September 29, 2024

Over the past decade, under new laws passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, more than 20,600 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India have been barred from receiving foreign donations, according to an Amnesty International report published this month.

Many of these groups, the report notes, “have long promoted human rights in the country.” There is also a delay in prosecutions under the laws “resulting in a high number of pending cases and accused persons in judicial custody waiting for cases to be tried and concluded”. Such delays, Amnesty adds, illustrate the possibility that these laws are being misused to clamp down on human rights defenders by ensuring that the criminal proceedings characterized by stringent bail provisions, prolonged detention, and lengthy investigation act as punishment.

In June, Narendra Modi began his third five-year term as Prime Minister. According to news reports, his government continues to file criminal cases and imprison civil rights activists and critics, including of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leaders, as well as ignore rising attacks on Muslims, Christians, and other minorities.

Last week, Indian officials shut down NGO Aman Biradari’s access to donations. “We have worked with a large number of violence-hit people across the country, including survivors of the 2020 Delhi violence and the ethnic conflict in Manipur,” Harsh Mander, founder of Aman, told Scroll.

In Delhi, in 2020, 53 people were killed, more than two thirds of them Muslims, and hundreds injured in Hindu Muslim clashes. In Manipur state, since May 2023, more than 237 people have died and more than 59,000 persons displaced in clashes between Hindu and Christian ethnic tribes.

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