India is defying American pressure on a number of topics, including the prospect of sanctions and its struggle for human rights while insisting that the two countries’ ties are strong enough to accept disagreements.
In a forthright retort to the US threatening New Delhi with sanctions over its acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defence system, External affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday that CAATSA, the US domestic legislation prohibiting sanctions for such transactions with American foes, was for Washington to figure out.
‘It is their legislation and whatever has to be done has to be done by them’, Jaishankar said, implying that India will do whatever it takes to ensure its security without fear of sanctions.
Similarly, Jaishankar fought back against US criticism of India’s human rights, blaming it on American lobbies and vote banks. ‘People are entitled to have views about us. We also are entitled to have views about their lobbies and vote banks. We will not be reticent. We also have views on other people’s human rights, particularly when it pertains to our community’, Jaishankar answered in one of the most vehement rebukes of the regular American lectures on human rights.
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The retort came only hours after the State Department’s annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices, which stated, among other things, that government officials in India were intimidating critical media outlets through physical harassment and attacks and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US is watching an increase in human rights violations in the country.
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