India's growing clout hampers progress on human rights

The Amnesty International has said that the global community was finding it difficult to exert pressure on New Delhi over the human rights situation in Kashmir. The AI added that India was “extremely rigid” on the issue of unmarked graves in the contested region. “The international community won’t be able to exert pressure on New Delhi over investigations into unmarked graves in Kashmir because of India’s growing clout,” a top Amnesty official for South Asia, Govind Acharya said in a media interview. “It speaks volumes about New Delhi’s rigidity that it has adopted stone-walling tactics over investigations in the thousands of unmarked graves in Kashmir so that the people in the region gradually forget about the issue,” the Amnesty official said. “Delhi had adopted a similar approach for Punjab, where the truth (about grave human rights violations) never came to surface,” he said. “Forces personnel responsible for enforced disappearances of civilians have been conferred rewards and promotions,” he said. The Amnesty official dismissed the possibility of international pressure over such issues working on Delhi, but said that civil society and human rights groups’ voices within India held out some hope of justice for victimised Kashmiris. “Demands of justice for human rights violations victims in Kashmir are growing within India, as is the cry for accountability of the armed forces. This may have some impact,” he said.