THE latest global report by US-based Freedom House has stated that India has suffered the biggest decline in civil and political liberties as prime minister Narendra Modi’s government takes “its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level.”
The report titled “Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy” has cautioned that this “could blur the values-based distinction between Beijing and New Delhi.”
Freedom House is a nonprofit organization that conducts researches and advocacy on democracy and human rights.
The country slipped four spots on the report’s global ranking to number 71.
Some 195 countries and 15 territories were assessed through 2019 and ranked out of 100 based on a series of civil and political liberty measures.
Recently, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom holds a public hearing on India’s new religion-based citizenship law, which fast-tracks citizenship for religious minorities from three neighboring nations but excludes Muslims.
In the past the government has strongly rejected any outside criticisms of its laws and said the citizenship act provides protection for persecuted minorities.
The Freedom House terms the ‘Citizenship Amendment Act’ as one of the series of moves which is harmful to India’s Muslims, who constitute some 14% of its nearly 1.3 billion population.
Other actions include the Aug. 5 abrogation of nearly 70 years of constitutional autonomy in India’s portion of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and the detention of local political leaders which has continued for more than seven months now.
That same month some 1.9 million people, mostly Muslims, in the northeastern state of Assam faced the risk of losing their Indian citizenship as Modi’s government seeks to enforce a National Register of Citizens to weed out illegal migrants.
“These three actions have shaken the rule of law in India and threatened the secular and inclusive nature of its political system,” the Freedom House report said.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event
Pope Francis greets Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit near Bari, Italy, in June last year, as Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and then British prime minister Rishi Sunak look on