A day before the G20 summit, US President Joe Biden in his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi raised the issue of human rights and the role civil society and a free press play in a vibrant democracy. It was not part of the White House readout till Biden was on Indian soil. He chose to reveal it in his opening remarks at his next stop, Hanoi. Biden perhaps wanted to assuage his accompanying media team that was shut out of the bilateral meeting at Modi’s residence. At their previous bilateral engagement at the White House in June, Modi took a surprise question from the US media on the rights of minorities, including Muslims, and free speech in India. Modi dismissed it with a sweeping assertion that there was no discrimination of caste or creed in India as democracy was in its DNA. Back to the latest bilateral, Biden made the lightest of diplomatic touches on human rights so as not to embarrass the host who was savouring the successful G20 glow.
A heavy touch will follow this week as the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has announced a Congressional hearing on religious freedom in India on September 20. It comes bang in the middle of a special session of parliament from September 18 to 22, whose purpose is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, to borrow a Churchillian phrase. The Congressional hearing can be expected to make the government squirm and give the Opposition fresh ammunition to keep up its attack.
The recent communal conflagration in Haryana’s Nuh, the bulldozer justice in BJP-ruled states, and the arson attacks on churches in Manipur hills can be expected to figure in the hearing. The Haryana government is already under pressure from Bajrang Dal whose leadership is facing the heat. The USCIRF can be expected to show a mirror to the government on what the West thinks about the majoritarian pulls and pressures in the country and the status of its religious freedom. It’s easy to brush its recommendations aside as being concocted and biased. The better way is to address it with equanimity in the spirit of free speech. Heavy artillery works better when used sparingly. Remember BJP trolls made a massive mess by going after the US journalist who was simply doing her job by asking Modi a sharp question.