Akanksha Singh

Opinion | Amnesty International’s halting of operations in India highlights the dangers of dissent

The government’s targeting of the human rights NGO is part of an ongoing campaign that has also involved the arrest of activists, intellectuals and journalists, and is a sign of how bad things have become

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A girl waves the Indian flag as she shouts slogans at a protest site in the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood of New Delhi on January 21. Photo: AP

Akanksha Singh

Published: 9:15am, 7 Oct 2020Updated: 9:15am, 7 Oct 2020

Amnesty International India announced on September 29 that it was halting its operations in the country due to government reprisals. The human rights organisation said that New Delhi’s freezing of its bank accounts was “the latest in the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organisations by the government of India, over unfounded and motivated allegations”.

In September, Aakar Patel, Amnesty International India’s former executive director, was arrested for allegedly posting offensive tweets. Last year, Amnesty’s secretary general said that “the Modi government has made a very big attempt to crush Amnesty in India”, putting their staff under stress.

While Amnesty International India has a troubled past, with former employees alleging prejudice on the grounds of caste, the latest developments point to how bad things have truly become. It appears that the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government is succeeding in being answerable to no one. Those questioning the government can expect to be harassed and imprisoned.

This year, India has seen journalists, intellectuals and political leaders rounded up and imprisoned at an alarming rate. There have been troubling reports of crimes against minorities even as India’s Covid-19 case numbers have been surging, with investigative journalists pointing to discrepancies in data on both testing and death rates.

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Amnesty halts operations in India citing government ‘witch hunt’ targeting human rights groups

During the country’s lockdown, between March 25 and May 31, 55 journalists were arrested for reporting on the pandemic. Even as Covid-19 raged in the country, three female student activists – one of whom was pregnant –were arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act earlier in the year.

While these women were denied bail, a BJP minister, who once incited a crowd at his election rally against protesters by chanting “shoot the traitors”, has not been so much as reprimanded. In 2017, another BJP minister, who had been arrested over her alleged role in a terror attack in which six people were killed, was granted bail on “health grounds”.