I am delighted to participate in this afternoon’s debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing it. I also pay tribute to him and to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for all the work they do on these matters.
As we have heard today, India’s minorities face increasing intolerance under the Modi Government. The principle of freedom of religion is inviolable. The freedom to practise one’s faith freely and without persecution is a basic human right. I have listened very carefully to all the viewpoints in this debate, but the reality is that Prime Minister Modi’s Government have presided over
discriminatory policies and delivered the persecution of religious minorities, so much so that in April last year the US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that India be designated as a country of particular concern for egregious religious freedom violations and placed on a religious freedoms blacklist alongside countries such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea.
According to the South Asia State of Minorities report 2021, human rights defenders and religious minorities in India who dare to protest against discriminatory laws and practices have faced restrictions, violence, criminal defamation, detention and harassment, while recent legislation has limited freedom of opinion and expression under the guise of preventing disharmony and disaffection. More and more of India’s states have adopted controversial and radical anti-conversion laws, which we have heard a lot about today. These laws are used by militant Hindu groups to prosecute members of religious minorities and make false allegations against them. It seems that these laws often provide justification for attacks on Christian leaders, which are carried out with impunity.
In 2021, Open Doors—a very important charity that supports the freedom of Christians to practise their faith in the face of persecution around the world, and one to which I pay tribute for its excellent work—ranked India as the world’s 10th most dangerous place to be a Christian. The Open Doors report concluded that since the current ruling party took power in 2014, Hindu extremists have fuelled a crackdown on Christian house-churches and attacked believers with impunity, believing that to be Indian is to be Hindu. In rural areas, Christians were told that one church would be closed down every week, because they have been destroying local tradition and culture by luring non-Christians to convert to Christianity. It is also common for Christians to be cut off from local water supplies and denied access to Government-subsidised groceries.
International Christian Concern has told The New York Times that Christians are being suppressed, discriminated against and persecuted at rising levels in India, like never before. Indeed, last year was branded the most violent year in recorded history for India’s Christians, with the United Christian Forum recording 486 violent incidents of Christian persecution, which exceeded the previous record of 328 violent incidents in 2019.
The evidence seems pretty clear. Of profound concern is the growing number of arrests in India of human rights defenders, student leaders, feminist activists, Dalit and Adivasi rights campaigners, trade unionists, opposition politicians and writers, artists, lawyers, academics and journalists who are critical of the Modi regime.
The UK has a considerably interlinked and close relationship with India, as we have heard today, and every diplomatic tool at the UK’s disposal must be used to effect change in India, in order to ensure that religious minorities are protected and flagrant abuses of human rights, of which religious freedom is only one, will not be tolerated.
During the UK-India free trade agreement negotiations, the UK Government have a clear opportunity to send a clear message that a trade partnership between the UK and India will not be ratified unless there is real and meaningful change on human rights and religious freedom in India. The UK has a very positive relationship with India, so it is in an excellent position to exert such
influence. The UK must demand more from its friends, and human rights and religious freedoms in India must be at the forefront of our conversations and trade negotiations with India.
The human rights text in the clauses of any free trade deal with India must have policy teeth and must be enforceable. Will the Foreign Office, with help from the Department for International Trade, undertake human rights impact assessments before any trade and investment agreements are finalised with India? Will the UK Government work towards an integrated framework of atrocity prevention in the UK’s India strategy to ensure that at the very least UK officials can monitor risk and communicate the risks internally and externally? Will the UK Government ensure that human rights and environmental specialists are included in trade delegations?
India has ratified only six out of the eight international labour organisations’ core conventions. Will the UK Government make access to UK markets conditional on the Indian Government ratifying and effectively implementing key human rights conventions?
In 1995, it was agreed that every new EU trade deal would make human rights an essential criterion, allowing a treaty to be suspended if human rights commitments were broken. It is deeply concerning that the Foreign Secretary appears to have edged away from that principle in trade deals with Turkey, Singapore and Vietnam. Will the current Secretary of State for International Trade, or indeed the whole UK Government, go down the same path?
It is abhorrent that people can be prosecuted simply for practising their faith and worshipping their God. The constructive relationship between the UK and India gives the UK influence, perhaps uniquely among all the international actors, to effect change and exert influence—to pressure, encourage, cajole and do whatever it takes to ensure that India is governed by tolerance, understanding and equality, and that that is shown to Indians who are a part of a religious minority.
The ongoing trade negotiations with India represent a very important moment to focus minds on this matter. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that that is exactly what will happen, and that the UK will stand up to India as a critical friend to make it clear that basic human freedoms are inviolable, and we expect our friends and allies to recognise, practise and respect that principle.
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