EDITORIAL: That extremist ideology and human rights are incompatible is being increasingly demonstrated by the BJP government, using high-handed tactics to silence critical voices. The other day Amnesty International (AI) announced suspension of its all ongoing campaigns and research work in India after its bank accounts were frozen by the government accusing the rights organisation of “illegal practices” involving the transfer of “large amount of money” from Amnesty UK to India. Terming the government move as witch-hunt and the accusation a blatant lie, the AI spokesman said it is in full compliance with all domestic as well as international legal requirements. “We have nothing to hide. We invite the government to show us the evidence and to bring charges against us so that we can defend it in court,” he added.
The rights group has run into trouble with the ultra-right Hindu nationalist government for exposing grave human rights violations. In October 2019, it managed to annoy the BJP leadership when testifying before the US Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on human rights in South Asia, the watchdog spoke of arbitrary detentions, the use of excessive force and torture in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIJ&K). And last August, it released two investigative reports, one highlighting police complicity in last February’s violence in Delhi that left 53 people dead, an overwhelming majority of them Muslims. The other report issued on the anniversary of 2019 illegal annexation of occupied J&K listed human rights violations and abuses in the disputed region, calling for the release of all political leaders, activists and journalists as well as the restoration of internet services in the region. That is what has rattled the ruling BJP-RSS combine rather than anything unlawful the rights organisation was doing. Voicing a growing concern, an exasperated executive director of Amnesty India, Avinash Kumar, averred: “treating human rights organizations like criminal enterprises and dissenting individuals as criminals without any credible evidence is a deliberate attempt… to stoke a climate of fear and dismantle the critical voices in India.”
India is fast losing its credentials as a liberal democracy. Civil society members taking issue with the government’s discriminatory policies are frequently hauled up and detained under trumped up charges. Even state institutions have been co-opted by the proponents of Hindutva, as the Supreme Court showed in its November 2019 verdict in the Ajodhya mosque-mandir dispute. The court ruled that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was an “egregious violation of the law” and yet in a glaring contradiction gave the go-ahead to the construction of Ram Temple in its place. Adding insult to injury, last Wednesday a federal police court in Lucknow concluding proceedings of a criminal trial after 28 long years absolved all senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi who had incited mob frenzy and presided over the December 1992 mosque destruction, of any role in it. Shocked by the decision retired high court judge Manmohan Singh Liberhan, who had headed a commission of inquiry and prepared an exhaustive report on the dispute, termed the verdict “utter farce”, saying there was “ample evidence available to prove complicity and culpability of these leaders and to demonstrate conclusively the pre-planned conspiracy behind the destruction of the disputed structure [of the Babri Masjid].” These are trying times for secular, democratic forces in India. The allegations against the AI clearly are part of an effort to stamp out dissent and turn the country into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, relegating members of minority communities to the status of second class citizens.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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