00:00 We can now bring in Trisha Shetty, a social activist and lawyer
00:04 who joins us in the studio. Thank you very much for joining us here on
00:07 France 24. Now,
00:09 last month we had Narendra Modi who was in Washington for a state visit. Now he's
00:14 here in Paris for a state visit. It seems that the world's oldest democracies
00:19 are standing pretty shoulder to shoulder with the world's largest
00:23 democracy. Is that what you see here?
00:26 Undoubtedly. I think
00:27 speaking of this we need to take a step back and go back to 2005, right?
00:31 When our prime minister, then the chief minister of Gujarat, was denied a visa,
00:36 was denied a diplomatic visa,
00:37 and even further than that they revoked his tourist visa to enter the United
00:41 States of America because under section 212
00:44 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of the United States of America,
00:47 it bans officials
00:49 who are credibly responsible for severe violation of religious freedoms
00:54 of minorities.
00:55 This was in relation to our current prime minister's
00:59 alleged role in the Gujarat riots that saw over a thousand people killed,
01:03 anti-Muslim violence,
01:05 and over tens of thousands of people
01:07 displaced.
01:08 Albeit our Supreme Court of India has given our prime minister the clean shit.
01:12 This is important to note.
01:13 But what is also parallelly important to note
01:16 is the British foreign
01:17 report that was declassified as of recently
01:21 that said that violence had all the ethnic hallmarks,
01:24 all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing,
01:26 and that Narendra Modi is directly responsible, right?
01:29 What is also important to note
01:31 is when BBC, as of last year,
01:33 published a documentary
01:35 making alarming links of our prime minister
01:38 to the Gujarat riots that unfolded,
01:41 BBC's offices were shortly raided.
01:43 What is also important to note is what Jack Dorsey has said,
01:47 that his Twitter employees were threatened
01:50 with arrest,
01:51 that they would shut down Twitter offices
01:53 if they did not censor
01:55 all links that were critical of our administration during the farmers' protest movement,
01:59 and that all the links that link to the BBC documentary on Twitter
02:03 were censored
02:04 under Elon Musk's rule.
02:06 So,
02:07 let's just distinguish.
02:09 I think it's great
02:11 that the world's largest democracy with the largest youth population, which is India,
02:15 is being recognized
02:17 for the critical role it plays within the global scope, right?
02:20 You cannot protect democracy globally
02:22 without recognizing India's role,
02:24 but do not sanitize the image of such a leader
02:26 who has such severe
02:29 allegations of violations of human rights against him.
02:31 But Trisha, with all that you mentioned,
02:33 do you
02:34 get a sense that Western leaders are willing to look the other way
02:38 when it comes to what goes on at home for Narendra Modi,
02:42 given the size of India's economy?
02:44 I mean, just this year alone, we have Air India buying some
02:47 over 200 Airbus planes, Indigo buying 500 Airbus planes, and now
02:52 we have this initial deal to pick up Rafale fighter jets and submarines.
02:56 Sure. So what are the six reasons that have been cited for Indo-France relations, right?
03:00 It's defense, it's the blue economy,
03:03 it's civil nuclear energy, it's counterterrorism, it's cybersecurity,
03:07 it's also the assurance of students who will get visas easier to come to France.
03:11 All of this is good, but again, what are you defending?
03:15 This is what I go back to President Macron's speech
03:18 during armistice,
03:19 when he said that nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.
03:23 He said that
03:25 a nation must stand up for
03:27 what gives it life, what is essential, which is its moral values.
03:31 So how can you talk about the economy
03:33 and that you want to do business in India
03:36 without protecting the people that are breathing air in India? You want to talk
03:40 about
03:41 investing in resilient infrastructure, which is what France is saying they're
03:43 going to do with India.
03:44 Have they accounted for the fact that India
03:47 is ranking second largest when it comes to deforestation,
03:50 second only to Brazil?
03:52 This is under Narendra Modi's regime from 2005 to 2020,
03:57 the report that has come out.
03:58 So again, with our economy, have they accounted for the extreme disparity? Yes,
04:02 our GDP has grown.
04:03 But they've looked at
04:05 to benefit whom? What is the unemployment rate? What is the rural
04:08 unemployment rate? What is the urban unemployment rate?
04:10 What is the income disparity between the richest and the poorest in India? It's the
04:14 highest it's ever been.
04:15 There was a lot of pressure on President Biden to
04:18 discuss human rights with Modi. Do you think there's less pressure on Emmanuel
04:22 Macron?
04:23 I'm so glad you brought that up, right?
04:25 I understand diplomacy. They always say, you know, it's this line that's
04:28 around, "You attack more flies with honey."
04:30 You need all the players at the table. Great.
04:32 What happened when President Obama
04:34 did an interview raising alarms about how he hopes President Biden brings up
04:39 the issues of minorities and Muslims' rights in India?
04:43 Our current sitting Chief Minister of India
04:46 made a statement, and I quote,
04:48 "There are plenty Hussein Obamas in India we should prioritize taking care of
04:53 before going to DC.
04:54 The Assam police will take care of these people."
04:57 This is the sort of threatening, Islamophobic, menacing tweet
05:00 that our sitting Chief Minister feels comfortable speaking
05:03 in reference to POTUS.
05:06 I want to talk about threats because the Wall Street Journal
05:09 journalist Sabrina Siddiqui was targeted
05:12 in the United States and targeted online after she asked
05:16 Prime Minister Modi a question when he was standing alongside the U.S.
05:20 President at the White House.
05:21 She was accused of having an agenda.
05:23 It seems that whenever a journalist or social activist in India tries to
05:27 question what is going on, they are automatically targeted and targeted
05:32 online by the powers that be.
05:34 Let's be clear. India currently ranks 161st
05:38 according to the World Freedom Press Index, right?
05:41 But when you talk about that to Indian authorities,
05:43 they seem to think...
05:44 Journalists don't have the right to question.
05:45 But they seem to think, because I have interviewed India's ambassador
05:47 here to Paris, and he accused me of having an agenda
05:50 and that this so-called list is rigged, essentially, to keep India down.
05:55 I am very transparent. Yes, I do have an agenda.
05:57 My agenda is to protect democracy and human rights
06:00 and ensure that dissidents are not targeted, prosecuted,
06:03 jailed, arrested, killed and threatened.
06:05 Right? That is my agenda.
06:06 I'm very clear. You asked me what that is.
06:08 That is my agenda.
06:09 I think that falls to universal human values that I'm willing to defend.
06:12 Right? Also, what was critical about that interview that happened in America?
06:17 I think it was the first time Prime Minister Modi took a question from a journalist.
06:21 In India, since his term,
06:23 it's the second time that he's been ruling as prime minister.
06:26 Since 2004, he has not taken one single question from a journalist.
06:30 And what happened to that journalist?
06:31 She was subject to extreme virtual attacks,
06:33 where the US State Department had to put out a statement saying they are concerned.
06:37 Right? So this is what we're being subject to.
06:39 I'm an activist myself.
06:41 Every time I have dared to dissent,
06:43 question the state of affairs when it comes to women in our country
06:47 whose violence is being looked away because they are, you know, Dalit, Muslim,
06:52 we get subject to the worst kind of attacks.
06:54 So many political prisoners are currently in jail under the prevention of atrocity
07:00 against our terrorism act,
07:02 which the burden of proof is on the accused as opposed to the accuser.
07:07 With just, you know, the process is killing you.
07:09 So again, do we have the right to question?
07:12 That is my point.
07:13 How can you say democracies?
07:15 What is France doing right now?
07:17 They're celebrating democratic superpowers coming together.
07:20 That is great.
07:21 But you need to defend the democracy in the first place and you need to defend moral values.
07:26 What are you willing to defend?
07:28 And again, this is not an attack on India.
07:30 India is a country that, you know, that we all love deeply for the same values
07:37 that France is willing to defend.
07:38 We as Indians are willing to defend those values.
07:41 This is just a request.
07:43 Please stop sanitizing the image of this world leader and do business,
07:47 but also have the courage, please, to ask him to do better by us,
07:52 to defend sovereignty, to defend rights that, you know, that hold the world together.
07:58 Trisha, we're going to have to leave it there.
07:59 Thank you very much for joining us on the program today,
