The Narendra Modi government frequently posits India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ or world leader. How the world sees India is often lost in this branding exercise.
Outside India, global voices are monitoring and critiquing human rights violations in India and the rise of Hindutva. We present here fortnightly highlights of what a range of actors – from UN experts and civil society groups to international media and parliamentarians of many countries – are saying about the state of India’s democracy.
Read the fortnightly roundup for October 16-31, 2024.
Canada-India
On October 14, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s national police, held a press conference to publicly disclose allegations that officials of the government of India are implicated in criminal acts (including murder) targeting Sikh dissidents in Canada. Most recently, Canada has alleged India’s Home Minister, Amit Shah, is involved. We present below a dedicated section on media reports and reactions (from this fortnight) to Canada’s allegations, touching not only on Canada-India relations, but on India’s standing in the world.
Toronto Star, Canada, October 16
In his opinion piece, Robin Sears writes that India will “pay a heavy price” for the “diplomatic disaster” brewing, as criminal allegations against the Indian government are being investigated by Canadian police. Sears writes that “India has for many years ordered killing, or at least indulged its intelligence agency in spying on, harassing, and threatening” Indian-origin citizens in many countries.
He reveals that more than 20 countries with significant South Asian populations have intel about India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and its “criminal behaviours in their country”, from alleged poisoning, murdering Sikh activists, to arming a military regime. In light of the Canadian police’s revelations of evidence against Indian agents, Sears says countries may now want to move from private nudges to “make it clear publicly that India’s behaviour is intolerable”.
He warns that past thinking among countries that India’s flawed international diplomacy could be accommodated in light of “strategic and economic interests” has to shift to now “wonder when their day will come; when their national police will feel compelled to call a press conference to denounce the Indian government as a criminal in their country”.
Toronto Star, Canada, October 17
The Toronto Star’s Editorial Board writes that while Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau can be accused of “naiveté in international affairs”, he had “no option” but to “aggressively expel” Indian diplomats in light of India’s “brazen and dangerous disregard for the rule of law in a sovereign nation”. The Board recognises there may have been “more diplomatic ways” of dealing with this, “but India would not allow it”.
Indian officials have repeatedly rebuffed Canadian and American attempts to get India to cooperate with the investigation, and have “rejected” detailed evidence recently presented to them by Canadian police. The scale of allegations is “stunning”, eight people are charged with murder and “22 are charged with intimidation, coercion, harassment and uttering threats”. While the ‘Five Eyes’ partners (the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK) are backing Canada’s calls for India to cooperate, the Board also points out that they are “all walking a fine line supporting Ottawa while trying not to alienate Modi”.
Read a summary of the Five Eyes responses here.
CBC News, Canada, October 16
Benjamin Lopez Steven presents “ key takeaways” from Justin Trudeau’s testimony delivered on October 16 at a public inquiry on foreign interference. With regard to India, Trudeau shared two important revelations. He said that the initial investigative assessment on the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar was that it was a gang or criminal-related, and it was South Asian leaders and parliamentarians who “suggested the government of India was involved”. It was only after this input that Trudeau requested agencies to investigate this angle. He also shared that his government decided they would not go public with the allegations against the Indian government on Nijjar’s killing, before the G20 summit in September 2023, as India was hosting the summit. When Trudeau shared the allegations and his concerns in a private conversation with Narendra Modi at the summit, he said Modi responded by saying there are people who are “outspoken against the Indian government in Canada that he would like to see arrested”.
Read an editorial in the Canadian paper, The Globe and Mail, with criticisms of Justin Trudeau’s stance towards India at his October 16th testimony.
Toronto Star, Canada, October 19
Allan Woods reports that the investigation into criminal activity by Indian officials in Canada is revealing “suspicious incidents from Brampton to British Columbia, and as far away as California, Italy and Australia”. Across countries, Sikhs who criticise the Indian government or advocate for an independent Sikh homeland have reported “verbal or physical threats that they believe are linked to their activism”. This continues the long-known “obsessive focus on Sikh separatists” of Indian security services.
Woods writes that even after Canada went public with accusations of the Indian government being involved in Nijjar’s killing in September 2023, threats to Sikh activists have not declined. He documents life-threatening incidents against activists in California (USA) and Australia as well as numerous cases in which activists have been told they will be denied visas to India or “threatened with arrest”. Priya Chocka, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, says “this has all come out in the open because India has just refused to cooperate with Canada”.
Washington Post, USA, October 29
A report states that Canada’s deputy foreign affairs minister David Morrison alleged that India’s home minister Amit Shah “ordered a campaign of violence, intimidation and intelligence-gathering” targeting Sikh activists in Canada, in his testimony before Canada’s parliamentary committee on national security held on October 29. Morrison also confirmed that he had passed Shah’s name to the Washington Post, which first reported the allegations. He did not divulge how Canada knew of Shah’s suspected involvement. In her testimony to the Committee, Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, said that Canada has evidence the Indian government “first gathered information on Indian nationals and Canadian citizens in Canada through diplomatic channels and proxies”. Drouin also said that the Canadian government decided to go public with the allegations against India “when it became evident the Indian government would not cooperate with Canada on proposed accountability measures”.
Read more here and here about the RCMP’s evidence on the involvement of the “highest levels” of the Indian government
And in other media updates…
Al Jazeera, Qatar, October 15
Mukta Joshi traces the journey of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) which despite “its claims of non-partisanship” has emerged as an “effective advocate” of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Joshi says when it was first established 20 years ago, HAF “was not formed to champion the Indian government” but it has done so since Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. HAF has met legislators to “influence” the American government to push for laws it wants on US foreign policy on India. It has also “acted in the US to counter the Modi government’s critics”.
Joshi points to several instances where HAF has refuted reports that minorities in India are being persecuted. While HAF publicly denies its relations with the Indian government and the BJP, Joshi writes that it is “treading a fine line” as its partisan activities raise questions whether it should register as a “foreign agent” under US law. Joshi also documents that HAF Board members are political donors and several are affiliated to Hindu nationalist organisations in the US.
Rest of World, USA, October 15
Parth MN reports on how Hindu nationalists are using WhatsApp to mobilise targeted attacks on Christians and Christian places of worship in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. He further exposes that organisations like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) are carrying out forced conversions of Christians to Hinduism. Since 2022, “according to local VHP officials, hundreds of Christian families in Bastar have been converted”. The VHP imposes conversions through “funeral attacks” in which it organises mobs (through WhatsApp) to reach Christian families just as they are about to bury a deceased family member and forcibly prevent burials until they convert. Parth writes that the VHP wants Bastar’s residents, mostly from indigenous tribes with no organised religion, “to identify as Hindus”. The VHP also claims that conversions to Christianity are the “real problem”. While forced conversions are illegal in Chhattisgarh, Degree Prasad Chouhan, president of the state chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), says “the laws are not applied equally for Hindus and Christians”.
The New Statesman, UK, October 19
Naomi Klein presented Arundhati Roy with the PEN Pinter Prize on October 10 and in this edited version of her speech at the ceremony, she underscores “why we need Arundhati Roy”. She reminds the audience that just as PEN announced the 2024 award to Roy, it was reported that “she could face charges under India’s draconian anti-terrorism laws” and media frenzy of the kind “that has brought angry mobs to her door before”. She describes Roy’s nonfiction work as similar to a “war correspondent” on the “places and people experiencing maximum pain, maximum injustice, maximum state violence” like “Kashmir, the Maoist insurgency, the aftermath of the Gujarat Massacre”.
Klein stresses that Roy, and an Egyptian writer being honoured while he is in jail, are “in danger” and we must face “the reality that we have entered a brazen new stage of state violence”. Klein concludes by saying while there is fear, “there are many new alliances to make, new solidarities to forge, new strategies to devise”.
New York Times, USA, October 22
Suhasini Raj profiles Umar Khalid, a young Indian Muslim political activist, whom Raj describes as a “a symbol of the wide-ranging suppression of dissent under Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. While Khalid has been speaking out against anti-Muslim hate for a long time, “he became more vocal after Mr. Modi’s rise to national power, which injected deeper violence into the existing anti-Muslim prejudice”. Khalid has been in jail for four years without a trial on terrorism charges. He has been accused of making anti-government speeches and participating in WhatsApp groups that were organizing protests against a citizenship law with grave implications for Indian Muslims. Khalid’s time in pretrial detention shows how the “process is the punishment”, said his father Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas. His bail applications have been rejected thrice in lower courts, the Supreme Court has postponed his bail hearings “at least a dozen times”, and often when Khalid is taken to court, judges will recuse themselves. Mr Ilyas says, “In India today, one has to pay a price for speaking the truth, and it is very easy to frame someone with a Muslim name these days.”
Climate Home News, UK, October 28
An investigation by Climate Home, an climate justice journalism initiative based in the UK, shows that the Indian government “weakened rules to curb pollution” after “lobbying” by “state-run” Indian coal “giants”. Coal India Limited and the National Thermal Power Corporation “pushed back hard” against regulation of disposal of “fly-ash”, a “by-product” of coal fired power plants which can “blow away” or “leach into groundwater”, causing air pollution and damaging crops. Stringent fly-ash disposal is necessary after “decades of public health impacts for local communities”.
In 2021, the Indian government introduced requirements for companies to use and clean up all accumulated ash, and heavy fines for non-compliance of its proper disposal. The companies lobbied to get the fines reduced and “loopholes” introduced to lessen the other requirements. For instance, in their correspondence, the companies argued high fines risked coal plants being shut down and could lead to a “power crisis”. Shripad Dharmadhikary, a member of a fly-ash watch group, says that “loopholes” and “lack of technical parameters” means that it is not possible to “guarantee that no more leaks would occur” even when the government certifies that pollution has been addressed. These companies are expanding at “record speed” despite India having “agreed internationally to phase down the use of coal”.
Parliamentarians and public officials advocate
In a press briefing on October 15, Mathew Miller, a spokesperson for the US State Department was asked about India’s response to Canada’s public allegations against the Indian government. Miller replied that the US perceived the allegations against India as “extremely serious” and they wanted to “see India take them seriously and cooperate with Canada’s investigation”, but India “has not chosen that path”. Miller also said India “continues to be an incredibly strong partner of the United States”. He shared that the US government has been having “conversations” with the Indian government “at the senior-most levels” over the last few months.
On October 17, the US Justice Department announced that “murder-for-hire and money laundering charges” have been filed against an Indian government employee, Vikash Yadav, “in connection with his role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City”, with co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta. Yadav was still at large. “Today’s charges are a grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and “let there be no doubt that the Department of Justice is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable no matter who they are or where they reside”. Notably, Gupta told American undercover officers, about a day after the Nijjar murder in Canada, that Nijjar “was also the target” and “we have so many targets.”
Dr. Philipp Ackerman, the current German Ambassador to India, sent a condolence letter to Manjeera, Dr. G.N. Saibaba’s daughter, dated October 17 expressing his shock and sadness at Saibaba’s “early death”. He shared that meeting Saibaba left a “deep impression” on him and wrote that “your father’s story, his long imprisonment and his unwavering commitment to civic rights in India commanded a tremendous amount of respect from me”.
Thierry Mathou, the current French Ambassador to India, sent a condolence letter to Dr. Saibaba’s wife, Vasantha Kumari, about “how saddened” he was at the news of Saibaba’s passing. He wrote about how “as a committed academic, writer, and human rights activist”, Saibaba’s work “was known and appreciated in India and beyond”. The Ambassador also conveyed heartfelt condolences “on behalf of the Embassy of France in India”.
G.N. Saibaba was an Indian scholar and activist who was severely disabled and incarcerated for about a decade, after being sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges. Saibaba was exonerated of all charges and released in March 2024. He passed away on October 12, 2024.
Experts say
The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University published a factsheet on October 15 on Ekal-USA (Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation), a sister organisation of Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of India (Ekal-India). Ekal-USA is Texas-based with over 70 chapters in several US cities, and Ekal-India is a “Hindu nationalist group that operates single-teacher schools in India”. Two prominent members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu “supremacist paramilitary organisation”, were the first to develop the concept of these schools. Ekal-USA was founded by an RSS leader and funds “more than 74,401” Ekal schools in India. The schools are run by eight organizations in coordination with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. These one-teacher schools teach curriculum which is designed by Ekal-India to students in rural and tribal areas of India. Prominent Hindu nationalist leaders are listed as promoting and expanding Ekal schools; school officials, in turn, hold positions in Hindu far-right groups. Ekal-India has been “accused of promoting hatred towards religious minorities”. After an incident of anti-Christian violence in Madhya Pradesh in 2004, peace activist Harsh Mander said part of the mobilisation included “local teachers” of Ekal Vidalayas.
As the Indian government vies for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, Amnesty International said in a statement dated October 21 that India “is falling short of its domestic and international human rights obligations”. Amnesty states that if India is serious about its bid, “it needs to demonstrate that it can engage responsibly with UN human rights entities” and “commit to upholding the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”. Amnesty recounts that since 2019 India has been “the subject of around 25 statements from UN human rights experts” expressing concerns about human rights violations by India. Over several rounds of Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR), India has “not shown progress in implementing recommendations”, including failing to ratify the Convention Against Torture. Between 2011 and 2024, the Indian government “received over 200 communications from UN Special Procedures”, and has responded to “less than a third”. According to the statement, in response to two reports on the situation of human rights in Kashmir by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Indian authorities have vilified the reports rather than engaging.
China Global South Project podcast hosts Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden interviewed Sushant Singh, lecturer of South Asian Studies at Yale University on October 22, about the recent agreement between India and China to disengage along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). In four main points, Singh focussed on India’s willingness to reach a compromise. First, a continuing border conflict with China was “very, very embarrassing” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “strong man image”. In light of the “power differential” with China, said Singh, Modi turns “very timid and very shy”. Secondly, it is Pakistan, not China, which is India’s “primary nationalist target” and the military’s focus on the border with China lessens India’s ability to threaten Pakistan. Third, India needs China for its own economic, trade and technology interests. Lastly, India wants to pursue an “independent foreign policy.” It also wants to continue to be “authoritarian” and “Hindu majoritarian” despite what the West says, including on “transnational repression”. For a path of aggression with China, India would need help from the West. On the other hand, “peaceful” relations with China allow India less Western interference in its domestic and foreign policies. .
The World Association of News Publisher (WAN-IFRA) and the Inter American Press Association (SIP-IAPA), supported by UNESCO, jointly released a report entitled “Misuse of Economic Charges to Silence, Threaten and Attack the Press” on October 23. Based on 8 case studies including NewsClick in India, the report “highlights how effective the misuse of financial crimes allegations is in silencing journalists and media outlets”. Bringing charges of financial crimes – ranging from tax evasion to money laundering to terrorism financing – is used to attack both “financial viability” and the “reputation” of journalists. The prosecutions of these crimes often lead to closure of offices, freezing of assets, prison time, and financial ruin of the media organisation. On NewsClick in India, the report notes that it is a “worrying example of where broad anti-terrorism laws are applied to silence critical media outlets”. It states that the “misuse” of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against NewsClick indicate the “abuse of anti-terror laws for political purposes.” Andrew Heslop, Executive Director, Press Freedom, WAN-IFRA describes such actions as “lawfare” forcing media “to fight for the right to do journalism”.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a global organization which works for “the freedom, pluralism and independence of journalism”, called upon Prime Minister Modi to “immediately loosen the stranglehold on local media” in Jammu and Kashmir, in a statement dated October 24. Drawing attention to the recent elections in the region which brought into power those who promised “restoring press freedom”, RSF says that the “clear signal” to the Prime Minister is that “the repression of Kashmiri reporters must stop”. Celis Mercier, Head of RSF’s South Asia desk, notes that “over the past five years, a quarter of the journalists imprisoned under false pretexts in India come from Jammu and Kashmir.” Three journalists currently in detention include Abdul Aala Fazili, Irfan Mehraj and Majid Hyderi. RSF also notes that “at least 10 journalists are currently being denied passports.” Given such “assaults on the rule of law and press freedom”, Mercier declares that “this reign of terror must come to an end.”
The Global Nature Conservation Index, released on October 24, ranks India among the top 5 worst performers in conservation efforts. On the basis of 4 key pillars and 25 performance indicators, the Index places India at 176 among 180 countries. Described as home to among the world’s most diverse wildlife and habitats, India scored well on ratification of international treaties on biological diversity and endangered species, and on the full range of ecosystems and habitats present in its existing protected areas. However, India’s performance plummets in several areas. Because of “habitat loss and fragmentation by agriculture, urbanization, and infrastructural development” India ranks a very low 177 under the key pillar, “Threats to Biodiversity”. Under the pillar “Land Management”, India ranks a low 174 on the indicator “protected areas terrestrial” with the Index stating that “7.5% of India’s terrestrial area is protected” and only 0.2% of national waters are protected. The Index stresses the need for “sustainable land use” in India since “land conversion for urban, industrial, and agricultural purposes has reached 53%”.
The Global Tuberculosis Report 2024 report, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) on October 29, monitors progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) at global, regional and country levels. Based on 2023 data, the report shows that India is the highest contributor to the global incidence of TB (26%); to the incidence of drug-resistant TB at 27%, and to the gap between estimated and reported TB incidence (16%). India is also among the 30 high TB burden countries where more than 15% of the population faces “catastrophic health expenditure”. An article in The Wire explains that spending “more than 20% of a household’s annual income” on TB treatment is considered “catastrophic”. The Wire also analyses the data of the WHO report and finds that “India has missed the goals set for two out of three interim milestones for 2025” towards the WHO goal of elimination of TB by 2035. It notes that unlike any other country in the world, India has declared a target of achieving TB elimination by 2025 itself.
Indian diaspora and civil society groups
Political Research Associates (a US-based social justice research and strategy centre offering support to change makers) and SAVERA (a US-based multiracial, interfaith, anti-caste coalition) jointly published a report profiling the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). They describe HAF as a “key node in the global Hindu supremacist (or Hindutva) movement” and part of “an emerging multiracial far right in the US”. The report lists three key aspects of HAF’s far-right advocacy in the US. First, HAF has “furiously fought” to prevent legal protection against caste discrimination, akin to “white supremacist tactics”. Second, it has “demonized Indian American Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs in the U.S”. Third, it makes “great efforts” to justify human rights violations by India’s ruling BJP. Savera warns that “HAF was often able to enter U.S. civil society spaces”, enabling it “to advance the marginal and supremacist politics of Hindutva into spaces the movement had previously failed to reach”. The report documents HAF’s “deep and ongoing financial, organisational and interpersonal ties” with “Hindu supremacist actors” in the US and India.
12 Ummah (a platform of voices of Muslims around the world), released a video titled “The Long Shadow of UAPA: The story of Prof G.N. Saibaba” on October 12, the day of his death. Images and video clips of Saibaba, as well as those who spoke in his support, are accompanied by a commentary that recounts that he endured almost a decade of incarceration after being arrested on terrorism charges in May 2014, shortly after the BJP came to power under Narendra Modi. The video also documents the support received by Prof Saibaba in April 2020 from a UN panel of human rights experts who urged the Indian government to release Saibaba immediately due to his deteriorating health, despite which he was not released. In March 2024, Saibaba was exonerated of all charges against him for lack of evidence and procedural irregularities. The video captures the shock and disbelief expressed by friends and supporters at his “untimely demise” on October 12. “Lamenting that he could not enjoy the freedom he fought so hard to attain after enduring prolonged repression by the state”, Saibaba’s death is declared to be a “profound injustice and institutional murder”.
On October 17, South Asian Left (SALAM), a diaspora group based in the US, announced the launch of the ‘Tata Bye Bye” campaign in a press release. The campaign demands that the “Tata Group disclose all contracts with Israel, and divest from them”. As a “major player in the U.S. economy”, the release stresses the Tata Group’s “extensive involvement in defence projects” including “military operations in occupied Palestinian territories”. These include joint ventures with Israeli defence firms that provide “missile systems and electronic warfare technologies”. The campaign also calls upon the New York Road Runners “to drop Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as a sponsor of the New York City Marathon due to TCS’s critical role in enabling Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”. TCS, “the most valuable subsidiary of Tata Group”, has provided Israel with digital services (such as cloud computing), which are “essential to Israel’s military operations and its broader system of digital control, which enables the surveillance and repression of Palestinian civilians”.
On October 30, 25 South Asian organisations and allies in Canada sent an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, calling for “listing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates in Canada as hate groups/far right extremist entities”. Recalling the RCMP allegations against Indian government agents being involved in criminal activity targeting Sikh dissidents in Canada, the letter cites an “extensive report” from 2023 which links “anti-Sikh violence in Canada to extremist groups like the RSS and their family of organizations, the Sangh Parivar”. The letter also calls on the Canadian government to investigate the influence of, and any human rights violations by the RSS and its affiliates in Canada and take measures to protect South Asians and other minorities.
Read the previous roundup here.
