internal matter

India Summons German Diplomat After Concerns Expressed on Kejriwal’s Arrest

After a German foreign ministry spokesperson addressed Kejriwal’s arrest yesterday, India’s external affairs ministry has said it perceived “such remarks as interfering in our judicial process and undermining the independence of our judiciary”.

New Delhi: A day after Germany expressed its expectation for standards of judicial independence to be upheld in the arrest of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday (March 23) summoned a senior German diplomat and lodged a “strong protest”, citing interference in India’s legal proceedings.

In a press release, the MEA said on Saturday that the German deputy chief of mission in New Delhi was “summoned today” and that it “conveyed India’s strong protest on their Foreign Office Spokesperson’s comments on our internal affairs”.

The MEAs’ summons only called for the attendance of the second-highest ranking diplomat in the German embassy and not the ambassador, who is in town.

Yesterday, Sebastian Fischer, a spokesperson for Germany’s foreign ministry, responded to a query regarding the German federal government’s evaluation of Kejriwal’s arrest.

“We have taken note of the case. India is a democratic country. We assume and expect that the standards relating to the independence of the judiciary and fundamental democratic principles will also apply in this case,” Fischer said, as per the transcript of the media briefing.

He also underlined that Kejriwal is “entitled to a fair, unbiased trial”, which he said “includes the right to make use of all existing legal remedies without restriction”.

“The presumption of innocence is a central element of the rule of law and must apply to it [Kejriwal’s case],” Fischer stressed.

The Indian MEA responded that it perceives “such remarks as interfering in our judicial process and undermining the independence of our judiciary”.

“India is a vibrant and robust democracy with rule of law. As in all legal cases in the country, and elsewhere in the democratic world, law will take its own course in the instant matter. Biased assumptions made on this account are most unwarranted,” said the MEA’s statement.

The arrest of Kejriwal, who is also head of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), took place just ahead of voting for the parliamentary elections next month.

His AAP government in Delhi is accused of granting liquor licenses to certain traders in exchange for bribes under a now-scrapped liquor policy first implemented in 2021.

Delhi’s deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, has been jailed in the case since February last year.

The AAP has denied the charges as being politically motivated.

In July 2022, Germany had also expressed concern on the arrest of fact-checking journalist Mohammed Zubair, noting that “journalists should not be persecuted and imprisoned for what they say and write”.

India had responded sharply that “uninformed comments are not helpful”.

A few months later, in October 2022, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock had said that Germany supported the active role of the United Nations in resolving the Kashmir issue, which led the MEA to implicitly criticise Berlin.

When Angela Merkel visited India as German chancellor in November 2019, she had also spoken critically about the situation in Kashmir as there were ongoing internet and mobile lockdowns following the change in the constitutional status of the province.

‘It Is Very Painful That Whenever Sikhs Protest They Are Branded as Khalistanis’: UK MP

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, a labour party MP in the British House of Commons, has been tweeting and making strong statements about the farmers’ protests in and out of parliament.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, a labour party MP in the British House of Commons, has been tweeting and making strong statements about the farmers’ protests in and out of parliament. Dhesi, who is of Indian origin, represents Slough, just outside London and the most diverse constituencies in all of the UK. People of South Asian origin are among the largest minorities in Slough.

Dhesi’s statements have angered the Indian government and this week’s debate in the British parliament on the protests and human rights in India, prompted the Indian foreign secretary to summon the British high commissioner in Delhi to advise MPs not to speak about the internal matters of another country. In 2019, civil aviation and housing minister Hardeep Puri had said he wouldn’t have met Dhesi in India if he had known about the MP’s views on Kashmir.

Dhesi said he’s outspoken about issues such as the mistreatment of minorities in Pakistan, and Article 370, because “if we do not stand for the rights of others, then what exactly are we doing in media and politics?”

In an interview to The Wire, Dhesi said “human rights are a universal issue” and the British parliament had held debates on abuses in other countries as well. He said he has always being outspoken and have to also represent the concerns of his constituents.

Dhesi said it pains him and other Sikhs in the UK that when they hold langars they are good and when they raise their voice they become Khalistanis.

Here’s the video of the full interview.

At UNHRC, India Slams Pakistan, Turkey, OIC for ‘Baseless’ Remarks on Kashmir Issue

Using its Right of Reply at the 46th session of the UNHRC, India said it was not surprised that Islamabad’s representative misused the UN forum yet again.

Geneva: India on Wednesday slammed Pakistan for misusing international platforms for “baseless and malicious propaganda” against it and said Islamabad would do well to put its own house in order, before venturing to point a finger at New Delhi.

On the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir, India also slammed Turkey’s remarks on its “internal affairs”, terming them as “completely unacceptable”.

New Delhi also rejected the statement by Yousef A Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the UN Human Rights Council, terming them as “factually incorrect and unwarranted references to India”, according to news reports.

“As far as the subject of UN Resolutions is concerned, we would advise Turkey to practise what it preaches by first implementing those UN resolutions that apply to it,” second secretary of India’s Permanent Mission in Geneva, Seema Pujani, said.

Using its Right of Reply under the high-level segment of the 46th session of the Human Rights Council in response to a statement by Pakistan’s representative, India said it was not surprised that Islamabad’s representative misused the UN forum yet again.

Also read: From One Year of the Gag to the Next, ‘Normalcy’ in Kashmir Comes at a Price

“Pakistan’s continued misuse of various platforms to engage in baseless and malicious propaganda against India is not new,” Pujani, said.

She asserted that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an “integral and inalienable part of India”.

“The steps taken by the government to ensure good governance and development in these Union Territories are our internal matters,” Pujani said.

As a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records, Pakistan would do well to put its own house in order, before venturing to point a finger at India, the diplomat said.

Highlighting the violence and institutionalised discrimination and persecution faced by Pakistan’s minorities, including Christians, Sikhs and Hindus, she said that there have been frequent attacks on the places of worship of minority communities.

“The condition of women belonging to minority communities, notably Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, remains deplorable. An estimated 1,000 women from minority communities are subjected to abduction followed by forced conversion and forced marriage in Pakistan every year, according to a recent report published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,” she said.

India also raised the issue of political repression in Balochistan, and other regions and enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture in Pakistan.

“Several Baloch human rights defenders have even met tragic death under mysterious circumstances, while in exile. Pashtuns and Sindhis have continued to struggle against the systemic oppression and discrimination,” the diplomat said.

Noting that Pakistan has been the home and patron to the largest number of internationally proscribed terrorist entities and individuals in the world, Pujani said the state-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan is a threat, not only to India but to other countries in the region and beyond.

The Indian diplomat also highlighted the recent acquittal of al-Qaeda terrorist and murderer of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, Omar Saeed Sheikh, by Pakistan’s Supreme Court and said it is “a clear example of the Pakistan establishment’s nexus with such entities.”

“We request the Council to call upon Pakistan to take credible and irreversible steps to end state-sponsored terrorism and dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the territories under its control,” she said.

(With inputs from PTI)

An Anti-Emergency Statement by Americans in 1976 Did Not Break India. Nor Will a Couple of Tweets.

When 80 eminent Americans signed a scathing public statement on the repression of human rights during the Emergency, they gave the opposition parties a vital morale boost, but the sovereignty of the country remained intact.

Two tweets from two foreigners – a teenage Swedish climate activist and a Barbadian-American singer – have posed such a serious threat to India’s sovereignty that the entire government, the BJP’s troll factory workers, suave ministers, the media and motley celebrities have all been busy defending the nation through copy-paste tweets.

A section of the media is even investigating the private and extravagant life of singer Rihanna, while others are looking at the international conspiracy hatched by activist Greta Thunberg to support Indian farmers braving the cold weather, the concrete walls and the concertina barriers set up at the borders of Delhi to prevent them from entering the national capital. Until the Delhi Police formally denied all the news reports of a first information report (FIR) against Thunberg, it looked as though our journey to la la land was almost complete.

The social media comments by Rihanna and Thunberg against what is happening to farmers are reminiscent of the statement from eminent Americans against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. But the reaction from BJP politicians today is in stark contrast to their attitude towards such ‘interference in India’s internal affairs’ back then.

Foreigners to the rescue

During the Emergency in 1976, when brutal repression by the Indira Gandhi government was at its peak and some of the Jana Sangh (BJP in its earlier avatar) leaders were in jail along with socialists, communists, Gandhians and students, 80 Americans issued a scathing statement against the Congress government. The signatories were an eclectic mix – Arthur Ashe, the first Black player to win the Wimbledon championship, Joan Baez, the folk singer and pacifist, Ralph Ellison, the African-American novelist whose Invisible Man had acquired cult status, authors John Updike and Norman Mailer, anthropologist Milton Singer, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, poet Allen Ginsberg, social critic Noam Chomsky, former attorney general of the United States Ramsey Clark, academics Francine Frankel and Charles Frankel, Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and a whole lot of others.

The Emergency was a period when justice had taken leave from Indian courts and censorship ensured that the opposition got no space in the Indian media; it had to rely on the foreign press and individuals to put its views across. The opposition gained a lot from the international outrage and political parties like the BJP got a permanent club with which to beat the Congress.

Also read: Rich Farmers, Global Plots, Local Stupidity

Every year, the anniversary of the Emergency is remembered by the ruling dispensation as the darkest phase of Indian democracy. Rightly so. But the same government is in knots now over tweets.

The government should read the 1976 American statement. The Ministry of External Affairs, often working as an extension of the BJP’s social media cell, should read it too, and tell its minister to keep his counsel. Indian sovereignty remained intact in 1976, despite Indira Gandhi blaming the US’s Central Intelligence Agency for everything, as it will in 2021. The struggle against the Emergency lent credibility to the BJP as it will to the farmers protesting against the farm laws.

Interestingly, the statement issued in March 1976 was organised by Dorothy Norman, a biographer of Jawaharlal Nehru, who Indira Gandhi had known. Other organisers were Sidney Hertzberg, a former correspondent of the Hindustan Times and Ved Mehta who worked with the New Yorker magazine and had taken American citizenship. So it was an all-American cast. Norman and Hertzberg, as the New York Times pointed out, were active in the India League of America.

The past as the present

Unlike tweets limited to 280 characters, the statement was a scathing three paragraphs. If it had been issued in 2021, its signatories would have faced FIRs in remote parts of the country, just like many Indian journalists and opposition leaders.

The statement said: “We are Americans concerned with maintaining and furthering human rights, and our concern extends to all people throughout the world. Consequently, we are distressed by the loss of fundamental human rights in India following the proclamation of a national emergency there on 26 June 1975. Thousands of critics of the government have been arrested without charge and without even the right of habeas corpus. The press has been put under strict censorship and government control. Now the Emergency has been extended and national elections have been cancelled.”

Also read: Bad Girl Diplomacy Takes Ministry of External Affairs By Storm

The statement further said: “We deplore these events, especially in India because there democracy was established after a long struggle for freedom led by some of the greatest contemporary exponents of human rights and also because the respect of democratic India for these human rights was for so many years a beacon light for all newly independent and developing countries.”

The concluding paragraph painted a grim scenario if basic human rights were not restored soon: “Experience shows that when human rights are suppressed anywhere they are threatened everywhere and that the longer they are suppressed, the longer it takes to restore them. We therefore call for the restoration of these rights in India.”

A peculiar aspect of the 1976 statement by the Americans is that much of it reads as though it refers to the India of 2021.

Akshaya Mukul is a Delhi-based journalist and author of Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India.