The European Parliament Damaged The Bloc’s Relations With India By Meddling In Manipur

Indian-EU relations were just dealt a powerful blow after the European Parliament meddled in that country’s Northeast State of Manipur. It was already provocative enough that this body decided to “debate” the unrest in that region since it’s a purely internal affair, but its resolution that was published afterwards was even worse. What follows are the seven demands made therein of India, which will give the reader a better understanding of why this document was described as meddling:

“1. Strongly urges the Indian authorities to take all necessary measures and make the utmost effort to promptly halt the ongoing ethnic and religious violence, to protect all religious minorities, such as Manipur’s Christian community, and to pre-empt any further escalation;

2. Calls on all sides to exercise restraint and urges political leaders to cease inflammatory statements, re-establish trust and play an impartial role in mediating the tensions; denounces in the strongest terms any nationalistic rhetoric; asks that those who are critical of the government’s conduct not be criminalised;

3. Encourages India’s central government and all political actors and religious leaders to take urgent steps to restore calm and ensure an inclusive dialogue involving civil society and the affected communities;

4. Calls on the authorities to allow independent investigations into the violence, to tackle impunity and to end the internet shutdown; calls on the authorities to grant unhindered access to humanitarian aid providers, international observers and journalists;

5. Calls on the central government to repeal the unlawful Armed Forces Special Powers Act in line with the recommendations of the UN Universal Periodic Review, and to abide by the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials;

6. Reiterates its call for human rights to be integrated into all areas of the EU-India partnership, including trade;
7. Calls for the reinforcement of the EU-India Human Rights Dialogue; urges the VP/HR, the Commission and the Member States to systematically and publicly raise human rights concerns with India at the highest level, particularly regarding freedom of expression and religion and the shrinking space for civil society, and supports the EU Delegation in Delhi in doing so;

Each of these demands will now be critiqued in the order that they were made:

1. India is already doing this since it obviously has an interest in quelling any unrest and protecting minority communities, but “strongly urging” it to do so falsely suggests that this isn’t happening and thus implies that the authorities have inexplicably let a peripheral region slide into chaos for two months.
2. There’s nothing wrong with “nationalist rhetoric” as long as it doesn’t call for violence or claim that a certain group is superior to another. Regarding the criminalization of certain views, it’s India’s sovereign right to regulate what’s said to prevent provocateurs from further inflaming tensions.
3. India is already doing this too since it sincerely wants to sustainably resolve the root issues that led to the latest unrest. To that end, an inclusive dialogue involving civil society and the affected communities is required, though the central government has the right to bar violent actors from participating.
4. The West’s call for “independent investigations” always implies that the targeted government is guilty. Concerning the regional internet shutdown, this was done to prevent provocateurs from worsening tensions, while foreigners are kept out of the region for their safety.
5. There is nothing “unlawful” about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act no matter what one thinks about it since India has the sovereign right to ensure domestic security however it deems fit. It’ll never pull punches in protecting its people just to earn praise from Westerners. Security always comes first.
6. Western references to “human rights” always imply that the targeted government isn’t respecting them. The West’s conceptualization of these rights is also different from the non-West’s, hence why the former shouldn’t make ties with the latter conditional on them complying with these sorts of demands.
7. Any state that “systematically and publicly raises human rights concerns with India at the highest level” will ruin their relations with it since Delhi has zero tolerance for anyone meddling in its internal affairs, especially on the false pretexts contained in the European Parliament’s latest resolution.

As can be seen, these demands are neocolonial to the core, though they’re also not surprising.

Unlike the US where pragmatists recently regained policymaking influence from their ideological rivals, the second-mentioned faction still remains predominant in most EU countries, which explains the European Parliament’s meddling in Manipur. After what just happened, India no longer regards that bloc as reliable and likely perceives it as a latent national security threat since the ideologues there might exploit that body’s resolution to meddle even more in Manipur and/or punish India in some way.

The BBC’s “documentary” in January about a tragic incident two decades ago was the opening salvo in the ideologues’ attack against India, after which infamous Color Revolution financier George Soros de facto declared Hybrid War on that country one month later. Although the US pragmatically recalibrated its policy towards India at the state level, Obama’s ominous words last month about it possibly “pulling apart” showed that the ideologues still remain a threat and are actively trying to stage a comeback.

On the regional front, this took the form of Democrat-led ideologues meddling in Bangladesh’s upcoming elections in January alongside their EU counterparts, which presaged the European Parliament meddling in Manipur. Taken together, India has every reason to view this policymaking faction and those of its figureheads like Obama as latent national security threats, especially since their predictably intensified meddling in South Asia could spark unrest within its borders.

Since India will continue prioritizing its objective national interests by ensuring stability in Manipur however its policymakers deem fit despite European pressure to sacrifice security there in exchange for that bloc’s approval, there’s a high chance that sanctions threats might soon follow. This doesn’t mean that these punishments will be implemented, but just that it’s practically inevitable that at least a few ideologues will begin talking about them in response to India defying the latest resolution’s demands.

The importance of this latest international scandal is that ideologically driven meddling impedes the West’s efforts to improve ties with non-Western states as part of that de facto New Cold War bloc’s plan to compete with the Sino-Russo Entente there. India isn’t just any non-Western country, however, but the “Voice of the Global South” and a globally significant Great Power in its own right. The example set by it pushing back against this meddling will therefore inspire fellow developing states to follow its lead.