Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00I'm sorry, I come from, but I want to move on. I
00:00:03in know that you said that, of course, as far as India's role is
00:00:06concerned, in terms of the proof that is available.
00:00:10When
00:00:10of we look at India's role and
00:00:14balot separist
00:00:15of groups for example,
00:00:17of Pakistan of course has repeatedly raised concerns. We've raised
00:00:21concerns about the
00:00:21of Indian support for militant
00:00:23of groups, operating against it, including the BLA,
00:00:27Islamabad has also again, like I mentioned earlier. cited the example of
00:00:31Kulbhashan Yadav and other incident
00:00:34presenting its position on external involvement
00:00:38in militancy which is not only interestingly
00:00:42you know
00:00:44of relegated to Pakistan only, we've seen what happened in Canada also, we've
00:00:48seen, as far as Indian involvement is concerned in external
00:00:51territories, I mean just to quote examples, so when we look
00:00:55at for example army commander, when we look at the Boloach National
00:00:58of Army
00:00:59a Commander
00:00:59of report. reportedly disclosed Indian financial support for
00:01:03separatist elements while Bras
00:01:06of claimed that its actions including its involvement in 2022
00:01:10lasbela helicopter crash, so they were
00:01:13directed
00:01:14of by India, so so these are cases in point, I'm basing my
00:01:18question on, you know, when you say that how do you respond to that, and how should
00:01:22Pakistan respond to this when we are looking at this available
00:01:26evidence to expose and disrupt external support for?
00:01:30the Afghan Taliban and its groups that then flows into
00:01:34of Pakistani territory, I think you present
00:01:38very solid foundation
00:01:41for suspicions and
00:01:45or proof of Indian involvement, let let me go back
00:01:49to the bigger picture again, India and Pakistan fought
00:01:52a a brief air war
00:01:56um and actually the border durant line conflict has been declare.
00:02:00of an active war, active
00:02:03war. um, so we know
00:02:06this, what we don't
00:02:08of know is whether there's a way to
00:02:12solve the problems
00:02:13of and
00:02:15of i again, do you want a kinetic
00:02:18of solution, that is
00:02:21of missiles firing across lines, or do you want
00:02:24a diplomatic solution? and that's up to both
00:02:28governments, India. and Pakistan
00:02:32to lay aside and persistent historical
00:02:35enmities uh and suspicions if
00:02:38possible and certainly
00:02:40of I'm I'm not privy to any
00:02:44diplomatic overtures, I went on one track to
00:02:47assignment to um New
00:02:50Delhi um and both sides
00:02:55of at the lunch table that I was at Indian
00:02:58general um was was optimistic,
00:03:02but that
00:03:04of of never happened, um, obviously never happened,
00:03:09of so if there's a way to solve these issues
00:03:13without more
00:03:14of people being killed, that would be
00:03:16wonderful, how would you,
00:03:18richard,
00:03:23yeah, but would you in if you if you look back at history and in terms
00:03:27of of how things are, when we look at the
00:03:28of landscape overall, with Modi's India at this time, how would
00:03:32you rate
00:03:33of diplomatic success between Pakistan and India
00:03:37on such such a for example trading of evidence on such
00:03:40a you know sort of sitting across the table in terms of some
00:03:44kind of serious solution, how
00:03:47of would of you rate it, because we've also seen what happened
00:03:49in the the war
00:03:52a recently of
00:03:53of between Pakistan and India in which of course we saw the role
00:03:58of of the US president also, so so there is you know... a certain background to what
00:04:01happened, so so what are your thoughts at this time of that kind of
00:04:08of a diplom success of of that kind of a diplomatic effort?
00:04:141% uh at
00:04:17first, but then you bring
00:04:20of in the the um global powers including the global south,
00:04:24including the western powers
00:04:26of and you start to make progress um and
00:04:30Vietnam settlement, years were
00:04:33spent debating the size
00:04:36of the table that diplomats would sit at and how
00:04:40many people would be at that
00:04:42of table, so it's a slow
00:04:45painstaking
00:04:47a process that requires patience,
00:04:50which you maybe in
00:04:52of two years we'll say it's a 30% chance, maybe in five years
00:04:56we'll say it's a 50% chance, I'm not no. one
00:05:00mathematician, but I do know these things take
00:05:04time, and I would, I think
00:05:08the world would celebrate if India and Pakistan came
00:05:12to... to some sort of
00:05:15data, thank you so much
00:05:19Richard, on that note, thank you so much for joining us, thank you for your very valuable
00:05:23input, it was a pleasure having you, I want to move
00:05:26on, we have with us
00:05:28joining Tarushi
00:05:32Aswani who is an independent journalist based in New Delhi,
00:05:35India joining us, Tarushi, you've been
00:05:39reporting from the ground since yesterday, what if you witness, how
00:05:43would you describe the atmosphere in Delhi at this time, as of
00:05:47course these protests continue, what
00:05:49are you witnessing? as somebody
00:05:53who's been on the ground for the last two days, I have
00:05:57seen that lot of protesters are being brutally
00:06:01detained, but that is not stopping their courage from protesting
00:06:04against the government, and apart from this, you also have to
00:06:08know that we are currently facing crack.
00:06:12town of sorts in the heart of delhi
00:06:14so this place that we read about the jantar mantar
00:06:17enclave and how it's situated
00:06:21in canart place which is like the heartbeat of delhi which has our supreme court
00:06:24of india which also has the president's house the prime minister's
00:06:28house the parliament of
00:06:30India
00:06:39we also have with us Tania Bazai who's in Human
00:06:43rights lawyer joining us. Tanya, in terms the
00:06:47Delhi crackdown, is it is is in your
00:06:50opinion, quite frankly, is peaceful descent being
00:06:54criminalized? Of course, thousands of people are reportedly being
00:06:58detained in Delhi, of course, as these reporters
00:07:02are wanting to demonstrate against the chief election
00:07:05commissioner and of course electoral revision, the CGP
00:07:09leaders, CGP leaders also detained upon. arriving
00:07:13in the capital, is it is the response in your
00:07:16opinion proportionate and what is it reveal about the Modi
00:07:20government and of course their tolerance of peaceful
00:07:24protesting? see the
00:07:27if we go through the laws and constitution the
00:07:31India, they have given right to assemble and this give them
00:07:35protection to protest peacefully when it comes to article 19 subsection
00:07:39one and article 19 subsection two, they have given them all the
00:07:43right to protest peacefully and on the other hand, the supreme court
00:07:46has also emphasized that the protester doing protest
00:07:50are is the fundamental right of all the citizen and the
00:07:54unreasonable restrictions can lead to constitutional crisis,
00:07:58so if it come to the mass disfranchisement, they can
00:08:02also invoke the sections of section 21,
00:08:0522, 23, 24 the representation
00:08:09of people's act 1950, so they have all this sections, all the
00:08:13provisions, even the constitution the India has
00:08:17given them all the rights to do the peaceful protest,
00:08:21even the supreme court has the rulings that they can protest peacefully
00:08:24unless and until they don't breach the law, so I think
00:08:28that there is no criminality in all this process, if we go through
00:08:32the provisions of India and the constitution, they have given them
00:08:36all the right under article 191 and 192 the
00:08:40constitution of India, how would you look? at the
00:08:43practical sort of practicality these rights in
00:08:47terms of how are they practically being imposed, are they being
00:08:50imposed the way that the constitution sort of
00:08:53foresees? i think
00:08:57practically they they should be, i
00:09:00think more peaceful and has there are a lot of sanction already
00:09:04imposed on them a lot them are detained already, even
00:09:08the the the head
00:09:10the the the cockro janata party. has been detained and even
00:09:13detention itself is a crime in law, you cannot detain
00:09:17someone for more than 24 hours and you have to produce them before the
00:09:20magistrate as soon as possible, so practically i think they are very
00:09:24influential, if you see the opposition leaders are also in their
00:09:27favor and the opposition leaders according to article
00:09:3184 and 102 the constitution allow them to join them
00:09:35and promote their
00:09:37narrative. fair enough, let me let me
00:09:41come back to you, let let's go to... Rushi to hear what's happening on the ground.
00:09:45Darushi, what are the processors demanding? You know, why has the
00:09:49revision of electoral roles become such major flash
00:09:52point when we look at the demonstrators calling for chief election
00:09:56commissioner Kumar to resign, is it is it you what is
00:09:59behind this this kind of protest that we are looking
00:10:03at? Essentially we
00:10:07have to look a lot of factors here because there was a story done by an
00:10:11Indian newspaper. on September 24, after which there was
00:10:15a wide spread protest across India demanding that 13
00:10:19crore votes which have been deleted be taken back and the
00:10:23election commission must take account ability for it, however, what is
00:10:27coming to notice of protesters, citizens and opposition leaders
00:10:31is that there is no acknowledgement on the part of Gnyanesh Kumar who is the
00:10:35chief election commissioner of India and neither has there been any
00:10:38accountability on part the BJP on part the
00:10:42Modi government that there is deletion of 13 crore voters
00:10:46across India, what they're saying is is that procedures going on
00:10:50and these deditions happened, however we must also
00:10:53understand that there is an overwhelming
00:10:57sentiment that these voters were deleted, in fact there is an
00:11:00allegation that these voters were deleted in fact to make Mr. Modi
00:11:04win in these states where the elections happened with deleted
00:11:08voters, for example Bihar where the BJP has won in
00:11:12coalition and also in West Bengal where the BJP has
00:11:15won, so
00:11:17there are a lot of questions that the protesters are asking about how
00:11:20this is happening and India is one the
00:11:24largest. in the world, we have around
00:11:27970 million registered voters, out
00:11:31these such a big deletion is
00:11:33problematic tarushi,
00:11:37taroshi, when you, like you said, India is one the largest democracies in the
00:11:41world, but as you know we just spoke to Tanya Bazai
00:11:44also, and there are some constitutional freedoms that are granted
00:11:48to the citizens of India, in terms of detention, are
00:11:52they being followed, are they being? in terms of are they being
00:11:56abused, are they being followed? when we look at the rules regarding
00:11:59detention, the time periods, as far as you know the leaders are
00:12:03concerned, the opposition parties are, those that are protesting from the opposition
00:12:07parties also, so so on the ground, what is the
00:12:10situation with regard to those constitutional
00:12:13freedoms?
00:12:19so on the ground the sentiment is like about detentions, I
00:12:23will give you very... official figure which is 7000 protesters were
00:12:27detained yesterday, this includes former chief ministers, this
00:12:31includes lot of members the opposition party and also
00:12:35includes youth organizations, however many
00:12:38them were released, almost all them in fact were released late
00:12:42night yesterday and even early morning today Sunday on
00:12:45October 11, so regarding rules and regulations, the
00:12:49Indian Constitution has stipulated sections which talk about the
00:12:53freedom to protest, freedom of expression and the freedom for peaceful
00:12:57assembly and expressing one in terms of writing in
00:13:01posters, using photographs, however these rights
00:13:04in section 19 the Indian constitution are
00:13:07being massively overlooked when it comes to these
00:13:11protests which actually point massive
00:13:13fingers at the modi government and what
00:13:17is also come to notice is that while the Supreme Court of
00:13:21India has intervened while they also said that internet must not
00:13:25be shut down in the Indian capital, while the Supreme Court also
00:13:29said that you must not use excessive force while battling
00:13:33protesters, all of this was ignored by the Ministry of Home
00:13:36Affairs under Mr. Amit Shah, all these orders were
00:13:40ignored. I was reporting from the ground yesterday from
00:13:448 a.m. till 8 pm in the night, we did not have internet the
00:13:47whole day and wherever we had internet it was very
00:13:50patchy, so the whole area the
00:13:54capital... as I explain to you, the cannot place area where this is happening, it
00:13:58is the heartbeat of Delhi, you have the parliament of India there, you have the prime
00:14:02minister house, you have the president house, you have the
00:14:06Supreme Court of India situated there, imagine having no internet there for
00:14:0924 hours, how would people move around, and this would
00:14:13especially being done to
00:14:14you know nullify or zerofy protesters, however
00:14:18protesters still gathered in massive numbers and in front of my eyes
00:14:22protesters were thash, they were beaten, they were drag, their clothes were
00:14:26tone and the police was stuffing them into detention vans like one
00:14:30stuff scattle into vans. this is what was happening today as well as
00:14:33yesterday. right, let me come back to you, let us go to Tania and then I'll come
00:14:37back to you. Tanya, when we look at, like you said, it doesn't seem like those constitutional
00:14:41freedoms, those constitutional rights when you talk about detention are being
00:14:45upheld, when we look at what Tarushi is telling
00:14:49us about what's happening on the ground, but in terms the election commission's
00:14:52independence and accountability, these
00:14:55demon demonstrations demanding that the
00:14:59c of c kumar's
00:15:02resignation when we look at the opposition parties questioning the
00:15:06transparency the electoral role division, how do you look at
00:15:10this? because when an institution of course is responsible for ensuring free and fair
00:15:13elections,
00:15:16is and it's facing these kind of allegations of political bias,
00:15:20what legal mechanisms exist to hold it
00:15:23accountable? does the current con
00:15:26controversy weaken India's constitutional
00:15:30freedoms, institutional safeguards, what reforms in your
00:15:34opinion would help restore the public?
00:15:37confidence at this time, if I talk according
00:15:41to legal perspective, they have very good legal framework
00:15:45that comes under article 32 and 226 the
00:15:48constitution that they can hold the commission accountable for transparency
00:15:52and fostering the public engagement and on the other side if you
00:15:56see the the this this entire battle is the
00:15:59transparency and fostering the public opinion and public
00:16:03engagement so they have that article 32 and article
00:16:072 six they can invoke any time the protesters and voters,
00:16:11they can go before the high court, they can go for the the courts can go
00:16:15for the smoto cognisence, so they have all
00:16:18the legal you can say framework in front them
00:16:22and they can adopt them, they can invoke them. on the other hand, as
00:16:26you know that the India is also signatory
00:16:30to the ICCPR, article 21 and
00:16:3325, but after the invention the intervention the
00:16:38the united nation or you can say the international convenient, even
00:16:42India, India just you can say
00:16:46said that we don't want any internal interference in our country, whereas it
00:16:50is already signatory to all the these laws and
00:16:54they have to abide by. let me interject here,
00:16:58when we look at
00:16:59you know on the one hand constitutional rights versus
00:17:02state restrictions, how would you look at the
00:17:06situation at this? time, on the one hand, of course, like you are saying, there
00:17:10are all these statutes in place, there are all these
00:17:13constitutional provisions that and constitutional
00:17:16safegards, also legal safegards that you are talking
00:17:20about, but when we look at practically the situation on
00:17:24ground, how do you look at things? let's talk about the
00:17:28practicality versus the, whatever checks
00:17:32are procedurally in place, because we are looking a
00:17:35state placing restrictions. you now we are looking a state that
00:17:39seems according to what Tarushi is
00:17:42saying that is ignoring what are frankly
00:17:46constitutional safegards? i think Modi
00:17:50government must engage constructively rather than dismissively. when it
00:17:54comes to reasonable restrictions, yes it is mentioned in article 19 subsection
00:17:58two the constitution, there are some reas restrictions when it
00:18:02comes freedom of speech, when it comes to right to assemble, but on
00:18:06the other hand supreme court. is very clear and the supreme court ruling is very
00:18:09clear that there are some reasonable restrictions, but that
00:18:13restrictions can become dis proportionate when they
00:18:17suppress lawful descent, if they are like protesting
00:18:21legally and peacefully then these provisions and
00:18:24these restrictions do not apply and they cannot impose these
00:18:28restrictions because they are suppressing lawful
00:18:31descents. fair enough, let me come back
00:18:35to you, Tarushi, when we look at the... government's response, the
00:18:38Modi government the authorities justified their handling the
00:18:42protests, they've you know how in in terms of
00:18:46what they've said at this time, in terms of officials directly addressing
00:18:50protesters concerns, have they really address
00:18:54these concerns, have the response focused primarily
00:18:57on maintaining public order or or does the state look
00:19:01like, it's in a mood to listen to what is being said
00:19:05on on such huge scale at this
00:19:08time, maruk the state is not ready to
00:19:12listen at all, even as I'm speaking to you at the moment, there are
00:19:15protesters, men, women, children, elderly, they are all
00:19:19in karnate place right now as we are speaking, some them are
00:19:23climbing buses, some them are walking
00:19:25you know on the road, some them are demanding that the others be released who have been
00:19:29detained at 3 pm today, but what it seems like
00:19:32is that the Modi government is using the state
00:19:36machinery to w conveniently protect the chief election
00:19:39commissioner Mr. Kumar and it appears as though they are not in mood
00:19:43to comment or cater to any the demands that the protesters have
00:19:47laid forward, while the protesters have always
00:19:50maintained, even back in July when we had mass protest here led by the Cookroad
00:19:54Janata party, protesters maintained that please
00:19:58understand that these protests are going to be peaceful, we are the
00:20:02believers of Gandhi and we want to have peaceful protest here,
00:20:06however in my opinion, the government is ready to make
00:20:09the experience of protesting in India very humiliating
00:20:13activity, they want to humiliate protesters, journalists who are
00:20:17covering this to the extent that we do not feel like
00:20:21covering the protests ever again, because the way the police has
00:20:25been dealing with protesters is inhuman by
00:20:29the max, they have been detaining protesters, journalists and
00:20:32they are not releasing them even when people are showing their press
00:20:35cards, so that's there is lot about where the orders are coming
00:20:39from, what the state orders are, and even currently when I
00:20:43am moving in Delhi at the moment, there is section called
00:20:47163 in place which forbids the ass of more than
00:20:50four people, so we are basically a state of
00:20:54undeclared emergency and rights of people are being trampleed
00:20:58just because they are daring to question the modi
00:21:00government. what happens next in
00:21:04your opinion, are the protesters preparing to continue these
00:21:08demonstrations? what is the government's response like you said,
00:21:11in terms of are they going to be continuing to confront, like
00:21:15you said they're even confronting and making things difficult for those that that
00:21:19want? to cover these protests, of course journalists like yourself,
00:21:23journalists who really have only one interest to tell what tell
00:21:27everyone, you what's exactly happening, tell it like it is, in your
00:21:31opinion is civil liberties, democratic accountability
00:21:35under Modi's leadership, how how is it
00:21:38taking, of course it's taking a blow, but what happens
00:21:42next in your
00:21:43opinion? so
00:21:47today also a protest was foiled, protesters were... not allowed to move beyond the
00:21:51point in the central location where the protest was planned, however
00:21:55protesters are not backing down, they have one goal, which is
00:21:59the resignation of Gnyanesh Kumar, and the
00:22:02other thing is that we also have a protest tomorrow in
00:22:06the morning led by Rahul Gandhi who is
00:22:09marching in the same area, is going to be marching tomorrow, so we are
00:22:13waiting to see what happens next, because frankly at this moment it is
00:22:16very difficult and unpredictable to tell what next step is
00:22:20going to be, however, one thing remains certain is that
00:22:24the protesters are not backing down, whether it's the corker janata
00:22:28party, whether it's normal citizens, whether it's people who are engaged
00:22:32in politics, youth activists or opposition leaders,
00:22:35chief ministers, former people who have been associated with the government, lot of
00:22:39IAS, Indian administrative service officers have also written to the
00:22:43Supreme Court of India asking for clarity about whatever has
00:22:46happened with the electoral role, so what we are
00:22:50seeing is basically pointing of fingers
00:22:53a posing of questions and all
00:22:57this is unanimously questioning what the modi government has been
00:23:01doing and planning to do in the last 12 years. why
00:23:05has it become so important for
00:23:08you know for for not to sort of lay off as
00:23:12far as this CAC, the chief election commissioner is concerned, why is
00:23:16it become such huge deal for the current government? in your
00:23:20opinion?
00:23:25i think what one must observe, i
00:23:28think people who watch India globally must understand that there is
00:23:32pattern that the government follows, so the pattern is to never accept its
00:23:36mistakes, so while we saw the resignation of
00:23:40education minister of india Dharmendra Pradhan resignation we saw
00:23:43in July itself, when the protesters were all over Delhi again
00:23:47asking for his resignation because lot of... exam government
00:23:51exam medical papers had been lead and that had led to the
00:23:54suicide of 25 students who were under pressure of giving
00:23:58reexams because the government's failure to contain the confidentiality of
00:24:02exam papers, this man who is the CEC cannot be
00:24:06sacrificed this time, Dharmendra Pradhan could have been
00:24:09sacrificed because it was about education, but what we are
00:24:13seeing is a man who has been alleged to have
00:24:17rigged elections which made the BJP win in two
00:24:20states, so the moment if and when Gnyanesh Kumar
00:24:24resigns, questions will now surface on Modi and
00:24:28all the elections, state elections he has won in the last 12 years, so I
00:24:32do not think that the Modi government is ready to face the floor when it comes to
00:24:36accountability over all the state elections we have
00:24:39had, like we just had elections in three states this year, we
00:24:43also have elections in two to three other states the next year, so what
00:24:47is coming is greater for them than what? has gone by, so in
00:24:51order to hold to the power they have had since 12 years,
00:24:55they will not let Gnyanesh Kumar resign, because once he resigns,
00:24:59he will also have to answer who were the people who
00:25:02you know, if he has actually rigged votes, who were the people who made him
00:25:06rig those votes, so that's like very complicated
00:25:09calculation we have right now, a quick question,
00:25:13tanya, when we look at detention of journalists, for example, activists,
00:25:17political leaders, you know, and what what
00:25:21Tarushi is saying, making it difficult for those journalists like
00:25:24herself who want to cover what's happening, you want to tell the
00:25:28world,
00:25:29you know, of course, what is happening at this time, what legal
00:25:33protections exist or should apply when reporters
00:25:36document public protest, what remedies are available,
00:25:40if individuals are detained without adequate legal grounds,
00:25:44and what message lastly does this response send to the civil
00:25:47society and ordinary citizen? Who want to
00:25:50challenge these this kind of inequality, this kind of
00:25:54injustice that is at play? illegal
00:25:58detention itself is unlawful and it's not allowed in law.
00:26:02and for illegal detention you have to go before the high court in the
00:26:06rit of hebious corpus and you have to file a rit and you have to
00:26:10produce the
00:26:13the whosoever the protester or voter
00:26:17is, you have to
00:26:19be appear before the court within 24 hours, so you cannot
00:26:22detain someone more than 24 hours, it's
00:26:25illegal in Pakistan even otherwise,
00:26:29and what I see that the journalists they have... freedom of speech, right
00:26:33to assemble, I told you under article 19 subsection one,
00:26:37and they have all the right and Supreme Court of Pakistan is
00:26:41very, sorry, Supreme Court of India is very clear on this that
00:26:45the protest is the fundamental right and the unreasonable
00:26:48restrictions can lead to the constitutional crisis and you cannot
00:26:52stop them from protesting when it comes to peaceful
00:26:56protest, so illegal detention cannot go
00:26:59beyond 24 hours, you have to present that person and before the
00:27:03magistrate within 24 hours, right? fair enough,
00:27:07thank you so much for being
00:27:08with us, thank you for updating us, Tarushi, thank you for letting us
00:27:12know exactly what's happening, thank you for joining us, when we look at
00:27:16what's happening
00:27:17in India, of course under the Modi rule, things seem to be in shambles,
00:27:20when we look at democracy, when we look at right to peaceful protest, when we
00:27:24look at accountability, when we look at the right to
00:27:28assembly, the government seems to be coming down on all those rights.
00:27:32states,
00:27:33a country that calls itself the greater democracy, greatest democracy in the
00:27:37world, seems to be
00:27:40flagrantly abusing all sorts of human
00:27:43rights, the right of journalists to cover the events, making it
00:27:47difficult, like tarushi said even report
00:27:51what's happening on the ground, one certainly hopes that
00:27:55some sort of sanity will prevail. thank you so much for joining us
00:27:59today on perspective.
00:30:30Good morning, you're watching Pakistan TV. live from Islamabad studios,
00:30:34i am Ali ahmed and here are the top stories making the
00:30:37headlines:
00:30:53as per the advice the prime minister Shabas
00:30:56Sharif, president Asif Ali.