We went to UN to bring the dispute to an early end and we were maligned all over the world by the representatives of Pakistan. And people who had never seen this country and who did not understand what the problem of India and Pakistan or Kashmir was, – they began to hear the case from people who had no bone in their tongue. They, therefore, went on talking anything that came into their mouth and for six months, it went on like that. …If we were to fight this out by armed forces and if United Nations Organisation is not able to do anything then instead of calling it a Security Council, it must be termed the “Insecurity Council” which disturbs the security of law.” — Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in his speech ‘Gandhi, India and the World’ before officers and men of the Royal Indian Air Force on October 1, 1948 (The Collected Works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Volume XIII)
In an unprecedented and unwarranted move, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet decided to file an intervention application in the Supreme Court of Bharat against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) sought to intervene as amicus curiae (third- party) in the original writ petition filed by retired IFS officer Deb Mukharji challenging the CAA. Even though the mandate of the UN Human Rights Commissioner is very clear and limited – ‘to assist governments, which bear the primary responsibility for the protection of human rights, to fulfil their obligations and supports individuals to claim their rights’ and ‘to speak out objectively on human rights violations’, why did this UN body choose to interfere in the internal affairs of Bharat?
Just a few days back, on February 27, the same UN Commissioner while presenting the report before UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) pointed out the fact that religious minorities in Pakistan continue to face violence, repeated attacks on their places of worship, and discrimination in law and practice. Still, invoking refugee convention of which Bharat is not a signatory and giving lessons on ‘right to equality’ is nothing but mischief by the member states and human rights lobbyists.
Bharat is not the first country to restrict certain community from being a ‘persecutor’ in the other country. Many European countries like Poland, Croatia and Greece have refused to accept Muslims who have illegally taken refuge. The US itself had a law to Facilitate Resettlement of Religiously Persecuted Minorities from the Soviet Union, which was time-bound and mentioning specific religious communities. None of the UN body even questioned those stands or provisions. Why this singling out of Bharat? Like every other member, Bharat also has a sovereign right to protect indigenous culture, traditions while accommodating the migrants.
When you have members like Pakistan, China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Libya etc. of the UN body, what better can you expect? As per the UN resolution itself, Human Rights Council members are expected to uphold the highest standards in the promotion of human rights. Most of these member countries do not even recognise their citizens as human beings and what right do they have to monitor the human rights situation in other countries? In 2018, when the United States decided to withdraw from the UNHRC with a clear message that dubious rights records of many of its member countries and their ‘chronic bias against Israel’ is unacceptable.
Along with such notorious council, if you have so-called human rights activists within like Arundhati Roy and Harsh Mander for whom running their foreign-funded shops is more important than the national interests and supremacy of the Parliament, then you do not need external enemies. What is happening in the name of UNHRC is the combination of these two anti-Bharat lobbies working in tandem.
Fortunately, Bharat has immediately rebuffed this blatant violation of the UN Charter and the mandate of the council and stood for the ‘sovereign right’. In the long run, if this intervention persists, then perhaps the option of withdrawal while following own commitments towards human rights should be explored. As Sardar Patel had once termed ‘Security Council’ as the ‘Insecurity Council’, this human right body is also turning out to be ‘inhuman’ towards the persecuted minorities our neighbouring countries and therefore, wants to equate them with the perpetrators of religious persecution in the name of imagined equality. Surprisingly, the original petitioner Deb Mukharji, former diplomat, has also expressed his ‘discomfort’ with a ‘foreign’ organisation being included in a petition on a ‘domestic’ issue. All right-minded people should stand up against this inhuman intervention that amounts to the insult of our Parliament and national sovereignty.
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