Less than a week ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, visiting US Senator Ben Cardin — a leading democrat member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee — criticised India’s human rights
Less than a week ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, visiting US Senator Ben Cardin — a leading democrat member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee — criticised India’s human rights record, saying he would raise the issue with PM Modi next week during the US visit. But the senator also lavished praise on PM Modi for his initiatives in the fight against corruption. In response to a question, Mr Cardin said PM Modi had been invited (as the head of government) to address the US Congress because of the country he belonged to and not due to his “name”.
Mr Cardin said extra-judicial killings, religious tolerance issues and misuse of anti-conversion laws to infringe the right to religious freedom (of minorities) were prevalent in India, adding that women were “vulnerable” here. He said a national policy was needed to deal with these issues. “India must do better”, he said. When asked whether he would raise these issues with PM Modi, he replied that he would “include the human rights dimension in his conversations with the PM”.
The US Senator also criticised India for being categorised as a “tier-2” country on human trafficking as per a US government report. He said India had been ranked a (dubious) fourth position in a list of 167 countries in human trafficking and that there was complicity of some officials in the country on the issue.
Mr Cardin said he was “impressed by PM Modi’s actions” in the battle against corruption. He said there was a “need to act” through enforcement of strict laws.
The US senator admitted that the US invading Iraq over a decade ago “was a mistake”, even as he lashed out at Russia for its actions in Ukraine and for having a “very aggressive corrupt government that is provocative”.
