Justice and violence in India, bulldozer and otherwise

On 9 June 2022, three United Nations special rapporteurs wrote to the Modi government regarding our ‘bulldozer justice’.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Fernand de Varennes and Ahmed Shaheed wrote of their concerns regarding ‘forced evictions, housing and property demolitions directed against the Muslim minority communities in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh state, in the Anand district of Gujarat state and in the Jehangirpuri locality and other locations of New Delhi. These arbitrary housing and property demolitions were allegedly ordered by local Governments arbitrarily to punish Muslim minorities and low-income communities for intercommunal conflicts between Hindus and Muslims that had broken out during and after religious processions’.

India did not reply to this letter.

On 12 July 2023, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Manipur.

It said that violence had left at least 120 people dead and 50,000 displaced and had destroyed over 1,700 houses, over 250 churches and several temples and schools.

The resolution said that ‘intolerance towards religious and belief minorities, including Christians, contributes to the violence’; that there had been ‘concerns about politically motivated, divisive policies promoting Hindu majoritarianism, and about an increase in activity by militant groups’; and that the European Parliament seeks ‘the utmost effort to promptly halt the ongoing ethnic and religious violence, to protect all religious minorities, such as Manipur’s Christian community, and to pre-empt any further escalation’.

In response, India said this was the colonial mindset and represented an intrusion into our internal matters.

On 7 March 2024, more than two dozen United Nations human rights experts wrote to the Modi government and ‘sounded the alarm over reports of attacks on minorities, media and civil society in India’ and they called for ‘urgent corrective action’.

They said: “We are alarmed by continuing reports of attacks on religious, racial and ethnic minorities, on women and girls on intersecting grounds, and on civil society, including human rights defenders and the media.”

India did not respond to this (India generally does not respond to the United Nations though we are keen to be given a seat on its Security Council).

But let us go further back.

On 13 June 2021, the Group of Seven nations, which are advanced economies and liberal democracies, put out a sort of charter. The document was called the ‘G7 and Guest Countries: 2021 Open Societies Statement’.

The G7 are the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, plus the European Union. The guest nations invited this time to the G7 meet were South Korea, India, South Africa and Australia. The document — which is also hosted on India’s ministry of external affairs’ website — says that all these nations reaffirm their shared belief in open societies operating with democratic values and that they would embrace and encourage others to embrace these eight values, which are listed out.

• The first is human rights, both online and offline.

• The second is democracy, including ‘everyone’s right to assemble, organise and associate peacefully, within a system of accountable and transparent governance’.

• The third is social inclusion, and ‘full enjoyment of civil and political rights in both physical and digital spheres’.

• Fourth is gender equality.

• Fifth is freedom of expression, ‘both online and offline’.

• Sixth is rule of law and an independent and impartial judicial system.

• Seventh is a multilateral system with free and fair trade and global collaboration.

• Eighth is the ‘importance of civic space and partnership with diverse, independent and pluralistic civil societies, including human rights defenders, in promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms’.

These eight apparently were the ‘founding values’ which ‘define our inclusive way of life’ according to the G7. They were to be promoted by the G7 and its guest nations through the following eight steps:

• First, by ‘protecting civic space and media freedom, promoting freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of religion or belief, and by tackling all forms of discrimination’.

• Second, by ensuring that they ‘exchange information and coordinate effective responses to shared threats to human rights, democracy and the rule of law, such as disinformation and arbitrary detention’.

• Third, by promoting economic openness ‘reasserting our shared economic model which is founded on open markets’.

• Fourth, by preventing and tackling corruption.

• Fifth, by protecting the digital civic space, respecting human rights.

• Sixth, by prioritising gender equality and inclusion.

• Seventh, by collaborating on science.

• Eighth, by working towards sustainable development goals specifically to ‘promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies’.

The G7 and its guests said they would build on these commitments in other multilateral forums too.

A few points arise from this development.

Indian governments generally speaking and this government in particular are hostile to most of the things on the list. Yet the Indian prime minister signed the statement and spoke in favour of the open societies charter saying India was a naturally ally.

Perhaps we are, but the problem is that we cannot be signing these things and then doing the sort of actions that we do at home. Because if we do them, we will have to hear from the United Nations and the European Parliament. And they are not the only ones either.

The US Congress (on Kashmir), the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (on the so called ‘love jihad’ laws in various BJP states) and the US State Department (on various atrocities against minorities) have already been vocal about the state of affairs in India over this same period.

For us to have some basic credibility as a global leader wanting violence stopped elsewhere, we should first look at and acknowledge what we have done to ourselves. To not do so opens us up to the accusation of rank hypocrisy and also reduces the stature of our globetrotting peaceniks.

Views are personal. Read more of Aakar Patel’s writing here.