Why Does the U.S. Care More About Taiwan’s Democracy Than India’s?

When a judge in India’s Gujarat state sentenced the country’s most prominent opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, to two years in prison last month for a remark personally offensive to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was doing more than sanctioning speech in a narrowly censorious way. If it is upheld, his ruling, seemingly by design, would remove Modi’s rival from the parliament and dramatically marginalize his place in India’s politics.

In most democracies, speech in general, and political speech in particular, benefits from strong constitutional or legal protections not as a matter...