“India faces serious security challenges, but instead of addressing the problems in a rights-respecting manner, the authorities appear determined to crush peaceful criticism and calls for accountability,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said. “Using authoritarian tactics against outspoken critics and journalists needs to stop.”

“The Indian government seeks to be a global leader, but instead is drawing international criticism by systematically weakening the country’s long-respected democratic institutions,” she said. “The government should alter course by upholding democratic principles and protecting the human rights of all its citizens.”

In its statement on the raids, HRW noted that the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons were groups that had long worked for “justice for victims of security force abuses”.

JKCCS and ADPD were among the home and offices raided this week. Others included AFP journalist Parvaiz Bukhari’s home, Greater Kashmir’s office and the NGO Athrout.

“While the government has eased some restrictions in the state over the past year, it continues to impose harsh and discriminatory restrictions on Muslim-majority areas in Jammu and Kashmir, where hundreds of people remain detained without charge, critics are threatened with arrest, and access to the internet is limited,” HRW said in its statement.

It also highlighted the use of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by the government  “to harass organizations that question or criticize government policies, to stymie their activities, and to cut off funds from abroad”. HRW cited the example of Amnesty International India being forced to close its offices in the country.

HRW is among several international organisations that have criticised the human rights situation in India. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet had raised several concerns while pointing to three “problematic” laws: the FCRA, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights had also raised concerns about seeing the “rule of law deteriorate” and the crackdown on dissent in the country. They called on India to uphold its pledge to “continue to foster the genuine participation and effective involvement of civil society in the promotion and protection of human rights”.

The 2020 ‘Democracy Report’ by V-Dem Institute observed India was on the verge of losing its status as a democracy and referred to “the dive in press freedom along with increasing repression of civil society in India associated with the current Hindu-nationalist regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” as an early warning sign of autocratization.