WASHINGTON: US rights groups plan protests next week against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington over what they call India’s deteriorating human rights record, even though experts do not expect Washington to be publicly critical of New Delhi.

The Indian American Muslim Council, Peace Action, Veterans for Peace and Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition plan to gather near the White House on June 22 when Modi is due to meet President Joe Biden.

Washington hopes for closer ties with the world’s largest democracy, which it sees as a counterweight to China, but rights advocates worry that geopolitics will overshadow human rights issues. The United States has said its human rights concerns related to India include the Indian government’s targeting of religious minorities, dissidents and journalists.

The protesting groups prepared flyers that said “Modi Not Welcome” and “Save India from Hindu Supremacy.” Another event is planned in New York featuring a show titled “Howdy Democracy,” a play on the name of the 2019 “Howdy Modi!” rally in Texas featuring the Indian prime minister and then-US president Donald Trump.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have invited policy makers, journalists and analysts next week to a screening in Washington of a BBC documentary on Modi that questioned his leadership during the deadly 2002 Gujarat riots.

In a letter to Biden, Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division director Elaine Pearson urged the White House to raise concerns, both publicly and privately, about human rights in India during Modi’s visit.

“We strongly urge you to use your meetings with Prime Minister Modi to urge him to move his government and his party in a different direction,” she said in the letter shared.

All of this is unlikely to change the Biden-Modi discussions, said analysts.

“My guess is that human rights will not be much of a focus of the conversation,” said Donald Camp, a former State Department official and part of Washington think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Camp said that for the Modi trip to be seen as successful on both sides, there would be a reluctance from Washington to raise human rights issues.

The US State Department has said it regularly raises human rights concerns with Indian officials and respects the free speech rights of US residents to demonstrate against Modi.

Civil liberty concerns

Since Modi took office in 2014, India has slid from 140th in the World Press Freedom Index, to 161st this year, its lowest ever, while also topping the list for the highest number of internet shutdowns globally for five consecutive years.

Advocacy groups have also raised concerns over alleged human rights abuses under Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

They point to a 2019 citizenship law that the UN human rights office described as “fundamentally discriminatory” by excluding Muslim migrants; anti-conversion legislation that challenged the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief; and the revoking of Indian held Kashmir’s special status in 2019.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2023