Writing in the Indian Express, Maja Daruwala, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, has called on India to assert leadership at the UN Human Rights Council and call for accountability in Sri Lanka.
Extracts have been reproduced below. See the full piece here.
"The time has come for India to be bolder and more confident on human rights at the international level. Its growing stature in international affairs demands this leadership position. The current session of the UN Human Rights Council presents India with an excellent opportunity to move towards a foreign policy that truly befits the world’s largest democracy. It should seize the opportunity and vote in favour of accountability in Sri Lanka."
"Unfortunately, the proposed resolution does not go far enough. It will not immediately call for direly needed international investigations — a bitter disappointment. In this context, the proposed resolution must not preclude future UNHRC efforts that demand justice, accountability and international investigations in Sri Lanka. The resolution should be voted on only as a first step in the right direction, and not as a final step to water down scrutiny or as a tactic to delay urgently needed justice in Sri Lanka."
"From India’s point of view, the resolution is saying nothing that India has not ostensibly been asking of Sri Lanka both publicly and privately — real accountability and soon. A stable, well-governed neighbour is in India’s interest as a regional power. Stability requires that alienated populations experience justice for the past and in the future. Denials, diplomatic spin and cosmetic efforts that paper over past misdeeds cannot achieve this. Today, only a negative peace exists in Sri Lanka."
"India has two other considerations in Sri Lanka — the need to retain its influence in the country as China forges ahead with economic aid and investment, and the need to be sensitive to the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils , who have strong ethnic and kinship links with India’s own 70 million plus population in Tamil Nadu. Support for accountability in Sri Lanka may serve both interests equally well. In the long run, especially as the world’s largest democracy, it is India’s ability to take the moral high ground that will prove to be advantageous against China’s economic influence in Sri Lanka. In the short run, accountability in Sri Lanka will bring justice closer to its disaffected populations."
"India’s response may have been couched in diplomacy, but the message was clear: the Sri Lankan government had to go further and establish an independent and credible mechanism to investigate human rights abuses in timely manner."
"That Sri Lanka wants to keep accountability and international opprobrium at bay is clear from its foreign minister’s recent whistle-stop tour of Africa and Latin America, during which he tried to persuade the world not to vote against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC. As the big fish in the region, India also has the potential to sway votes, as it did in 2009. This time, its stature would be greatly enhanced if it could sway them in favour of accountability."
