By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI – The much-publicised visit of the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights and U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, Uzra Zeya, to India earlier this week failed to make the desired impact in both the countries. President Joe Biden had sent Zeya to New Delhi in an attempt to embellish the image of the U.S. on human rights and democracy.
Zeya’s three-day visit, close on the heels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to her country, has been perceived in the political circles in New Delhi as a diplomatic move to contain the negative fallout of Modi’s flip-flop on the issue of violence and discrimination against Indian Muslims. If the purported agenda was to build a favourable public opinion, the Indian sojourn for the American official resulted in an utter failure.
Modi had faced embarrassment at a joint press conference with Biden at the White House when Wall Street Journal’s reporter Sabrina Siddiqui threw a volley of uncomfortable questions suggesting that the rights of Muslims and other minorities were under threat in India and consequently the democratic values were adversely affected. She specifically asked Modi about the crackdown on dissent and press freedom as well as discrimination against Muslims.
Modi was at a loss for words when Siddiqui asked what steps were he and his government willing to take to improve the rights of Muslims and other minorities and to uphold free speech. He could only say that India was a democracy based on the Constitution and no question of discrimination on the grounds of caste, creed or religion could arise in this situation. Modi’s flip-flop created an embarrassment for Biden as well.
Zeya’s tour to India, followed by her visit to Bangladesh, came at a time when the democratic institutions in both India and the U.S. are gradually weakening, even as the latter cites them as key elements of strategic partnership between the two countries. Zeya’s claim that the U.S.-India partnership has never been more important to the world, but also to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, at this point of time, seemed to have diverted attention from Modi’s track record of targeting of Muslims since he was elected the Prime Minister in 2014.
The red carpet rolled out for Modi in the U.S. not only ignored his poor track record on human rights, religious freedom, democratic functions and his majoritarian agenda, but it also did not pay attention to the call of 75 Congressmen who had asked Biden to raise these issues of concern with Modi. Zeya’s visit made it clear that Modi is being groomed as an important asset because the U.S. wants to counter China, whose rise as an Asian giant is problematic for it.
Ironically, Zeya’s ancestors migrated to the U.S. from India’s Bihar state, where the rioters recently burnt the historic 113-year-old Azizia Library in Bihar Sharif town during the Ram Navami festival. The rioters were armed with sticks, stones and petrol bombs and they shouted provocative slogans near the Madrasa Azizia before attacking it. Over 4,500 Islamic books, including ancient manuscripts, were burnt in the attack.
Zeya met Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra on Monday to discuss cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as regional issues and civilian security or protecting civil rights. She also met Sanjay Verma, Secretary (West), External Affairs Ministry, who was scheduled to travel to Ukraine later in the week. “Grateful for the vital U.S.-India partnership and shared efforts to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific, regional stability, and civilian security,” Zeya later tweeted.
Neither side gave further details of the conversations Zeya held, and whether she raised issues over civilian security and human rights within India. The visiting U.S. delegation included U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Deputy Assistant Administrator Anjali Kaur.
Zeya’s meeting with Dalai Lama and officials of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on July 9 night sparked a protest from China, which said that the Xizang (Tibet) affairs were purely its internal affairs and no external forces had the right to interfere. “China firmly opposes any form of contact between foreign officials and the Tibetan independence forces,” the Chinese Embassy spokesperson in India said in a statement.
Zeya had attended birthday celebrations for the Dalai Lama’s 88th birthday, organised by the “Office of Tibet in Washington” as well. China had similarly protested against Zeya’s visit to Dharamshala to meet the Dalai Lama in May 2022 and had opposed the setting up of the “Special Coordinator on Tibetan Issues” post by the Biden administration in 2021. China said the U.S. should take concrete actions to honour its commitment of acknowledging Tibet as part of China and not offer any support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique.
The Under Secretary interacted with a number of civil society organisation members on Tuesday before leaving for Dhaka. She said she was grateful for the chance to sit down with Indian civic leaders and thanked them for their perspectives and efforts to help ensure democratic operations for the people of India and the U.S. However, Zeya did not identify the leaders she had met. Ahead of her visit, a State department release had said that she would meet civil society organisations on freedom of expression and association, and inclusion of women and girls, persons with disabilities, and vulnerable groups, including marginalised religious and ethnic minorities.
During Zeya’s visit, U.S. Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti called on Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday to discuss “building on the positive outcomes” of Modi’s visit to the U.S. It was the first such meeting between a U.S. envoy and the Home Minister since 2015. Shah has rarely met foreign Ambassadors during his tenure as Home Minister. It also came days after the U.S. Ambassador made the remarks on the violence in Manipur, pointing out that women and children were being killed in the clashes in the north-eastern state. The comments were seen as criticism of the Central Government and the law and order situation in the state.
In an interview to a national newspaper in India, Zeya said she had discussed the shared commitment to an Indo-Pacific that is free, open, connected, prosperous, secure and resilient, in her governmental and non-governmental meetings. “For our part in the U.S., we believe a democratic and pluralistic India is a natural partner for the U.S. I commended my counterparts for India’s very important contributions to the Summit for Democracy and congratulated them on the ongoing Indian G20 presidency,” she said.
Zeya affirmed that the relationship of the U.S. with India was multi-dimensional and it touched upon every aspect of the human endeavour “from the sea to the stars”. Asked about the reports of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressing concern over the situation in India, she said the Commission was independent of the U.S. executive branch and the State Department. The USCIRF puts out annual reporting and recommendations with respect to religious freedom, which are distinct from the assessments taken by the U.S. Department of State and the Biden administration, she pointed out.
The visit of the top U.S. human right official threw light on the significance of democracy for both the developed and the developing countries in order to solve global challenge, but her failure to address the key issues of violence and confrontation being promoted by the leaders of the ruling dispensation in India indicated that the U.S. is only concerned with protecting its own interests in new world order. Zeya made no attempts to find evidence that the ruling party in India had moved away from the kind of communal politics which had earlier prompted the U.S. to deny visa to Modi as the Chief Minister of Gujarat and drawn censure from several European countries.
