If you don’t do what the US wants, they start to undermine the legitimacy of your regime with human rights talk. This is what happened here. India didn’t play ball on sanctions against Russia, and suddenly Blinken is talking about human rights abuses. Now India is just retorting.
I'm sure you're right, but IMHO allegations of human rights abuses should always be given due weight regardless of the intentions of the accuser. What matters is whether the allegations are true, and that's all that matters, otherwise the debate simply degenerates into whataboutism.
Yes but the US also should take a consistent stance on human rights rather than only bringing them up when there is an ulterior motive, which will make other countries view them simply as a cudgel for enforcing us interests.
I don't think that's reasonable. I don't think it's ok that North Korea systematically tortures huge numbers of people to death, or that huge numbers of Tutsis were slaughtered in Rwanda, or that for many decades South Africa systematically subjugated the majority of their population.
Internal affairs can very quickly become international issues. Civil wars have a habit of spilling over borders, and refugee crises such as due to the situation in Syria affect nations on other continents. There are always knock-on effects.
We should never have tolerated Russia's mercilessly brutal subjugation of Chechnya. We deplored their activities in Syria, but eh, Syria is far away. What they're doing in Ukraine is basically the same, but now it's in Europe so that's different. That's pure hypocrisy. There is a direct line to be drawn from what Russia did in Chechnya, joining the dots through Georgia, Syria and the Donbas directly to the attack on Kyiv. None of that should ever have been tolerable, but we did tolerate it.
We should be kicking up a huge fuss over the treatment of the Uighurs, the minimal sanctions we're imposing now is the diplomatic equivalent of ineffectual hand wringing. It's tacit acceptance that this sort of behaviour is acceptable. After all, we are accepting it.
US foreign policies are sometimes driven by lobbying and vote banks.
"Human rights abuse" is a policy arm of the US clearly used as a weapon against hostile rivals.
It is a clear message to Indians that the US does not consider them an ally.
And that the US will continue to back and use its arms in India - Church, Media, Academia, Leftist groups to destabilise, and support secessionist movements with an intent to eventually weaken or break up the country.
Sometimes it appears as if the US does things just because it can, this is definitely a big blunder in foreign relations.
That’s perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, Jaishankar seems to think of this as revenge against the Americans. He shouldn’t. Commentary from abroad should never be regarded as a threat to sovereignty in a mature democracy; India has the right to comment on the US regardless of whether the South Block thinks that there has been some provocation previously, and vice versa.
Unfortunately, the human rights and religious freedom are weaponised by the US while the US itself does not, in fact, tolerate 'fact finding' missions and questionings undertaken by others.
The US hosts the world's largest incarcerated population (disproportionately black), high crime rate, police brutality, systemic entrenched racism, corporate lobbying for favourable corporate taxations including the world's largest tax havens, etc etc while it disproportionately looks outwards towards countries.. especially India. THe US neither wants India to fail, but definitely does not want to succeed beyond a threshold - keeping India in a goldilocks range.
Jaishankar's was not 'revenge' - it would be childish to think so.
It is just pushback and getting a firmer grip against the US's weaponised human rights' as an issue. Two can speak the language - that is all.
India had never interfered... nay, even commented in the internal affairs of the US. THis might soon change. We might be seeing 'Black lives matter' posters on the Indian Embassy, spokespersons talking about Gun control and gun violence in schools, right of women to safe abortion, rights of LGBTQI+ etc.
THis might soon change. We might be seeing 'Black lives matter' posters on the Indian Embassy, spokespersons talking about Gun control and gun violence in schools, right of women to safe abortion, rights of LGBTQI+ etc.
Join the club.
During the BLM protests in 2020, diplomats from many foreign countries openly participated in the marches.
European diplomats have been commenting on the state of abortion access in the U.S. for decades.
Europeans have been talking about gun control and gun violence in the U.S. for decades.
But don't think for an instance that India can comment on the state of LGBTQ rights in the U.S. with any sort of authority when my cousin can't walk down the streets of Delhi without fearing for her life.
This is peak "whataboutism" and false-equivalences.
All of the problems you've mentioned have some element of truth to them, but are also grossly exaggerated either by the activists working to address them (you have to make the problem sound really bad and really urgent to get attention) or by people just looking to attack the US or a specific politician, party, etc.
I don't think they're exaggerated. They're awful problems, and much reform is needed. However, I don't doubt that it's used to attack particular politicians, but the US isn't a "shining city upon a hill" providing the great example for all other countries to emulate. We have our own significant problems, and so long as we have them our moral grandstanding loses some of it's effect internationally.
> Commentary from abroad should never be regarded as a threat to sovereignty in a mature democracy
Unless it is from the US or europe that uses "human rights" as justification for war and toppling governments. You'll notice every country we want to attack ( india, china, russia, venezuela, cuba, iran, myanmar, libya, syria, etc ), we've always bring up "human rights".
> India has the right to comment on the US regardless of whether the South Block thinks that there has been some provocation previously, and vice versa.
Sure, but india is too weak to be a threat to the US. Their accusations of human rights violations are merely an annoyance. But when the US accuses india of human rights, india knows there will be US funded attacks, riots, sanctions, etc to destabilize and overthrow the indian government.
India is just lashing out in anticipation of pressure from the US. Of course we don't care about human rights. Never have and never will. Otherwise, we'd be liberating the aborigines in australia or maori in new zealand or the inuits in alaska who are currently undergoing actual genocide. The only question is how badly we are going to punish india to get them to obey our orders concerning russia. We are putting a lot of pressure on china and india to abandon russia. Which one will be the first to crack? Only time will tell.
One is reminded of Sir Roger Casement, who was knighted for his work in exposing and opposing human rights abuses in Peru, then hung for doing the same in the British Empire. Fighting for human rights in other countries has always been far easier and more profitable than doing the same in your own.
Well, kinda. Apparently they dug up the original unpunctuated norman french text of the treason act, then read it so that it had a comma between two clauses, changing its sense, allowing him to be charged with treason:
> or if a Man do levy War against our Lord the King in his Realm, or be adherent to the King’s Enemies in his Realm, giving to them Aid and Comfort in the Realm, or elsewhere,
They also either forged or published a bunch of pretty saucy personal diaries, as a way to blacken his name.
To be honest, the only thing that interested me about the diaries was what it tells you about the home office, the character of the people trying to have Roger Casement hanged, and the integrity of the institution they served.
Arent govt’s, what ever every model they run on communism, Democracy etc self serving? Show me one country, that puts its citizens first. Apart fro probably Vatican city. Every country lusts for power and money. Voters are just an after thought after corporations got their share.
Very brave of India to come forward and say this. The whole world should join them and condemn the treatment of minorities in the U.S. and in the case of native Americans, the centuries long, drawn-out genocide.
