India getting to know its real friends: S Jaishankar on flak from a section of international community

India is getting to know who its real friends are, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is leading the defence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Government in New Delhi against flak from a section of the international community.

Maybe we are getting to know who our friends really are,” Jaishankar said on Saturday, amid continuing international criticism of Modi Government – be it for communication restrictions and alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, or the new Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the recent violent clashes over it in North-East Delhi. He was asked at an event in New Delhi if India was losing its friends of late.

His comment came just days after Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, called upon Modi Government to “confront extremist Hindus” and “stop the massacre of Muslims”. Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, too condemned the violence in the national capital of India, calling it a “wave of organized violence against Indian Muslims”.

External Affairs Minister also criticized the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, for moving the Supreme Court of India, seeking to intervene as amicus curiae in the hearing on the petitions challenging the constitutionality of CAA. He said that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had been proved wrong before.

Tehran's strong statements on violence in National Capital Territory of India came as a rude shock for New Delhi. Iran in the past generally avoided publicly taking a critical stand on any internal matter of India. Though the religious leaders of the Persian Gulf nation sometimes made statements on the issue of Kashmir, the successive governments in Tehran refrained from taking the side of Pakistan and speaking against India.

Over 50 people were killed in clashes between people supporting and opposing the CAA in the violent clashes that started in Delhi for several days since February 23.

“We have tried to reduce the number of stateless people through this legislation. That should be appreciated,” Jaishankar said defending the CAA, which Modi Government brought into force in January after getting it passed by both Houses of Parliament in December. “We have done it in a way that we do not create a bigger problem for ourselves.”

The CAA ensures citizenship to people of six non-Muslim communities – Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian – if they had to migrate to India from Muslim-majority Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh on or before December 31, 2014 to escape “persecution on the ground of religion”.

“Everybody when they look at citizenship has a context and has a criterion. Show me a country in the world which says everybody in the world is welcome. Nobody does that,” he said, “Look at America. Look at the Europeans. I can give you example of every European country. There is some social criterion,” he said, apparently justifying the CAA allowing only non-Muslims from neighbouring countries to get citizenship in India.

New Delhi strongly reacted to the rare move by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stating that no foreign party had any locus standi on issues pertaining to the sovereignty of India.

“How carefully they (UNHRC) skirt around the cross-border terrorism problem, as if it has nothing to do with country next door. Please understand where they are coming from; look at (the) UNHRC's record how they handled the issue earlier,” External Affairs Minister said, accusing the UN rights body of going soft on the issue of Pakistan's export of terror to India.

When the violence broke out in North East Delhi, US President Donald Trump was on a visit to India. He, however, refrained from taking it up with Prime Minister or making any comment about it during his press-conference in New Delhi. Two days after his return; Alice Wells, acting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, however, subtly nudged India to respect the right of peaceful assembly (to protest against the CAA). “Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased and injured in New Delhi,” she posted on Twitter.

The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which has been criticizing the Modi Government for enacting the CAA, expressed “grave concern” over violence in North-East Delhi. in a more straightforward manner. So did the US House Foreign Relations Committee and several other individual US lawmakers. American Senator and White House hopeful Bernie Sanders criticized American President for keeping mum even as violent clashes in North-East Delhi broke out at a time, when he, himself, was in the national capital of India.

When Modi Government on August 5 stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its “special status” and reorganized the state into two Union Territories, the US and the majority of the international community refrained from supporting the propaganda by Pakistan and China and rather endorsed New Delhi's view that it was an “internal affair” of India. Trump Administration as well as several US lawmakers and a section of the international community, however, conveyed concerns over communication blackout, restrictions on citizens and detention of political leaders in Kashmir.

Turkey and Malaysia, which have been criticising Modi Government for it decisions on J&K, also lambasted India over the CAA and the violence in Delhi. While the issue of J&K was discussed in European Parliament, the British Parliament recently had a debate on the clashes in the national capital of India.

“There are sections of the world outside the media. I engage governments. I was in a room with 27 foreign ministers (of member nations of the European Union) in Brussels, whom I was talking to… Point we make on CAA is that it cannot be anybody’s case that a government and parliament doesn’t have the right to set terms of citizenship,” Jaishankar said on Saturday. “We have tried to reduce a large number of stateless people we have in this country. Everybody, when they look at citizenship, has a context,” added the External Affairs Minister.