A post is being widely shared on social media claiming that U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a meeting with India’s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, has mentioned several statistics of Minority Persecution in India under the current BJP rule. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statements on Minority Persecution in India under the current BJP rule.
Fact: No such statements were made Antony Blinken. However, at a Joint Press Conference on 11 April 2022, Blinken said that they (USA) were monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials. Following this, on 14 April 2022, Jaishankar replied that human rights issue was not a topic of discussion during the ministerial meeting and added, “whenever there is a discussion on that, we will not be reticent about speaking out. We also take our views on other people’s human rights situation, including that of the US. So, we take up a human rights issues when they arise in this country (USA), especially when they pertain to our community. And in fact, we had a case yesterday…that’s really where we stand on that”. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
First, we found that the same post has been viral since April 2022 after a joint press conference held by top Indian and US Ministers on 11 April 2022 at Washington, D.C. In this conference, talking about India-US relations, Blinken said, “We also share a commitment to our democratic values, such as protecting human rights. We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values, and to that end we’re monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials.” Following this, on 14 April 2022, Jaishankar said, “People are entitled to have views about us. But we are also equally entitled to have views about their views and about the interests, and the lobbies and the vote banks which drive that. So, whenever there is a discussion, I can tell you that we will not be reticent about speaking out” adding that the human rights issue was not a topic of discussion during the ministerial meeting.
He further added, “I would tell you that we also take our views on other people’s human rights situation, including that of the United States. So, we take up a human rights issues when they arise in this country (USA), especially when they pertain to our community. And in fact, we had a case yesterday…that’s really where we stand on that,”. Also, in June 2022, during the release of International Religious Freedom report 2021, Blinken said, “In India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of worship”. However, Ministry on External Affairs released a statement calling the comments as ‘ill-informed’.
To sum it up, even though Blinken said they were concerned about recent rise in human right violations in India, he never made the statements shared in the viral post.
