The universalism they spout and pretend to espouse elsewhere clashes with their actions at home, as seen in the various laws they have legislated through the years ā€” from 2015 (criminalising beef), to 2018 (criminalising interfaith marriage), to 2019 (criminalising Muslim divorce and excluding Muslims from the CAA), and so on.
This produces a paradox that makes us vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. It also opens us up to pressure from the world ā€” pressure that would otherwise be muted if we did not boast of values we do not actually hold.
In August 2019, India imposed an internet blockade on Kashmiris. Four months later, on 6 December, a motion was tabled in the United States Congress demanding that India lift it. The author was a Congresswoman of Indian origin. That same month, Jaishankar was in Washington and scheduled to meet legislators on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On learning that the author, Democrat Pramila Jayapal, would be present at the meeting, Jaishankar refused to attend.
This was during the first Trump term. Though the Bill was tabled, it was not voted on. When Trump lost the election and Biden was sworn in, in January 2021, India lifted the ban. Why? Likely because our government felt it could not resist pressure from the Democrats.
Something similar happened in Europe. Five separate groups in its parliament tabled a motion that was highly condemnatory of the Citizenship Amendment Act on 28 January 2020. It was reported in newspapers here that the motion had enough votes to be passed. Jaishankar went to Brussels on 17 February to make some sort of deal. We do not know the details because this is not a transparent government. But what happened was that the motion was not voted on and, though the law had already passed here, India did not enforce it for another four years.
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