Are We There Yet? Reflections On International Day Of Democracy

• September 15, 2025, marks eighteenth anniversary of International Day of Democracy.

• Democracy is cherished the world over, yet feared to be on shaky foundations.

• More than celebratory, the day has become a mirror to examine the state of democracy.

Today, September 15, is the eighteenth International Day of Democracy—a date the United Nations General Assembly established in 2008 to reaffirm the universal principles of democratic governance. But more than a celebration, this day now serves as a mirror: a moment to pause and reflect on the state of democracy in India and around the world.

At Outlook, Indian democracy has never been viewed as a distant dream. It has been seen as a lived reality—messy, contested, always in flux—and our writings have tracked this journey.

This special collection revisits some of Outlook's most incisive stories and issues on democracy—its betrayals and breakthroughs, its noise and nuance.

From the hurly burly of elections in India (Voice of the Electorate, May 11, 2924) to its farmer protests (Don't Let This Farmer Die, February 1, 2025), to upheavals and crises in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal, to wars in more distant lands, Outlook has remained committed to making sense of these tremors for our readers and our times.

War and Democracy, our issue from January 21, 2025, was in that sense a retrospective, a reckoning and a reminder of why democracy is a struggle worth waging everywhere in the world. From Dilip Sinha's piercing critique of the United Nations' inability to maintain the peace that democracy demands, to essays on how violence can masquerade as democratic process, we've attempted to confront the uncomfortable realities that underpin the democratic project.

The question Outlook has sought to answer of late is where did democracy ever truly live? In courtrooms, on campuses, in Parliament, on the streets, or in its larger-than-life leaders? We've followed Indian democracy everywhere, wherever the flame of justice, equality and rights continues to burn.

So is the ongoing electoral roll revision in Bihar a passing storm that will leave institutions stronger? Or is a fundamental transformation underway? And what explains the fanbase of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (discussed in our February 11, 2024 issue, Omnipresent, Omniscient)?

What perspective has time added to Indira Gandhi's complex legacy, explored in Emergency: The Legacy, The Lunacy, our October 1, 2024 issue? What makes Jawaharlal Nehru a subject of our renewed attention fifty years after he died (Re/Discovery, March 12, 2024)?

And in the wider world, democracy faces questions of another kind. Does it hinge on who loses or wins an election in the United States—Trump or Biden? Will protectionist tariff wars reshape the global democratic framework? What can we make of the United States' hasty exit from Afghanistan in 2021 (Fear of the Taliban, August 21, 2021). Seen from the perspective of women, was that exit from occupation a push away from, or towards, democracy in India's neighbourhood?