New Delhi: An attempt by the US Embassy in Australia to highlight the freedoms enjoyed by Washington’s closest allies has triggered a wave of online criticism instead, with social media users questioning the credibility of the assessment and pointing to the US record on human rights.
The controversy kicked off on Tuesday after the embassy posted a map on X showing countries classified according to their levels of political rights and civil liberties.
India was marked as “partly free”, along with other countries in South Asia, excluding Bhutan, while the US and Australia appeared among the countries classified as “free”. The US, India, Australia and Japan are part of the QUAD grouping.
“This map says it best. Freedom is the foundation of our strongest partnerships. The United States and Australia stand together as free nations, where people can speak, vote, and worship as they choose. In China, those freedoms are denied,” the embassy wrote on X.
This map says it best.
Freedom is the foundation of our strongest partnerships.
The United States and Australia stand together as free nations, where people can speak, vote, and worship as they choose. In China, those freedoms are denied. pic.twitter.com/Q073TJv5ha
— U.S. Embassy Australia (@USEmbAustralia) November 10, 2026
The map was based on the annual Freedom in the World report published by Freedom House, a US-based non-profit organisation that receives funding from the American government.
India has been classified as “partly free” for the sixth consecutive year in the organisation’s 2026 assessment, which evaluates political rights and civil liberties across 195 countries and 13 territories.
The report awarded India 62 points out of 100, down from 63 in the previous assessment. India was classified as “free” until 2020, before being downgraded to “partly free” in 2021.
Explaining its assessment, Freedom House said that while India remained a multi-party democracy, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party had overseen discriminatory policies and increased persecution affecting Muslims.
It also pointed to growing pressure on journalists, non-governmental organisations and government critics. “The BJP has increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents. Muslims, Scheduled Castes (Dalits), and Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) remain economically and socially marginalised,” the report said.
But the embassy’s post soon became a target of online criticism, with users questioning both the classifications and the apparent confidence with which Washington was presenting itself as an arbiter of democratic freedoms.
Some challenged the categorisation of countries beyond India and China. Nepali analyst Dipak Gyawali asked why Nepal had not been classified as “free”, asking whether the issue was the country’s democratic credentials or Freedom House’s credibility.
Others turned the criticism towards the US and its allies, arguing that the map overlooked their own human rights controversies. One user sarcastically remarked that the freedoms being celebrated were “literally unbelievable”.
The US’s own record also became a target. One user compared Washington lecturing other countries on freedom to “Jeffrey Epstein lecturing on parenting”.
The report itself noted that among countries rated ‘free’, the US, Bulgaria, and Italy have experienced the year’s largest declines. “In the United States, an escalation in both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people’s ability to engage in free expression, and the new administration’s moves to undermine anticorruption safeguards all contributed to the negative score change. The United States lost 3 points on the report’s 100-point scale, bringing its net decline since 2005 to 12 points, more than any other country rated ‘free’ during the same period except for Nauru and Bulgaria,” it said.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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