Sophisticated Case of Intellectual Evangelism

The landing page of Amnesty International India (Amnesty India) opens with the sentence, “Religious minority groups, particularly Muslims faced increasing demonization by hardline Hindu groups, pro-government media and some state officials”. It immediately reveals three essential characteristics of the organisation in question. One, the organisation ‘chooses’ to prioritise concerns of Muslim minorities. Two, it misleads the reader by stating the argument related to ‘demonization’ of Muslims (because there is no academic literature or rigorous research to corroborate this conclusion). Lastly, the three categories held responsible for the believed deprecation of Muslims are either non-existent or too amorphous to be charged with such diabolical allegation.

On multiple occasions, Amnesty India has been caught red-handed, trying to create devices like false perception and propaganda in collaboration with anti-India intellectual missiles.

• In August 2016, an FIR, mentioning offences related ‘sedition’, ‘unlawful assembly’, ‘rioting’ and ‘promoting enmity’ was filed against Amnesty India for organising an event where separatist slogans calling for ‘Azaadi’ of Jammu & Kashmir were chanted. Although Amnesty India did concede that some of the attendees chanted slogans calling for Kashmir’s independence, it is outright amusing how the organisation remained a mute spectator as crowds raised seditious slogans.
• As expected, Amnesty India tried to pass separatist voices under the flimsy grounds of ‘freedom of expression’, completely ignoring the dangerous nature of slogans. The accused body went a step further and leveraged this situation to give sermons on detrimental nature of sedition law and its ability to muzzle freedom of expression, once again trying to meddle with affairs outside its mandate.
• Amnesty sympathisers like Harsh Mandar called the Congress Government in Karnataka morally and politically weak-kneed, only because the then Chief Minister allowed the law to take its course.The report is a concoction of fiction and repository of incidents cherry picked with great care to ensure the story fits in the Amnesty India’s groove

• The Report paints India as a Nation plagued with Islamophobia and goes on to mention about the “wave of lynchings of Muslims and Dalits”, exposing its partial cognisance and visceral desperation to spin a narrative that paints India as an anti-minority Nation. It fails to recognise that Hindus including Ankit Saxena, who wanted to marry a Muslim girl and Ravinder Kumar, an e-rickshaw driver in Delhi who tried to stop few students from urinating in public, were lynched too. Political violence in West Bengal and Kerala which entails assault of Right-Wing political cadre by State-sponsored goons does not find any mention in the report. It appears, the organisation unabashedly condones the attack on majorities.
• Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said in his recent interview that while all instances of social unrest are condemnable, such instances have been occurring in India for decades and it would be unfair to blame them on the ruling dispensation. It is a societal issue that needs to be defeated without falling in the trap of partisanship.
• The report falsely implicates authorities with charges of hostility and violence against human rights defenders. I am not aware of the “repressive laws” the report alludes to, that are aimed to stifle freedom of the press. Such sweeping allegations without substantive examples only reconfirm the Amnesty India’s agenda—to create perception based on fiction.
• Further readings reveal that the Report has an issue with illegal Rohingya migrants being termed as “illegal”. The Amnesty endorses economic truth, if not less. The report is oblivious of statistics related to the crime committed by illegal migrants and that India has done little to forcibly repatriate unlawful migrants who have crossed porous borders over the past many decades.

The report is a concoction of fiction and repository of incidents cherry picked with great care to ensure the story fits in the Amnesty India’s groove. It would be incorrect to expect objectivity from an outfit that starts by declaring Muslims; a minority group demonised on various fronts.

Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, incorrectly concludes that under the governance of Modi-led BJP, beef is the single most crucial issue. Comments on denial of social and economic rights are blatantly false, just because there is no policy introduced by the current dispensation that is applicable only to the majority; on the contrary, the reverse is true, and we believe there must be a valid reason for policymakers to do so. I am left aghast at this premature conclusion, primarily because progressive initiatives in the realm of education, healthcare, gender equality, and social justice have implemented under this Government.

In the passing Shetty does admit that Amnesty India is using more emotions and fewer facts in their messaging strategy. He comes across as a representative of Left-wing politics, who is convinced that development and human rights are mutually exclusive.

The agency that advocates law and order cried vendetta when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the organisation’s office and froze its bank accounts. By calling terrorists who attacked Uri as ‘gunmen’, the agency that is besmirched with charges of misusing the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) has made it clear that is operating at the behest of vested groups which stand to gain politically and financially if India’s socio-cultural net is torn apart. One can do little if both, Amnesty International and Amnesty India are so fixated with one aspect of right-wing ideology that they are rendered blind to everything else that India continues to achieve day after day.