US Defence Secretary urged to convey human rights concerns to India during visit to New Delhi

Austin is the first top US official to visit New Delhi after the change of guard at the White House in US

As American Defence Secretary, Lloyd J Austin, is set to commence his first visit to New Delhi on Friday, a United States Senator, Robert Menendez, has urged him to convey concerns over the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government dealt with farmers' protest in India.

Menendez wrote to Austin, requesting him to convey to his counterpart, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the concerns of the United States over India’s decision to purchase S-400 missile systems from Russia.

Austin is the first top US official to visit New Delhi after the change of guard at the White House in Washington DC. Apart from meeting Defence Minister, he will also hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. He is likely to call on the Prime Minister, too.

“The Indian government’s ongoing crackdown on farmers peacefully protesting new farming laws and corresponding intimidation of journalists and government critics only underscores the deteriorating situation of democracy in India,” Menendez, a Senator of the Democratic Party, wrote to Austin.

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He also expressed concern over “rising anti-Muslim sentiment and related government actions like the Citizenship Amendment Act, the suppression of political dialogue and arrest of political opponents following the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, and the use of sedition laws to persecute political opponents”. He noted that the US human rights group, Freedom House, of late stripped India of its ‘Free’ status in its yearly global survey.

He urged the US Defence Secretary to raise “democracy and human rights concerns” in his discussions with the government of India. He noted that while he would like to see the US-India partnership grow, it must be acknowledged that the partnership was the strongest when based on shared democratic values and the government of India had been trending away from those values.

Menendez also urged Austin to raise the opposition of US President Joe Biden’s administration to India’s reportedly planned purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system. He said that New Delhi’s S-400 missile deal with Moscow would threaten future US-India defence cooperation and puts India at risk of sanctions under Section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

The US in December 2020 imposed the CAATSA sanctions on Turkey for the $ 2.5 billion deal President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Government clinched with Russia for procuring the S-400 Triumf air defence systems. The US move against its NATO-ally Turkey triggered concerns in New Delhi, where many saw in it a not-so-subtle warning to India, which too in October 2018 inked a $ 5.4 billion deal to buy five S-400 Triumf long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Almaz-Antey Corporation of Russia and is expecting the delivery to start in 2021. The US not only imposed sanctions on Turkey, but also asked “other countries” to take note and avoid acquisition of military hardware from Russia.

The US Congress in July 2017 passed the CAATSA to impose sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. Trump signed it into law in August 2017 and its scope was further expanded in October 2017. The Section 231 of the CAATSA mandated secondary sanctions to any nation entering into high-value deals to procure military hardware from Russia.