India, Pakistan "think alike" on foreign NGOs like Amnesty which focus on human rights

A former high-profile Government of India official is all set to create a flutter by pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have taken up the cause of Balochistan, yet the “credit for spreading universal publicity on human rights abuses in Balochistan goes to the London-based Amnesty International”, under attack in India.
Noting that the same Amnesty “paradoxically is now facing our Union Home Ministry’s close attention”, Valappa Balachandran, ex-special secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, said, “It is odd that both Pakistan and India think alike on foreign NGOs like Amnesty."
An national security intelligence specialist and a former Indian police officer, Balachandran served 17 years in Maharashtra, and 19 years in foreign intelligence service. He retired as special secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, in 1995. and is based in Mumbai.
Recently, in India Amnesty has been charged with sedition by Hindu fundamentalists for arranging a Kashmir meeting in Bengaluru, recalls Balachandran, pointing out that it is the same organization which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.
“Its 2015-16 annual report said that ‘in April, a human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud was killed after hosting a discussion on Balochistan at her cafe in Karachi. Her driver, a key witness, subsequently was shot dead, despite the Sindh Witness Protection Act 2013 that was passed to protect witnesses’,” Balachandran says.

Pointing our similarity of attacks in India and Pakistan on civil rights organizations, Balachandran says, “In January 2015 India prevented a Greenpeace campaigner from going to UK for attending a conference. Amnesty reported that three Baloch activists were prevented in March 2015 at Karachi from going to USA to attend a joint meeting of Baluch and Sindhi activists.”
Quoting Amnesty, the ex-official says, “In October 2015 Pakistan asked all NGOs to register and obtain permission from the Ministry of Interior for carrying on activities. On August 13, 2016 our Home Ministry asked Amnesty to get a licence to receive funds from abroad.”
Suggesting that all this “might be a coincidence”, Balachandran says, but still it is “relevant at a time when we take the initiative to point out other countries’ human rights abuses.”
According to the ex-official, “As signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (1966-1976) we have certain obligations specified in UNGA Resolution 53/144 dated 1998.”
He adds, “Article 5 of the resolution recognizes the rights of individuals to form, join and participate in NGOs, associations or groups and to communicate with non-governmental or intergovernmental organizations.”
Insisting that “this brings us to our own human rights situation”, Balachandran says, “Daily news headlines like ‘India blinding young Kashmiri protestors’ (The Guardian UK) ‘HC seeks details about people blinded, injured in the valley’ (Kashmir Reader), ‘Lecturer beaten to death in Kashmir; army regrets killing, orders probe’ (Mumbai Mirror) and ‘BJP worker killed by Cow vigilantes’ (The Hindu) do not give any credit to our own human rights situation.”
“Merely transferring the blame for the situation in the Valley on Pakistan is no solution”, he underlines, adding, “Are we sure that things in the Kashmir Valley will become normal if Pakistan, under international pressure, stops its interference?”
Balachandran wonders, “A guide to a resolution of the present Kashmir impasse could be what a non-political professional had suggested on August 19. Lt Gen DS Hooda, Northern Army Commander had said that everybody who is involved including separatists should ‘sit down, put our heads together’.”
Asking “Can We Really Put Pakistan on the Defensive On Human Rights Now?”, Balachandran says, “We cannot reject participation of ‘separatists’ who live within our borders. If we do, we will be no better than Pakistan. Why are we having discussions with Naga groups who still do not proclaim allegiance to our Constitution?”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog