Attacks on Civil Liberties and Democracy Continue in India
Journalists, lawyers, and academics say Narendra Modi's government ignores democratic and electoral laws
May 5, 2024
By GIT Staff
Prime Minister Narendra Modi often attends mass gatherings of diaspora supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the United States, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere to celebrate Indian democracy. Meanwhile his government targets people it claims are “tarnishing the image” of the country, according to Human Rights Watch.
Last week, for instance, Avani Dias, South Asia bureau chief of Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), “had to leave India abruptly,” she posted on X. “The Modi Government told me my visa extension would be denied, saying my reporting ’crossed a line’. After Australian Government intervention, I got a mere two-month extension ...less than 24 hours before my flight,”
"It felt too difficult to do my job in India…(Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s) government wouldn't even give me the passes I need to cover the election," Dias said in an episode of her podcast, Looking for Modi.
In March, Dias was informed, via a phone call from an Indian official, that her visa would not be renewed because her most recent Foreign Correspondent episode. The episode and a related news story were blocked on YouTube in India.
The episode covered the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada last year. The Canadian government - as well as the United States government - allege that Indian government agents were involved in the murder.
In February, Vanessa Dougnac, a French freelance correspondent, had to leave India after officials sent her a notice that her visa would be cancelled. Indian officials said she did not have a permit to work as a journalist and her news reports created a “biased negative perception of India.”
In 2022, Dougnac, who spent 22 years in India, was denied permission to work as a journalist. She told Human Rights Watch that the ministry had not responded to her “repeated requests” for an explanation or review of its decision.
Also in February, Indian officials barred Nitasha Kaul, a British professor at the University of Westminster in London, from entering India to attend a conference on the Indian constitution.
In 2019, Kaul, whose family is from Kashmir, testified before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs about human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
Kaul told Human Rights Watch that she has received numerous rape and death threats from online trolls in India and overseas, who support Modi’s party.
Modi has "very clearly and categorically' breached India’s election laws, Dushyant Dave, the former President of India’s Supreme Court Bar Association told Karan Thapar in a video interview for The Wire. Dave said Modi has done this by demonizing Muslims in India and calling them infiltrators.
Dave was also critical of the Election Commission of India. He said it has “abdicated its solemn duty conferred by the Constitution” to ensure that elections in India were free and fair.
The Modi government’s “disturbing pattern of human rights abuses,” particularly targeting Muslim minority, has been largely absolved by the U.S. and Western Governments, said Emily Schmall, former Delhi-based South Asia correspondent for The New York Times. This is because of India’s “strategic position” as the fastest growing large economy and a Western ally and counter weight to China in global geo-politics, she added. Schmall made the remarks in February at the 2024 Camden Conference in Maine, U.S.
She said that foreign correspondents in India are “targets of harassment and sometimes far worse.” She had the “badge of honor” of being summoned twice by the Modi government under the guise of tea, but mainly to explain her reporting about India.
Nearly a third of India, Schmall added, is now “off limits” to foreign journalists without a special permit – “a permit that almost never comes.”
“We need to call (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's India a modern Indian fascism," Alpa Shah, Professor of Social Anthropology, Oxford University, told Karan Thapar in another video interview for The Wire.
Shah identified seven key characteristics of fascism each of which, she says, applies almost fully to India under Narendra Modi: the creation of a mythic past; the belief in a super human race; the exclusion of certain people who are treated as 'enemies'; mobs on the street; the curtailment of dissent; the nexus between government, business, and corporations; and the control of institutions.
Shah said that terms like Hindu “nationalism”, which is used to describe Modi’s rule, do not “convey the gravity of threat to democracy under way in India.”
Modi’s officials loudly proclaim they have the sovereign right to expel foreign journalists. His government though depends on Western investors and government agencies to fund economic and business projects and create jobs. Unemployment, faced by roughly 40% of the country’s youth, is the key economic issue in the national parliamentary elections currently underway. So, if the Western governments choose to do so, they have the power to influence Modi’s government to change decisions as happened with Avani Dias’ journalist visa.
ABC reported that after weeks of lobbying by Australia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Indian government overturned it’s decision and renewed Dias’ visa though for only two months and just as she was due to leave India.
Dias said that her visa cancellation and last-minute renewal was "by design. The Narendra Modi government has made me feel so uncomfortable that we decided to leave."