WASHINGTON: An independent US Congressional research report has said that the scope and scale of human rights abuses in India has increased under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The report titled ‘India: Human Rights Assessment’ and released by the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS), said, “The reported scope and scale of abuses has increased under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, particularly since their reelection in 2019”
“The United Nations, other intergovernmental organizations, and numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have conveyed similar concerns”, the CRS said in its latest three-page report.
CRS is an independent research wing of the US Congress, which prepares reports on issues of importance for the members of the Congress for them to make informed decisions.
The latest CRS report comes days after the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in which it said India is the site of numerous human rights abuses, many of them serious, some seen to be perpetrated by state and federal governments or their agents. It also comes in the wake of a series of articles being published in the American media that are very critical of the human rights situation in India.
According to the latest CRS report, the 2023 Human Rights Report for the first time includes a section on India’s “transnational repression against individuals in another country,” noting the Indian government engaged in transnational repression against journalists, members of diaspora populations, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.
