Lok Sabha Needs To Hold Parliament Committee Hearing On Human Rights Abuses Within USA
There is an American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who seems to be very concerned about human rights in India. Though she has never raised the pathetic conditions of minorities in her own countries. American Blacks, Red Indians, Hispanics and other immigrants are leading a terrible life. All Indians are very much concerned regarding rampant abuse of all the rights of such minorities in the USA. Women are not safe even within their own house. Recently a black women was shot dead by Police in her own house.
Since No Congressman questioned India’s fundamental right to effect constitutional changes that have led to certain restrictions in the Kashmir Valley, No Parliamentarian in India has also raised any question on various anti immigrants laws of USA and its propensity of poking its nose into affairs of other countries.
Democrat law makers seem to be very angry and leery of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s embrace of US President Donald Trump during a recent rally in Houston. So even when they had no right to discuss any internal actions of another country, they still raised them during five hours of intense Congressional blabbing on Tuesday.
The uncalled for debate by the House of Representatives subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Non-Proliferation chaired by California Congressman Brad Sherman was ostensibly on ‘Human Rights in South Asia’, the babbling centered mostly on the situation in Kashmir Valley. “ witnesses” who have never visited Kashmir or even India spoke about human rights abuses. However at the same time actual witnesses who wanted to speak regarding human rights abuses in Pakistan’s Sindh province, and occupied Balochistan were not invited to testify and were all sidelined as lawmakers.
The largely one-sided narrative of Indian oppression and the lock down in the Valley without the historical context of Pakistan’s use of subversive violence and terrorism to ignite unrest, even taking into account the hearing was on human rights, not geopolitics was quite amusing rather than outrageous. It was actually left to the US administration officials to point out that Pakistan’s continued patronage of terrorism and terror groups were the root cause of what they too acknowledged was a humanitarian crisis.
Notwithstanding the lobbying from separatist Kashmiri constituents that caused these few Congressmen to focus mainly on the lock down, there was also domestic politics at play at the hearing. It was dominated by Democratic members who have traditionally been strong human rights votaries, and some of them, according to sources, were already agitated by the Indian Prime Minister’s support for a US President they loath.
Although a few Democrats attended the ‘Howdy, Modi’ rally in Houston last month, several more who had committed to attend stayed away because of reservations about the Modi-Trump bromance. The shadow of that episode fell heavily on Tuesday’s hearing on a day things got stickier for President Trump on the impeachment front.
In fact, Congressman Sherman, who held the hearing as chair of the subcommittee, is also co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, making such discussions rather dangerous for Indo US relations. Only a couple of Republican lawmakers turned up for the hearing, which was itself a sideshow on the Hill on a day Congress was consumed with hearings on the Syria-Turkey crisis and Brexit, not to speak of explosive testimony on the Ukraine issue.
There was so much focus on the plight of Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley but the pathetic Democrats paid no attention or concern for Pandits displaced by ethnic cleansing agitated the Indian side, particularly those representing the Hindu perspective. Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, pointed out that committee was agitated about Kashmiris not having internet access, but did not care about the forced conversions of Hindu women in Kashmir or the lack of rights in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
“Not a single @HouseForeign Democrat understands the Hindu perspective on #Kashmir. All antagonistic to India and not a single mention of #KashmiriPandits. We all must process this. The party has turned in this regard,” Shukla, who attended the hearing, tweeted, implicitly suggesting a reassessment of the traditionally strong Indian-American support for Democrats.
While Democrat “ lawbreakers” were clearly primed by their Pakistani and Kashmiri Muslim constituents with “ gut-wrenching stories “, all of which are highly exaggerated, many american officials also rued the lack of lobbying from Indian-Americans – particularly those who are otherwise vocal on social media.
