ALL PEOPLE NEED VOICE IN GOVT, U.S. TELLS INDIA

Raising the human rights issue with India, visiting US secretary of state Antony J. Blinken on Wednesday asserted that “all people deserve to have a voice in their government and be treated with respect no matter who they are”.

The US Secretary of State, however, later said that he had discussed these issues in all “humility” with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, knowing fully well that even American democracy had imperfections and was a “work in progress”.

In a strong response to the US stand at the media briefing in the afternoon after bilateral talks and a “good conversation”, Mr Jaishankar said in a veiled hint at the Citizenship Amendment Act and perhaps even the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that polities had a moral obligation to “right historical wrongs”.

Stating that freedom should not be equated with lack of governance, Mr Jaishankar said the quest for a more perfect democracy and union was applicable to not just the US and India but all democracies.

Jaishankar said: “We had a good conversation about a number of issues. I made three important points. One, that the quest for a more perfect union applies as much to Indian democracy as much as to the American one, indeed to all democracies. Two, it is the moral obligation of all polities to really right wrongs when they have been done including historically. Many of the decisions and policies you have seen in the last few years fall in that category. And third, freedoms are important. We all value them but never equate freedom with non-governance or lack of governance or poor governance. They are two completely different things.”