Colombo, April 14: The US State Department’s assessment of human rights violations in India in 2021 appears to be even-handed when compared with reports on some other countries. Perhaps Washington’s geopolitical interests played a role in the stance taken by the authors of these reports. The report on India is noticeably less harsh perhaps because of India’s importance for containing China in the Indo-Pacific region and also Russia in Eastern Europe, to some extent.
The report on India prepared by the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, has included violations by non-State as well as State actors and also the corrective steps taken by the State.
It reported that a lack of accountability for official misconduct persisted at all levels of government, contributing to widespread impunity. “Investigations and prosecutions of individual cases took place, but lax enforcement, a shortage of trained police officers, and an overburdened and under-resourced court system contributed to a low number of convictions,” the report said.
In March, the National Campaign Against Torture reported the deaths of 111 persons in police custody in 2020 with 82 deaths due to alleged torture or foul play. Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat reported the highest number of custodial deaths at 11 each, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 10 deaths.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal reported the deaths of 23 civilians throughout the country as a result of terrorism as of November 27.On April 3, Maoist terrorists killed 22 members of security forces in Chhattisgarh.
Following the 2019 abrogation of autonomous status for Jammu and Kashmir, authorities used a public safety law to detain local politicians without trial. However, most were subsequently released. Media reports indicated some of those released were asked to sign bonds agreeing not to engage in political activity after release. On February 13, New Delhi police arrested climate activist Disha Ravi in Bengaluru on sedition charges for creating and sharing a document that allegedly included instructions on fomenting violence. A New Delhi court gave her bail after 10 days saying that a citizen had the right to protest.
Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the Central government could authorize the security forces to use deadly force to “maintain law and order” and to arrest any person “against whom reasonable suspicion exists” without informing the detainee of the grounds for arrest. The AFSPA also provides security forces immunity from civilian prosecution for acts committed in regions under the AFSPA. AFSPA remained in effect in Nagaland, parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Assam. A version of the law was in effect in Jammu and Kashmir. The Public Safety Act (PSA), which applies only in Jammu and Kashmir, permits authorities to detain persons without charge or judicial review for up to two years without visitation from family members. The press reported that the number of PSA detentions rose to 331 from 134 in 2020.
However, the report mentions cases where the government and the courts have acted against the abuse of power. For example, on June 18, a Dalit woman collapsed and died while in police custody in Telangana. The Telangana government then fired three police officers and provided compensation to the family of the dead woman. On July 22, Ravi Jadav and Sunil Pawar, two tribals thieves, were found hanging inside a police station in the Navsari District of Gujarat. Three police officials were arrested and the Navsari police provided compensation to their families. In December 2020 the army indicted an officer and two others for extrajudicial killings in Jammu and Kashmir. Trial was underway.
The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) gives authorities the ability to detain persons for up to 180 days without charge. The NCRB Crime in India 2020 report released in September revealed that 796 new UAPA cases were registered in 2020. In 2019 parliament passed an amendment to the UAPA that allows the government to designate individuals as “terrorists” and provides new authority to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to seize properties acquired from proceeds of terrorism. Since 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir administration had booked more than 2,300 persons under the UAPA.
In September 2020 former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid was arrested under the UAPA for making a speech during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA). He remained in jail and claimed that prosecutors were delaying the start of his trial. In a related case, the Delhi High Court ordered the release of student leaders Asif Iqbal Tanha, Natasha Narwal, and Devangana Kalita in June. The three had been charged under the UAPA for allegedly conspiring to incite the 2020 Delhi riots.
Multiple courts have denied bail to the majority of 15 activists incarcerated on conspiracy charges related to the Elgaar Parishad Bhima Koregaon protests that resulted in several deaths. 85 year old and ailing Fr.Stan Swamy had died in jail in this case.
In Central and Eastern India, armed conflicts between Maoist insurgents and government security forces over land and mineral resources in tribal forest areas continued. Human rights advocates alleged the security operations sought not only to suppress terrorism but also to force tribal populations from their land.
Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2021 report downgraded India’s ranking from “Free” to “Partly Free,” due in part to “a crackdown on expressions of dissent by media, and on academics, civil society groups and protesters.” The Freedom House report stated authorities used security, defamation, sedition, and hate speech laws, as well as contempt-of-court charges, to curb critical voices.
Some media outlets practiced self-censorship in response to the government’s reportedly withholding public-sector advertising from some outlets critical of the government.
On January 1, the Madhya Pradesh police arrested stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui and four other persons for offending religious sentiments with jokes he allegedly planned to perform. The Supreme Court granted Faruqui bail in February, stating that the allegations against him were vague. On May 13, Manipur police arrested social activist Erendro Leichombam for a Facebook post critical of a BJP leader who advocated cow dung and cow urine as cures for COVID-19. On July 19, the Supreme Court granted bail to Leichombam, who was previously kept in preventive detention under the National Security Act after being granted bail by a lower court.
Reporters without Borders’ 2021 World Press Freedom Index described India as being “very dangerous” for journalists. The report also mentioned “coordinated hate campaigns waged on social networks,” against journalists, as a major area of concern. Harassment and violence were particularly acute for female journalists.
In Kashmir in 2020, the government introduced a media regulation empowering the local administration to determine “fake and anti-national news” and to initiate criminal charges.
In January, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, and New Delhi police filed charges against journalists Rajdeep Sardesai, Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath, Anant Nath, Vinod K. Jose; and MP Shashi Tharoor. The charges included sedition in their comments on a violent January 26 protest. The Supreme Court granted the individuals a stay of arrest on February 9.
On June 15, the Uttar Pradesh police filed charges against Twitter; online news platform The Wire; journalists Rana Ayyub, Saba Naqvi, and Mohammad Zubair; and also Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Masqoor Usmani, and Sama Mohammad for “stoking communal unrest” by posting video footage of an assault of an elderly Muslim man.
There were government restrictions on access to the internet. The NGO, Software Freedom Law Center, reported that the central and state governments conducted localized internet shutdowns 36 times as of October.
NGOs that received foreign funding had been trouble. The government suspended foreign banking licenses or froze accounts of NGOs that had allegedly received foreign funding without authorization or that they had unlawfully mixed foreign and domestic funding. Human Rights activist Harsh Mander was one of those proceeded against.
END
