India has not done enough to improve its human rights record, so it continues to be ‘disturbing’ according to submission made by the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR), a national coalition of human rights organisations and independent experts.

Released this month, the report presents a very bleak scenario of the actual state of human rights across India.  The report talked about 789 extra-judicial executions in the north-eastern Manipur state between 2007 and 2010, as well as the discovery of 2,700 unmarked graves in Kashmir this year.

The report also lamented government’s inability to implement developmental programmes. “The lack of implementation…due to bureaucratic inertia, lack of adequate allocation of resources, contradiction between economic policies, ‘development priorities’ and national and international human rights commitments, continue to act as obstacles to the realization of human rights for India’s most vulnerable,” said the report.

The report also flagged India for not having a law or a scheme for witness protection. “Human rights defenders and their families are increasingly targets of threats, persecution, arbitrary arrest and detention, false charges, raids, torture and even, in extreme cases, murder,” the report added.

Every four years, the UN Human Rights Council examines the human rights records of all UN member states. “Reports sent by civil society, human rights institutions, UN agencies, and the country under review are the key documents used during the universal periodic review (UPR). India’s first review took place in 2008 and the next one will take place in May 2012,” the report held.

Eighty-six organisations and individuals across India endorsed the report through the wide consultative process, involving five regional and one national consultation.

Read the report