New Delhi: Taking a jab at Washington, India on Thursday (April 25) implied that the US, which arrested scores of university students protesting the Gaza war, should be less critical of “other fellow democracies” and stated that America will be “judged by what [it does] at home and not what [it says] abroad”.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also claimed that the US state department’s report on human rights in India, which mentioned allegations of transnational crimes and the use of antisemitic tropes, was “deeply biased”.
Last week, over 100 students at Columbia University who were doing a sit-in against Israel for conducting indiscriminate killing in Gaza since October 7 were arrested by police.
This triggered a spread of pro-Palestinian protests on the campuses of elite universities across the US, with mass arrests made in the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, New York University, Emerson College and Yale University.
During the weekly media briefing, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal implicitly took aim at Washington for criticising India for its crackdown on protestors in its response to the arrests in US universities.
“In every democracy, there has to be the right balance between freedom of expression, sense of responsibility and public safety and order. Democracies in particular should display this understanding in regard to other fellow democracies. After all, we are all judged by what we do at home and not what we say abroad,” he said.
On October 7, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a terror attack into Israel, which resulted in the death of around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
In response, Israel initiated a military offensive that has killed over 34,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.
Last month, in response to the US’s call for a “fair legal process” following the arrest of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal before the general elections, India retorted that “anyone who has [a] similar ethos, especially fellow democracies, should have no difficulty in appreciating” that legal processes were led by the rule of law.
During the 2020-21 farmers’ protests near Delhi, the US state department had urged the Indian government to “resume dialogue” with protestors.
The US had also expressed concern at the internet blackouts at the protest sites and noted that unhindered access to the internet was “fundamental to the freedom of expression”.
India had lashed out that violence at the Red Fort had “evoked similar sentiments” as the storming of Capitol Hill on January 6.
Later the same year, the Indian parliament repealed the ‘farm laws’ that the farmers were protesting against.
In April 2022, US secretary of state Anthony Blinken had said at a joint press conference with Indian ministers in Washington that his country was monitoring “a rise in human rights abuses in India by some officials”.
Blinken did not elaborate.
Neither Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar nor defence minister Rajnath Singh commented on Blinken’s remarks at the event.
A day later, Jaishankar told reporters that India had also concerns about the human rights situation in the US.
Two months later, Blinken had said at the release of the state department’s annual report on international religious freedom that in India, “we have seen rising attacks on people and places of worship”.
The MEA had sharply responded that the comments were driven by “votebank politics” and that India had concerns over “racially and ethnically motivated attacks, hate crimes and gun violence” in the US.
While India has bristled at even a pro-forma statement from the United States about any human rights situation, there has not been any response from Washington from New Delhi about similar concerns.
At Thursday’s briefing, India also took offence at the criticism encapsulated in the state department’s 2023 country reports on human rights practices.
The report mentioned the campaign led by Indian government officials against Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros, explicitly drawing accusations of antisemitism from the state department.
The report referred to broader concerns of “transnational repression” by the Indian government against journalists, activists and human rights defenders, citing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations of Indian government involvement in the killing of a pro-Khalistan activist in Canada.
In line with previous dismissals of similar criticism, Jaiswal said, “This report is deeply biased and reflects a poor understanding of India. We attach no value to it and urge you to do the same”.
