Thank you, Honourable Chair Sgro and members of the Standing Committee on International Trade, for this opportunity to share a human rights perspective.
As an executive director of a not-for-profit advocacy organization, Justice for All Canada, which focuses on human rights and genocide prevention, my statement deals with CEPA and FIPA as it closely relates to India, a key region of the Indo-Pacific. Even though CEPA and FIPA have not yet been signed, Canada should not facilitate investment pathways with India at the expense of the human rights and safety of persecuted religious minorities in the country.
India is governed by Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, a right-wing nationalist group guided by the Hindutva ideology, which envisions India as a nation for Hindus only, promoting a belief that Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits and Adivasis are second-class citizens.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have long documented the Indian government's exclusionary framework that gives tacit support to right-wing groups to threaten, attack and discriminate against religious minorities with impunity. Between 2009 and 2018, 90% of religiously motivated hate crimes occurred since the BJP came to power in 2014, with 83% of these attackers affiliated with right-wing organizations, and 62% of the victims being Muslim. In 2019, 66% of recorded hate crimes were against Dalit minorities. In 2021 alone, 305 attacks took place against Christian communities and places of worship.
The BJP government has instituted notorious citizenship laws that disproportionately target over 200 million Indian Muslims. The Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA, for instance, is a law that protects minorities from several countries surrounding India, but conveniently excludes Muslim refugees. The United Nations described the CAA as “fundamentally discriminatory”.
The reason we don't hear much about this deteriorating human rights condition in India and the occupied Kashmir is that the BJP has repressed, raided, harassed and shut down over 19,000 NGOs in India and Kashmir since coming to power in 2014, in particular Amnesty International India, which was shut down last year.
Genocide Watch has issued two genocide warnings concerning Muslims in India. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, India ranked second in its early warning project statistical risk assessment. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, has recently demonstrated the rising threat to Indian minority communities under the BJP government.
In December 2021, recently, during a Hindu religious parliament, prominent Hindutva leaders with close ties to BJP leadership publicly called for genocide against Indian Muslims and other minorities. After these genocide calls took place, state authorities began indiscriminately demolishing properties and homes of Muslims. Recently, a high court in south India's Karnataka state has upheld a discriminatory hijab ban restricting Muslim girls from obtaining an education in the state of Karnataka.
India wants to be friends with Canada while it continues working with Russia. The Canadian government has swiftly responded to the Ukrainian crisis while remaining silent over BJP's crimes against humanity. This indicates a strong double standard with regard to implementing CEPA and FIPA.
In conclusion, Justice for All Canada recommends the following.
The Standing Committee on International Trade is urged to enforce compliance with international conventions on human rights and protection of minorities as a precondition to any economic and trade relations with India. Canada's re-engagement with India on CEPA and FIPA must be contingent on India's commitment to take concrete policy actions to protect its vulnerable minorities.
The standing committee must ensure that all trade-related conversations and agreements with India involve independent human rights experts and include dedicated human rights chapters and provisions so our bilateral relations are not built at the expense of freedom, justice and the human rights of persecuted minorities in India.
We understand that India is a high-priority partner for Canada, but the Canadian government must prioritize developing progress agreements that rather promote and protect the human rights of vulnerable minorities in India. Canada should not overlook India's human rights violations and not treat India as a counterweight to China.
Thank you very much.