AUKUS targets India on ‘Khalistan’, ‘rights’, as ‘Quad’ wavers

New Delhi: Several developments in close succession may mark a shift in the policies of the US, UK and Australia—who together constitutes the new grouping named AUKUS—towards India. A new military alliance AUKUS—comprising Australia, UK and the US—was jointly announced on September 15, 2021 by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The core aim of AUKUS is to counter a rising and increasingly assertive China. The AUKUS somewhat overlaps with the ‘Quad’ (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), of which India is an important member along with the US, Australia and Japan in what is commonly understood to also be an anti-China platform.

With former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated just last week (on July 8, known to be the main force behind the formation of the ‘Quad’, the idea of such a grouping was first mooted in 2007 but picked up steam only from 2010 onwards.

US trains ‘rights’ gun on India

On July 5, Juan Vargas, a US Representative from California, moved a resolution in the US Congress demanding an “independent investigation” into the death of tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy. Vargas is a Democrat, the same party to which President Joe Biden belongs.

Swamy had died on July 5, 2021, while in judicial custody after being booked in the Elgar Parishad case. While in jail, Swamy, 84, had appealed to the court seeking access to medical care. On July 2, as if in concert, two officials—David Curry and Stephen Schneck—both commissioners of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), made social media comments on the state of rights in India.

Curry tweeted: “USCIRF is concerned about the Indian government’s continued repression of critical voices— especially religious minorities and those reporting on and advocating for them.” Schneck’s tweet said: “Human rights advocates, journalists, activists, and faith leaders in #India face harassment for speaking out and reporting religious freedom conditions. This is not reflective of a country with a history of democracy.”

Preceding the duo on heaping criticism on India was Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, who warned on June 30 that the ‘Early Warning Project at the Holocaust Museum’ ranked the risk of mass killings in India as the second highest in the world.

The USCIRF is a government agency that makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress and tracks the implementation of these recommendations. In its report for 2022 that was released on April 25, 2022, the USCIRF had bracketed India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) along with 15 countries that included Russia, China, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Burma, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

Already on June 29, belying expectations, India was not included in a ‘historic’ US-led NATO Summit in Madrid where all 30 member countries and key NATO partners from Europe and Asia, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and Korea, had converged.

UK: DSN and Jagtar Johal

On June 28, a team of 12 British Army and Royal Air Force (RAF) officials belonging to the Sikh community visited Pakistan. Part of an organization called ‘Defence Sikh Network’ (DSN), the delegates had an audience with General Qamar Bajwa, the all-powerful chief of the Pakistan army.

The DSN delegation to Pakistan was led by Major General Celia Harvey of the British army, a Sikh lady officer. DSN, which acts as a focal point for serving Sikhs in the British military, is an official organisation of the British defence ministry and has been vocal about Sikh ‘rights’ and has criticized “Operation Blue-Star” in its social media posts.

“Operation Blue-Sta” was the Indian military operation conducted on the June 1-10, 1984 inside Amritsar’s Golden Temple, the holiest of the Sikh shrines, to flush out supporters of the separatist Khalistan movement led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Very recently, PM Johnson, after remaining mum on the matter for four-and-a-half years suddenly took up the issue of Jagtar Singh Johal by writing a letter to the British opposition leader Keir Starmer admitting that Johal, a British Sikh activist with Khalistani leanings, has been “arbitrarily” detained in an Indian jail “without formal charges being pressed against him” since 2017.

Australia: Griffith Sikh Games

The Griffith Sikh Games that took place on June 11-12 at the Ted Scobie Oval in Australia’s New South Wales town of Griffith, witnessed Sikh members of the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) in uniform freely mixing around with many participants with clear affiliation to the ‘Khalistani’ cause.

Pictures of the event show hundreds of flags, banners and posters supporting the ‘Khalistani’ cause in full show. Nor was any effort witnessed to remove the propaganda material espousing the cause. By way of defence, a ADF spokesperson said: “The ADF personnel who attended the Sikh Games in Griffith did so with good intentions. The ADF personnel are proud of both their service and their culture and saw an opportunity to engage positively with the Sikh community.”

“They had no prior knowledge of other groups attending the event, including political or separatist movements. The attendance of ADF personnel at this event in no way endorses any other group or organisation who may have also been in attendance,” the spokesperson added.

But the question remained as to why the ADF personnel didn’t leave the venue when they saw such blatant and open support for ‘Khalistan’. All well-known ‘Khalistani’ movement organizations have been declared terror outfits by the Indian government. The near-sudden turn taken by the AUKUS nations in their relationship with India may not be isolated incidents and could therefore be indicative of new positions.

Sparked by the Russia-Ukraine conflict that began on February 24, the world is witnessing a sudden churning across the globe which may have in it the seeds of a new world order. India, with its stress on strategic autonomy and national self-interest being the key guideline in its strategic ties has garnered considerable attention of the major powers.