- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Australian government has been accused of overlooking uncomfortable issues by staying away from the human rights situation in India to boost ties in areas such as trade and security.
According to Human Rights Watch, the “quiet diplomacy” approach pursued by the west failed to make any significant impact on New Delhi and it urged Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese to raise human rights during his upcoming visit to the south Asian nation, The Guardian reported.
Recently, offices of the BBC in New Delhi and Mumbai were raided by income-tax authorities which came just weeks after the broadcaster released a documentary series critical of prime minister Narendra Modi over the riots in his home state Gujarat in 2002. Modi was the chief minister of that state then.
The Indian government invoked emergency laws soon after to bar the documentary and called it a ‘propaganda piece’. A spokesperson of India’s ministry of external affairs said the documentary, which was released in January, lacked objectivity and showed a “continuing colonial mindset”.
Earlier this week, when British foreign secretary James Cleverly raised the issue of tax searches at the BBC offices with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the latter firmly told him that entities operating in India must comply with the local law.
Ahead of his trip to India, Albanese was asked about the Gujarat riot allegations and whether he could raise contemporary human rights concerns with his Indian counterpart, The Guardian report added.
The Australian leader did not address the question’s substance and said he was determined to erect a better relationship between the two countries and looked forward to having “positive discussions” with Modi, the report said.
“One of the things that my government has done also is to return to acting like a diplomatic government should,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday (28).
“We’ll continue to act in that vein to develop positive relationships. We always stand up for our values.”
Albanese’s foreign minister Penny Wong also did not delve deep into the issue during a press conference in New Delhi ahead of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting on Wednesday (1).
She said she understood the “specific issue” a journalist had raised over the two-decades-old riots was “traversed through the Indian legal system and that’s a matter for the Indian legal system”.
The diplomat added that Australia and India were “close friends” and “comprehensive strategic partners” and “we engage on human rights issues regularly”.
Elaine Pearson, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, opined Albanese and Wong “should be unequivocal in raising human rights concerns with Modi during their visits to India, pointing out that how his government’s actions belie its international claims of upholding democratic principles”.
Pearson said the government under Modi had “adopted discriminatory laws and policies against Muslims and other religious minorities” and “attempted to curb independent institutions”.
“Independent journalists are forced to self-censor, while pro-government media edge on incitement to violence against minorities and critics, even justifying tax raids on the BBC following a critical documentary about Modi that aired recently,” she was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
She also said if Albanese and Wong were “uncomfortable raising these concerns because they want closer trade and security ties with the Indian government, they should think long and hard about all the people who have been silenced in India who aren’t able to speak up because they fear being arrested or prosecuted”.
She said the quiet diplomacy approach had led to “led to growing sentiment that Australia is willing to overlook the plight of affected communities in India” because it required India as an ally against China.
