Right to protest celebrated vibrantly, noisily in India, Centre tells UNHRC

Countering Pakistan’s campaign on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), India on Wednesday boasted off its democracy, stating that it was a nation where the right to protest was “vibrantly and noisily celebrated every day”.

Even as violent clashes over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act claimed at least 27 lives and injured many others in its national capital over the past two days, India told the UNHRC that it was a nation where “diversity” had been “a way of life since times immemorial” and where “dignity of every human” was “protected by a robust constitutional framework”. “We take pride in the fact that the Constitution (of India) begins by first of all safeguarding the rights of all – citizen and foreigner alike. This is entirely in the spirit of our civilisation and our democracy, where we do not distinguish between the divinity inherent in all humanity,” Vikas Swarup, Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said, presenting India’s national statement at the 43rd session of the UNHRC.

His remarks came amid nationwide protests against the CAA, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government enacted on December 12 last.

Swarup, however, was responding to the statement made by Shireen M Mazari, Minister for Human Rights of Pakistan. She accused New Delhi of blatantly flouting the human rights of people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), particularly after Modi Government on August 5 last year moved to strip the state off its special status and reorganise it into two Union Territories. “It is Pakistan that would do well to look to its own house and introspect about the condition of its people, especially its minorities,” said the MEA Secretary (West).

“Immediately after August 5 last year, over 6,000 Kashmiris, political leaders, activists, students, professionals and youth were arrested, without due process of law. Many of them were forcibly shipped to jails all over India and the fate of most of them still remains unknown,” she told the UNHRC on Tuesday, adding: “The façade of ‘normalcy’ projected through the state-controlled narrative and orchestrated visits of hand-picked foreigners are designed to mislead the international community.” “Despite Pakistan’s best efforts – over decades – to destabilise this State (J&K of India) through externally-instigated terror and a campaign of canards and untruth, the situation on the ground is quite normal,” Swarup said on Wednesday.