New Delhi’s fixation
India finds itself in a tight corner when it comes to human rights assessment. The same was the case as the European Commission leadership pledged to take up the issue of rights violations in occupied Kashmir with New Delhi, and called for a dialogue between feuding India and Pakistan. The 29-member EU, being the only external dialogue partner on human rights, has enough of leverage over a so-called democratic India, and any of its observations in terms of excesses committed by the latter is seen as a remorseful point.
The Commission had conveyed it in unequivocal terms to its leadership that violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir are rampant, and the tide has seen a rise since the revocation of the special autonomous status of the region on August 5, 2019. It went on to say that “systemic and intolerable suppression” of Kashmiris’ basic freedoms and fundamental rights, with loss of innocent lives, is becoming a new normal.
This diplomatic query has landed with New Delhi in the wake of its own apex court grilling the government as to when it will be able to restore the full statehood status enjoyed by Kashmir under the Indian constitution. It has put the BJP-led dispensation in a tight spot, both in diplomatic and legal terms. The Centre, nonetheless, is clueless as to what to pronounce before the Supreme Court bench hearing into the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A. This fixation underscores the inability of the rightwing Hindutva government, as it had indulged in a grave constitutional violation on the premise of its brute majority on the floor of the house, which many opine lands it in treason.
It’s time for India to read into the script that its civil society wants it to adhere to. The august bench under Chief Justice Chandrachud has opined that the constitutional challenge to the abrogation of Article 370 would have to be answered by the Centre on constitutional grounds, and not on gimmicks of statistics. The concerns of the EU and the Court must be scrutinised closely.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2023.
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