New Delhi: UNESCO was today slammed for its silence on violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in its certified World Heritage Sites in protected areas on the eve of its 46^th session of the World Heritage Committee being held in New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday inaugurated the 46 session of the World Heritage Committee.

“In the natural World Heritage Sites i.e. conversation areas, indigenous peoples have been facing massive violations including forced evictions, extrajudicial executions, rape and other violations. A UN heritage site cannot be a place for grave human rights violations including sexual violence.” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Asia Campaign Manager of the University of Arizona’s Initiative on Indigenous Peoples Affected by Protected Areas and Other Conservation Measures.

For decades, indigenous Maasai people faced massive human rights violations in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of Tanzania, certified as a World Heritage Site in 1979. In 2022, a number of inter-governmental organisations including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and nine United Nations Special Rapporteurs expressed concerns against Tanzanian government’s eviction plans in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and violence in Loliondo. On 18 January 2024, the Tanzanian government announced its decision to change the legal status of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area prohibiting any human settlement in the area and forcibly evict approximately 100,000 Maasai people. The UNESCO has so far funded US$ 290,386 for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

In the Chitwan national park, certified as a Heritage Site in 1984, indigenous peoples faced evictions and other human rights violations while the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a regional intergovernmental organization established by the UNESCO itself reported persistent sexual violence against indigenous peoples in the park. The ICIMOD stated, “in 7 buffer zone VDCs in Chitwan, more than 30 women claim that their children have been born of rape. These children face difficulties in acquiring citizenship as the right to citizenship is based on the father’s name.” The UNESCO as on date provided US$ 80,000 for the Chitwan National Park.

India’s Kaziranga National Park certified as a World Heritage site in 1985, has constantly been in news for forcible eviction of indigenous peoples, controversial shoot at sight policy towards suspected poachers causing violations of the right to life  and now, establishment of Five Star Hotels inside the park to promote tourism.  The UNESCO as on date provided US$ 80,000 for Kaziranga National Park.

In the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand, United Nations human rights bodies such as the UN CERD Committee and the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights Defenders and the Environment repeatedly expressed concerns about human rights violations of the Karen indigenous peoples.

In June 2024, the European Union stopped US$19.76 million grant to Tanzania due to the ongoing evictions of the Maasai people from the Ngorongoro and Loliondo areas to make room for more conservation tourism. Earlier in April 2024, the World Bank suspended US$150 million fund to the Tanzania because of the extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, evictions, torture and cattle seizures perpetrated against local villagers in the Ruaha National Park.

“When the EU and World Bank are acting against human rights violations in the conservation sites, the UNESCO cannot remain silent against grave human rights violations against indigenous peoples in its certified World Heritage Sites. UNESCO ought to reform its Operational Guidelines to apply human rights-based approach for the inclusion of natural conservation sites in the World Heritage List, periodically review of the World Heritage status of the natural conservation sites regarding compliance with UN human rights standards and Article 5(a) of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage that “give the cultural and natural heritage a function in the life of the community”, establish an independent grievance mechanism to address human rights violations at the natural World Heritage sites and provide effective support to the communities affected by the World Heritage sites. ”- further stated Mr Chakma who also serves as Director the Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG).

(Rights & Risks Analysis Group)

Now that the dust is settling in Bangladesh in the wake of the unceremonious resignation of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her hasty departure to India, there are issues that need clarity before the world – and immediate neighbour India – can design a policy response to these developments. First, let us be clear that hubris was the primary force behind Ms Hasina’s political fate.

She certainly rode roughshod over Constitutional norms and conventions. Her sacking of Bangladesh’s first Hindu Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha was just one example. The disproportionate use of violence by the security forces against protesting students was another. The fact that the Awami League, a party founded by her father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman which was once a bastion of secularism, intellectuals, progressive thought, and Bengali pride, was widely seen as having been taken over by contractors, big businesses, and middlemen on her watch was perhaps the final straw.

But let us also resist the South Asian tendency to see the world in binaries. Ms Hasina cracked down on terrorism, made the first genuine effort at deradicalisation of the population, was a friend to India while protecting her own country’s interests, balanced the China-US jostling for influence over Bangladesh with aplomb, ensured the army stayed in the barracks, and helmed her country’s journey from a low-income country to an aspirational middle-income one adroitly.

The Hasina Administration formulated policies and initiated structural reforms that diversified Bangladesh’s economy which is overly dependent on the manufacturing and export of garments. Indeed, even in the garment sector, a concerted attempt to make Bangladesh an integral part of Global Value Chains was evident through her years in power and was paying dividends. Economically, the past 15 years have been best for Bangladesh since its Independence in 1971and have seen the maximum number of people lifted out of abject poverty.

Sheikh Hasina won her fourth consecutive (and fifth overall) General Election in January 2024, though the victory was clouded by reports of widespread irregularities by neutrals and allegations of outright rigging by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami as well as the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Khaleda Zia which boycotted the poll.

The US had anyway been supporting the ‘Hasina-must-go’ narrative over the past few years as Washington was thought by many analysts to be getting increasingly restless because of the independent foreign policy being followed by Dhaka. Great power rivalry the strategically critical Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is intense, and the Bay of Bengal, with Chinese influence in neighbouring Myanmar dominant, is a geography that the US is desperately seeking to gain a foothold in.

Hubris may well have set in for the Hasina Administration before her 2024 electoral success due to its own actions but, and this is the key, her adversaries comprising the BNP, Islamists, and the US also realised that time was running out for them as Ms Hasina had consolidated her hold on power.

Soon after her poll win, the former Prime Minister announced reservations for the descendants of freedom fighters who had given up their all in Bangladesh’s Liberation War. Students across the country not affiliated with the Awami League were infuriated because despite the increasing prosperity in the country, government jobs – the holy grail for employment seekers across the Indian subcontinent due to deeply embedded socio-cultural reasons – threatened to become scarce for all other sections of the population. (Government jobs in South Asia are the only guarantee of job security, and health, educational, and pension benefits.) Imagine, if you will, the anti-Mandal Commission agitation in India of 1990 for a rough comparison.

As temperatures soared over the summer months and the students’ stir intensified, Ms Hasina’s opponents seem to have decided that they had the perfect foil in the student-led protests against the quota to foment trouble for the government. Each for their own reasons, of course:

The non-Awami League students’ organisations because they felt a genuine sense of grievance at the dwindling opportunities such an affirmative action policy would lead to;

• The BNP because their supporters would be largely if not wholly excluded from the quota given the marginal role played by their progenitors in the country’s freedom struggle;
• The Islamists because such a policy would underline Bangladesh’s privileging of its Secular-Bangla traditions over the Islamic-Urdu identity sought to be imposed on the country by Pakistan and its acolytes ever since the Partition of India in 1947 and;
• The Americans because they wanted security and intelligence gathering facilities in Bangladesh which the Hasina administration was being ‘uncooperative’ about, especially giving the US untrammelled access to the strategically important St Martin’s Island.

It was the perfect storm. To her eternal credit, however, not only did a combative Sheikha Hasina push back against this multipronged attack on her, she even reached out to the student leaders in a televised interaction and asked them bluntly: If not for freedom fighters’ kin, whom should reservation be for, the Razakars (collaborators with Pakistan who gained infamy for murders, rapes, and targeted killings of minorities and secular-liberal Muslims during Bangladesh’s the freedom struggle)?

But it was too late to shape the narrative, especially given her own mistakes in terms of her autocratic functioning, the corruption indulged in by those around her, and her capture of state institutions. History will, however, record that when it came to the crunch, she left Bangladesh for refuge in India rather than be the cause of more bloodshed.

There is a collective sigh of relief in south Asia’s security, human rights and economic circles as the 2024 general elections put an effective brake on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrogant campaign to win over 400 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament.

As the 4th June official counting extends late into the night the world’s biggest electoral process, Mr Modi, as leader of the single largest party still expects to be called by the President, Mrs Draupadi Murmu, to form a record third consecutive government. But he will be a much smaller persona than when he strutted the world stage the last ten years, embracing US presidents and Arabian kings, and lording over smaller countries in the neighbourhood.

TV counters gave Mr Modi’s National Democratic alliance 294 seats and 228 to the main opposition called I.N.D.I.A. at the time of going to the press.

The absolute victory of magnitude he sought, many Indians feared, would have empowered Mr Modi to carry out the political dream of his parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to amend the liberal democratic Indian Constitution, and lay the foundations of a far-right Hindu Rashtra [nation]in which religious minorities were disenfranchised, and indigenous people had no rights over their natural resources.

Mr Modi was stopped in his tracks by a resurgent Indian National Congress which welded a last-minute coalition, of south Indian Dravida parties such as the DMK that governs Tamil Nadu, west Indian Marathas of Maharashtra, and north Indian parties representing backward classes and Dalits. It was called I.N.D.I.A, the punctuation associating it with the essence of the country, but the name not running foul of official trade mark rules.

At its head was the young Congress leader, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, son of the assassinated former premier Rajiv Gandhi, and scion of Jawaharlal Nehru-Indra Gandhi political heritage. His two-year campaign consisted of long marches across India in which he challenged Mr Modi in every village and town, calling out the prime minister’s crony capitals, his contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law, and his total disregard of civil liberties and human rights. India has the world’s largest number of political prisons and others in it jails, a big number of them Muslims and Dalits.

The I.N.D.I.A, campaign clicked, assisted in no small measure by civil society endeavours, and an army of social media influencers who used WhatsApp, YouTube and other platforms to reach out in every nook and cranny where even Mr Modi’s mainstream media could not be present. Mr Gandhi himself won the two seats he contested, one from Wayanad in Kerala and the other from the heartland Uttar Pradesh, where he had been defeated last time.

In the process, the Congress which many commentators had given up as a living corpse has seemingly revived itself in unlikely places, improving its national vote percentage . So have the BJP in some southern states, and regional parties such as the Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh and the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh.

Current speculations do not project Mr Gandhi as a probable for the prime minister’s job at present. Mr Modi has also won his seat of Varanasi.

Mr Modi was eventually rejected in his favourite Uttar Pradesh, where the party strength dwindled to half of the possible 83,a loss it could not recover from victory in Orissa the incumbent six term chief minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik, lost to the BJP in the concurrent ad vicious poll for the state legislature.

Although Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, has seen the maximum persecution of Muslims and Christians under BJP rule, a reduction of the party’s strength will not immediately help religious minorities and vulnerable sections. The BJP has absolute control over the main central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh which are home to a pretty large number of Christians, and of Gujarat and Bihar which have sizeable Muslim populations.

Mr Modi has also failed to make a dent in Bengal in the west, and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the south. His allies in Maharashtra have been cut to size by a state collation of Mr Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress and the Hindu ethos Shiv Sena of former chief minister Uddhav Thackrey.

In Kerala, where the BJP tried for over half a century to get a foothold, the party has certainly improved its votes tally, as indeed it has done across the country. It’s film actor candidate in Trissur is neck-and-neck with candidates of the Communist Party Marxist and the Congress. If he does scrape through, there will be speculation that he was helped by elements of the various church groups in this traditional strong hold of the religion. Several prelates and others have assureds support to the BJP. Mr Modi staged a coup when he enticed the Anil Anthony, the son of former defence minister and senior Congress leader AK Anthony. Anthony lost from his constituency.

Mr Modi may nit give up his dreams so easily. He had already taken several bold steps in the ten years of his rule, encouraging his acolytes, or Bhakts, to call him the Hindu Hriday Samrat, the Emperor of the Hearts of the Hindus’. When he was not dressed in the attire and head dresses of the Indian feudal nobility, or the armed forces, his favourite dress was of a :sadhu” or a devotee. His massive entourage of cameramen and reporters accompanied him as he meditated in a Himalayan cage, jungles of the foothills, the depths of the Arabian sea off the coast of his native Gujarat, and lastly at Vivekananda Rock, the extreme tip of the Deccan plateau. In recent interviews, Mr Modi hinted that he believed he had a divine destiny, and was possibly of divine birth. He was dead serious in the interview.

His campaign was earthy. Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Mr Sonia Gandhi were the primary targets. And Islamophobia was its chief arsenal. He targeted Muslims as vermin and infiltrators conspiring to rob Hindus of their resources, their women, and finally their place as e majority community.

India’s largely Hindu voters – eighty percent of the massive 850 million entitled to exercise their franchise, were not impressed. A two third majority in the two houses, Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha — the two chambers of Indian Parliament now housed in a new building made by Mr Modi — remains distant, and with it go away his hopes of altering the statues of its key feature of secularism, the state equidistant from all religions, and socialism with its preferential option for the poor.

Mr Modi was the only face in the election campaign with “Modi Ki Guarantee” as the party slogan. He faces no threat to his absolute control on the party. He will be 75 in a year, a retirement age he set for his senior when he took control of the party and became prime minister in 2014. He sent packing his mentor and former deputy prime minister Lal Kishan Advani, the man who launched the Hindutva campaign in 1990 and which eventually got Mr Modi to the prime minister’s house..

The opposition Indian National Congress party hurriedly hobbled together a loose alliance, I.N.D.I.A. with strong regional groups, had a first time success with the electorate. The Trinamool Congress which rules in West Bengal, not part of this alliance, but opposing Mr Modi’s BJP. It successfully protected its turf. Congress also did well in Punjab. The Aap Admi party was a net loser in Punjab and Delhi.

Clearly over the last ten years, the biggest damage has suffered by the Indian National Congress party that crashed from 206 seats in the 2009 elections to 44 seats in 2014 and 52 seats in the 2019 elections. On the other hand, the biggest winner has been the BJP that went from 116 seats in the 2009 elections to 282 in 2014 and 303 seats in the 2019 elections.

International columnist Javed Naqvi noted that in electoral terms, over the last ten years, the BJP has successfully dismantled many state governments which were led by opposition parties. Often, the BJP enticed opposition Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to resign from the opposition and join their ranks. Once the governments were dismantled, the BJP would then use the new MLAs to form its own government. Examples of this practice can be seen in Goa in 2019 and 2022, in Karnataka in 2019, in Madhya Pradesh in 2020, in Maharashtra in 2022 and most recently in Himachal Pradesh in 2024.

Human rights groups have noted that violence against religious minorities increased drastically from 2014 onwards. The BJP is a political party but RSS is its mother organization. The latter has hundreds of smaller organizations under its wing including the student group Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the farmers’ association Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) and women’s union Rashtriya Sevika Samiti.

These all call themselves ‘cultural organizations’ with membership running into millions, all of whom are Hindus wanting India to be a purely Hindu country. Vigilantes from these organizations have wreaked havoc on religious minorities, with cases of Muslims being  lynched regularly appearing on social media.

In the period 2014-2019 alone (i.e., during Prime Minister Modi’s first term), there was a 500% increase in hate speech by politicians inciting hatred against non-Hindus on the basis of religion. Correspondingly, from 2014-2022, there were at least 878 cases of hate speech and hate crimes against religious minorities in India.

Internationally, despite Mr Modi’s high global visibility and india’s aggressive international public relations, the country does not have easy relations with any of its neighbours, Pakistan, Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, and with China, its main adversary with whom it has had repeated border clashes and which it sees as its main political, geo strategic and economic competitor