Islamabad
In the latest edition of Freedom in the World, an annual report published by Washington-based pro-democracy nonprofit Freedom House, India has suffered the largest decline in its political rights and civil liberties score among the 25 most populous democracies because of the Narendra Modi government’s “alarming departures from democratic norms,” while Kashmir’s status has declined from “Partly Free” to “Not Free.”
The report highlighted the abrupt revocation of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IOJK) special status on 5 August, 2019, the massive deployment of troops, the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of Kashmiri leaders and activists, and shutdown of mobile and internet services.
The report said, “the IOJK experienced one of the largest single-year score declines of the past 10 years in Freedom in the World, and its freedom status dropped to Not Free.”
Interestingly, the Freedom House was founded in 1941 with the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the rise of Nazism at the time, reported Kashmir Media Service.
The Report gives a damning assessment of the Modi government’s pattern of Hindu nationalist policies, including the persecution of religious minorities, abruptly revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the adoption of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which it calls a discriminatory citizenship law and the aggressive suppression of the anti-CAA protests that followed.
100 countries are ranked out of 195 using 25 indicators within seven categories: electoral processes, political processes and pluralism, functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, association and organizational rights, rule of law, personal autonomy and individual rights.
India, which is ranked ‘Free,’ dropped from 75/100 in 2019 to 71 in 2020. “Indian government has taken its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level with a succession of policies that abrogate the rights of different segments of its Muslim population, threatening the democratic future of a country long seen as a potential bulwark of freedom in Asia and the world,” Sarah Repucci, Freedom House’s Senior Director of Research and Analysis, writes in the report.
India has come under increasing international pressure following the Modi government’s revocation of IOJK’s special constitutional status and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which critics say makes religion the basis of granting Indian citizenship and discriminates against Muslims.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Michelle Bachelet, has filed an application before India’s Supreme Court asking the UN be made a third party in the petition that has been filed against the CAA.—APP
