Negotiating Objectives for a Free Trade Agreement with India

Lord Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for securing this debate. I am grateful to be allowed to speak in the gap on the subject of a free trade deal with India.

I am just as eager to see our trade links with other countries, including India, improved as other members of this House are, but I have always believed that our trade must be linked with human rights. Looking at India’s record on human rights through the eyes of renowned international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Genocide Watch, India is seen to be one of the worst human rights offenders in the world.

According to a 2022 Amnesty International report, the Indian Government have drastically intensified the repression of rights in Jammu and Kashmir in the three years since the change in the status of the region. The report notes how civil society at large, and journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders in particular, have faced relentless interrogations, arbitrary travel bans, revolving indoor detentions and repressive media policies, while access to appeals or justice via the courts and human rights bodies has been blocked. Amnesty International has also said that

“civil society and media in Jammu and Kashmir have been subjected to a vicious crackdown by the Indian government, which is determined to stifle dissent using draconian laws, policies and unlawful practices in their arsenal… By harassing and intimidating critical voices, authorities are targeting all credible, independent sources of information in and about Jammu and Kashmir.”

According to a 2022 Human Rights Watch report,

“Indian authorities intensified their crackdown on activists, journalists, and other critics of the government using politically motivated prosecutions in 2021 … The clampdown on dissent was facilitated by the draconian counterterrorism law, tax raids, foreign funding regulations, and charges of financial irregularities. Attacks against religious minorities were carried out with impunity under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Hindu nationalist government. BJP supporters engaged in mob attacks or threatened violence, while several states adopted laws and policies to target minority communities, particularly Christians, Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis.”


According to Genocide Watch’s 2022 report, an expert, who is said to have predicted the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994, warns that a genocide of Muslims in India could be about to take place. Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, said during a US congressional briefing that there are early signs of processes of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. We are warning that genocide could very well be happening in India.

In the light of these independent reports, how can the Minister reassure this Committee that the UK’s trade deal with India would meet our foreign policy and international principles and standards? If India continues with its human rights abuses and chooses to ignore these principles and standards, what would our Government be prepared to do?