risk sliding toward banana republic politics, where the outward forms of democracy survive but its substance is steadily hollowed out.

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