Will Western Investors Shun India due to Attacks on Civil Liberties

Aakar Patel, chair, Amnesty International.India

July 11, 2022

 In October 2021, Adani Ports said it was scrapping plans to build container terminals in Myanmar. This was four months after NLP, the Norwegian pension fund, said it would not fund the project. Other major Western companies which pulled out of Myanmar include Norwegian telecoms company Telenor and energy companies TotalEnergies of France, Chevron of the United States and Royal Dutch Shell of the United Kingdom.  

“International companies doing business in the country have come under pressure from (civil) rights groups to review their operations…(due to) the worsening humanitarian situation,” Reuters reported.  

Adani, one of the two giant business conglomerates in India, controls Mundra, India’s largest port, and Mumbai International Airport, as well as runs commodities, power generation and transmission and real estate businesses. Founder Gautam Adani has a net worth of $111 billion, according to Forbes, compared to $87 billion for Mukesh Ambani who runs Reliance, India’s other major conglomerate.

In 2014, after he first became Prime Minister as leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Narendra Modi announced ambitious plans to transform India into a major global economic power by 2025, while creating millions of new jobs each year. The plans required over $1.5 trillion in equity and debt investments, mostly from foreign funds, including about $1 trillion for expanding and modernizing the infrastructure.

So far, Modi trails way behind his goal for attracting foreign investments. During the three years 2018 to 2020, for instance, foreign direct investment for setting up new operations in India totaled only $106 billion.

Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf countries say they want to make major investments in India’s energy and related infrastructure. These kingdoms care little about civil liberties. However, members of the royal families, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Arab lawyers and journalists condemn the rising attacks on Muslims in India by what they call Hindutva fascists.

Last month, the governments of the Persian Gulf countries, as well as of Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia, Iran, Iraq and other Muslim countries, sought an apology and action against BJP spokespersons for their statements about Prophet Muhammad. In a tweet, the Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has 57 member countries, “strongly condemned & denounced the recent denigration of Prophet Muhammad by an official of #india’s ruling party. These cases of defamation are part of a growing spate of hatred & defamation of #Islam in #India.”

Unlike the Persian Gulf countries, Western investors have shown little interest in making major investments in Indian infrastructure projects since they fear the profits may depend on government policies. Instead, Western companies and funds have mostly invested in internet, software, consumer goods and services and media businesses, such as online retailer Flipkart and digital payment platform Paytm. They are attracted by India’s demographics, with those below 35 comprising two-thirds of the 1.4 billion population. And they seek profits by selling directly to this big market of young consumers.

However, now there is a growing risk that Western investors may shun India due to rising attacks on civil liberties and religious minorities. Such investors dislike political instability, fearing it will hurt their investments. Also, they will likely face rising pressure from civil liberties’ groups, especially in countries like Norway, Canada, Sweden and the U.S. 

Last week, India’s Directorate of Enforcement imposed a $6 million fine on Amnesty International India and a $1.3 million fine on Aakar Patel, its India chair, for alleged “money laundering.” They received foreign money “in a profit making company” by claiming to carry out “civil Society work”, the government agency said in a statement.

In 2020, Amnesty was forced to cease its human rights work in India after its bank accounts were frozen by the government. Since then, Amnesty, led by Patel, has been fighting multiple court cases instituted by various government agencies. 

“This incessant witch-hunt is contrary to India’s international human rights obligations and reflects poorly on its role as a member of the UN Human Rights Council,” Kyle Ward, Deputy Secretary General of New York based Amnesty International said in a statement.

 Aakar Patel, a newspaper columnist, was a former editor of English and Gujarati language newspapers. His books include Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here, 2020, and Price of the Modi Years: A history of India after 2014, published in 2021.

Patel’s Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) is a study of majoritarianism in India and Pakistan. It analyzes how Hindutva  (Hindu nationalism) spread in India and why the laws and the judiciary “have been permeated by prejudice and bigotry.” He examines the books and speeches of the founders of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), a secretive militant hierarchical organization, which is said to control the ruling BJP.

The RSS’ basic belief is that Hindus are supreme in India while Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities have no rights. Patel points out that “Hindutva is not an ideology but merely an anti-minority (chiefly targeting Muslims and Christians) programme,” noted Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay in a review of Patel’s book for LiveMint.

In September 2021, Patel was arrested and charged with “creating communal disharmony” over a tweet he posted. The complaint was filed by a legislator affiliated to the ruling BJP.

In April this year, Patel was prevented from traveling to the United States where he was to speak about the attacks on the civil society in India at conferences organized by the University of Michigan, University of Berkeley, and New York University. This was “despite a judicial order permitting him to travel outside India for his speaking engagements,” a statement by Amnesty International noted.

In a statement, Kyle Ward of Amnesty International said that “Denying Aakar’s right to freedom of movement to prevent him from exercising his freedom of expression is an alarming manifestation of the Indian government’s mounting crackdown on human rights defenders and activists.”

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