European Parliament resolution urges India to protect religious minorities

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution that urged the Indian authorities to take “all necessary” measures to stop the violence in Manipur state and protect religious minorities, especially Christians.

The resolution tabled by five political groups was adopted by a show of hands during the plenary session of the European Parliament, today. The adoption took place in the afternoon along with other votes on schedule, just after the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had landed in France for an official visit.

A day earlier, Indian foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra had told reporters that this was an “internal matter”. He had also indicated that India had reached out to the EU lawmakers on this issue ahead of the tabling of the resolution.

The five parliamentary factions that authored the resolution were the left Greens-European Free Alliance, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the liberal Renew group and the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. They account for around 80% of the lawmakers in the 705-member parliament.

The resolution expressed concern that the ethnic violence in the disturbed state over the last two months has left over 120 dead, with 50,000 displaced and destroyed 1,700 houses, over 250 churches and several temples. It urged India 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”.

The resolution also urged Indian political leaders to stop inflammatory statements and play an impartial role in mediating the tensions.

The European Parliament also asserted that “those who are critical of the government’s conduct not be criminalised”.

The European lawmakers asserted that human rights should be an important part of ongoing negotiations between India and the EU on the free trade agreement.