India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, while answering a query at the joint press conference after the 2+2 India-US dialogue on Monday, said that India also took a view on other people’s human rights situation, including that of the United States and raised matters concerning the Indian community.
The statement came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US was monitoring concerning developments in India, “including a rise in human rights abuses” by State officials. Blinken said, “We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values, and to that end we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials.”
This is the first time in recent times that US has directly implicated Indian government officials in human rights abuses.
S Jaishankar flagged the issue of a case on Tuesday, when two Indian-American Sikh men were assaulted in an alleged hate crime in New York and said that, “We did not discuss human rights in this meeting. This meeting was focused on pol-mil (political-military) issues.”
He added, “People are entitled to their views about us. But we are equally entitled to have views about their views and about the interests and lobbies and votebanks that drive that. Whenever there is a discussion, we will not be reticent about speaking out.”
The minister also had a strong rebuttal on the threat of sanctions by US over India’s purchase of S-400 missile defense system. He said that India shall be doing whatever it takes to safeguard its security without worrying about sanctions. He further added that CAATSA, the US domestic law that enjoins sanctions for such transactions with American adversaries, was for Washington to sort out.
The Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was in Washington to take part in the fourth India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue.
