Democracy in Regression? India’s Expulsion of Amnesty International.
In September 2020, the human rights organisation, Amnesty International, was ousted from India after an ongoing and ‘incessant witch hunt’ by the country’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. India oversaw the departure of the watchdog in the same month as the death of 1980’s activist (and Hindu monk) Swami Agnivesh. The eighty-year-old championed the cause against labour abuses for decades and was responsible for the initial establishment of worker’s unions in rural India. The recent actions of the government imply that the world’s largest democracy is on a path of regression to the time of Agnivesh. Surely political action and human rights defence should be able to co-exist with success, and not with repression?
Amnesty International reported a forced withdrawal from India in September after their bank accounts had been frozen by a government agency. The government accuse Amnesty of violating international laws of foreign funding and claim that the Indian Enforcement Directorate, which investigates economic crimes, had reason to abruptly suspend their work. However, Amnesty asserts that these actions are the culmination of over three years of persecution related to the watchdog’s uncomfortable probes into the government’s human right’s policy. Consequently, it appears, they are also a symptom of Prime Minister Modi’s desire to hide ongoing human rights abuses at the hands of his government. During the period 2016 to 2019, Amnesty International was the target of several government investigations. These included charges of sedition, which were only dropped after three years, multiple raids of head offices in Bangalore and investigative letters have also been sent to their donors by the country’s tax department. This antagonism fits into a broader picture of government restriction of foreign non-profit groups both in terms of funding and access. This includes freezing the bank accounts of Greenpeace and raiding the office of multiple human rights lawyers. It is evident that the government is seeking to disassociate themselves with human rights investigators for a more sinister reason than matters of foreign funding. When placed in context, these actions suggest a lack of compliance and increase of policies that ‘[reek] of fear and suppression’- according to Avinash Kumar, executive director of Amnesty International.
The departure of Amnesty International coincided with two major report publications by the watchdog. These were the result of ongoing investigations into human rights abuses by the police at the Delhi riots and into government policy concerning the situation of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir held a special political autonomy which was granted under Article 370 after the historical wars between Pakistan and India. The government revoked this agreement in 2019, which prompted concern from human rights organisations that the Muslim-majority state was being silenced. This can be evidenced by the internet ban and arbitrary detention of protesters since Kashmir’s status was redacted. The government’s reaction to this report was two-fold; both to oust the watchdog responsible and lay claims that their actions in Kashmir were undertaken to preserve the sovereignty of India. The use of national rhetoric to defend aggressive government policy can be connected with the charges of sedition against Amnesty itself. It is evident that the government continually seeks to distance themselves from the critical issue of human rights in a country where poverty and abuse is rife, using a narrative of separation to imply that politics and human rights defence are not compatible.
With regards to human rights, India has suffered losses in both international aid and provincial aid. Swami Agnivesh founded the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in the early 1980s in order to use his position as a Hindu monk to foster education and security for villagers of Haryana in the face of local abuse. Agnivesh did liberate workers, but his primary contribution was highlighting pre-existing human rights laws to the local community. Agnivesh aimed to make society accountable - a localised vision of the work Amnesty achieves today. Most notably, his calls for dialogue with Muslims and better treatment of Dalits (the lowest tier of the caste system in India) escalated in his later years to include denunciation of Narendra Modi’s Hindutva movement. For Agnivesh, the Hindu, democratic government’s actions were the ultimate betrayal of inclusivity and a politicisation of the sacred- protection of all living things. The accounts of his union meetings with workers include the shouts of ‘Revolution!’, seeming to portray a political movement from a religious voice of peace. Evidently, the separation of human rights and politics is a false construct denied by those at the forefront of abuse.
In comparison with Amnesty, who have been accused of politicising the fight for human rights, Agnivesh’s message is most poignant. Human rights are not something which can be segregated and nor can politics hide from the very human effects of its policies. Each sphere is interlinked and cannot be discussed without the other. Perhaps, in light of the departure of Amnesty International, Narendra Modi’s government should consider their role in human rights, and their duty to acknowledge responsibility for their own people.
Image courtesy of GBM1980, ©2019, some rights reserved.
