Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday cautioned that some pernicious forces were trying to show India in a "bad colour" and called for a "counter-attack" to neutralise such attempts.

He also said India does not like to be sermonised or lectured on human rights.

Addressing the foundation day celebrations of the National Human Rights Commission here, he described Partition, imposition of Emergency and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as traumatising events which "stand as sombre reminder of fragility of liberty".

Dhankhar said there are "pernicious forces, that in a structured manner, seek to unfairly taint us".

He said these forces have a "sinister design" to use international fora to question our human rights record.

He said there was need to neutralise such forces and said he would use the term "pratighat" or counter-attack to fit the Indian context.

The vice president said these forces have devised indexes and rank everyone in the world to show "our nation in bad colour".

He also hit out at the hunger index which ranked India poorly, saying during the Covid pandemic, the government supported over 80 crore people with free ration regardless of their caste and creed.

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