Introspect on UN chief’s words

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ statement that India “has a responsibility to shape global human rights, and to protect and promote the rights of all individuals, including members of minority communities” should be taken as a call to the country to arrest its slide on human rights and to correct its recent record on them. He made some important observations that should receive attention. He said the rich diversity of India should be nurtured and strengthened and the values of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru need to be guarded by “condemning hate speech unequivocally”. Guterres also made a call for protecting the rights and freedoms of journalists, human rights activists, students and academics and for ensuring the continued independence of the judiciary. He said India’s voice on the global stage can only gain in authority and credibility from a strong commitment to inclusivity and respect for human rights at home, and that “much more needs to be done to advance gender equality and women’s rights.”

Guterres’ words reflect the increasing concern in the world over the human rights situation in the country. The UN Secretary-General is always diplomatic in expressing his views on events and situations in member-countries, but the fact that Guterres did some plain speaking showed the importance he attached to what he said. It is also to be noted that he spoke his words in India, addressing students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Every issue that he highlighted has come to public attention in various ways in the past few years. It is the government’s policies and actions that has given rise to such concerns. There has been criticism within the country of the government’s positions and decisions, but it has not been deterred by such criticism. It is not just the government that is responsible for the growth of an ecosystem where normal human rights and constitutional rights are under stress and are denied to large sections of people, but it is the government’s primary responsibility to ensure that the rights are respected. It is seen slack in discharging that responsibility and may even be consciously undermining the system that ensures those rights.

These rights are enumerated in the UN Charter and India is an elected member of the UN Human Rights Council. Guterres’ words are therefore very relevant. Whenever there is criticism of the government’s policies or when the country’s position in indices like the Democracy Index slips, the standard response is that these are the result of conspiracies against the country or attempts to malign it. The country must hope that Guterres’ words are also not called a conspiracy and dismissed as such but rather leads to some introspection.