Mansoor’s Musings: U.S. fails to evaluate Modi’s record

By MANSOOR LADHA on June 29, 2023.

Politics make strange bedfellows.

I couldn’t believe that U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet hosting Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, the person who was banned from travelling to the U.S. on allegations of complicity of murdering Muslims when he was chief minister of Gujarat, at a lavish state dinner and inviting him to address congress.

The most important thing missing in this whole equation was the absence of talks on democracy in India, considered to be the largest democratic country in the world by population. Since Modi became prime minister, he has systematically trashed core institutions of Indian democracy. According to Zack Beauchamp of Vox, he “has undermined the independence of the election supervision authority, manipulated judges into ruling in his favour, used law enforcement against his enemies, and increased its control over the Indian press.”

He is also reported to have sent tax officials to raid the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai in retaliation for a documentary critical of Modi.

Only six Democratic lawmakers were courageous enough to boycott Modi’s address, protesting that Modi had “undermined the independence of the election supervision authority, manipulated judges into ruling in his favour, used law enforcement against his enemies, and increased its control over the Indian press.”

The White House has conveniently forgotten that Modi has been rewriting the history of India, from that of a secular democracy accommodating a uniquely diverse population to that of a Hindu nation that dominates its minorities, especially the country’s two hundred million Muslims.

Modi has stripped Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state, of its special status as an autonomous region, amending its citizenship law to incorporate a religious criterion for the first time, giving priority to Hindus, and followers of other south Asian religions, over Muslims.

It’s hard to believe that all this is happening in the world’s so-called largest secular democracy where Hindu-Muslim harmony was central to the vision of India’s founders, Mahatma Gandhi and first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat, turned a blind eye to a massacre in which nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed and 150,000 were driven from their homes, transforming the ethnic landscape of Gujarat. Until now, Modi has refused to apologize or show remorse for the killings.

Modi’s party, the BJP, traces its roots to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was established in 1951 as the political wing of the pro-Hindu group, Rashtriya Swayamseyak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary body often accused of plotting assassinations, setting riots against minorities and acts of terrorism. (Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead in 1948 by an RSS man.) The BJP promotes the rebuilding of India in accordance with Hindu culture and hindutya (“Hindu-ness”), an ideology based on Hindu values. The RSS, which has appointed itself as the architect of a Hindu nation-state, has at least four million volunteers, who swear oaths of allegiance and take part in quasi-military drills.

Modi and his BJP have conveniently forgotten the contribution of Muslims to the Indian nationalist movement when several Muslims were at the forefront during India’s struggle for independence. According to a famous Indian writer, Mr. Kushwant Singh, “Indian freedom is written on Muslim’s blood, their participation in freedom struggle were much more than their percentage.”

Of 95,300 freedom fighters whose names are written in India Gate, New Delhi, 61,945 are Muslims which means 65% of freedom fighters are Muslims.

Bollywood, India’s film industry, is full of famous Muslim actors who are respected and adored by millions of fans, including Hindus. Muslim actors, like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Irfan Khan and Said Aly Khan, to name a few, have earned millions for the country and have also donated funds during such crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic. Several successful Muslim businesses, among them is Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro and known as the “Czar of the Indian IT industry,” donated US$132 million toward the COVID-19 relief fund. Another notable Indian Muslim was A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who was president of India from 2002-07.

Mughal rulers in India have left a legacy of important and world famous-monuments in India with Indo-Islamic architecture, the most renowned among them is the Taj Mahal, a must-visit by every tourist, including heads of state to India. Other notable monuments built by Muslims are Agra Fort. Humayun’s Tomb, Red Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Tomb of Akbar the Great, Jama Masjid, Shalimar Gardens and Wazir Khan Mosque – all generating handsome revenues for the Indian government.

India happens to be my favourite travel destination as I always enjoyed visiting as a travel writer and as a tourist. But my affinity goes beyond that; my ancestors hailed from Gujarat and emigrated to Africa in the 19th century. As a third-generation Indian born in Africa, India always held an emotional significance for me and many other East Africa-born Indians.

As I watch in disbelief the direction Modi’s India is taking, I have decided with a heavy heart not to visit India as long as Modi and his party is in power. Call it a boycott or a reprisal, it is my way of expressing my disgust for Modi’s racial and totalitarian regime, knowing fully well that it wouldn’t put a dent in India’s tourism revenue, neither would it even slightly change Modi’s political agenda.

Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based writer and author of Memoirs of a Muhindi: Fleeing East Africa for the West, And A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims

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