India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the U.S. this month and will be addressing the Indian community at NRG Stadium in Houston on 09/22/19 and the United Nations in NY on 09/28/19. But this time during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to America, he will also have to face protests amidst Modi-Modi slogans. Indian American Muslim Council, One of the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States, has called upon all people of conscience in the US to join them in protesting Modi’s visit and exposing the retrograde, near-fascist politics of Modi’s government.
Indian
American Muslim Council (IAMC) said,
“Modi’s
government has been orchestrating a pogrom of hate, violence, and religious
persecution against Christians, Muslims and Dalits in India. The Modi regime is
also rapidly amending existing laws to expand its powers in an unprecedented
fashion, from designating individuals as terrorists without trial, to doing all
it can to weaken India’s federal system. Most recently, the Modi government
resorted to unconstitutional and undemocratic means in order to change the
constitutionally mandated special status of Jammu and Kashmir, split it into
two, and brought both under the central government’s direct control. It did
this by sending tens of thousands of additional military personnel to the
Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, placing Kashmiri political leaders under house
arrest, blocking all phone and internet connectivity, and imposing a complete
lockdown. It has curbed free reporting by journalists and human rights’
activists, while its forces continue to brutalize the population.”
A
spokesperson of IAMs described that Modi, his party the Bhartiya Janata Party
(BJP) and their affiliates – including the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS),
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal – have a long history of
indulging in politics of violence and hate. They are adherents of an ideology
called Hindutva, distinct from Hinduism, that openly extols Hitler and Aryan
supremacist views. This virulent ideology’s stated objective is to make India a
homeland of Hindus and those who profess other faiths can live in the country only
at the sufferance of Hindus. Modi and BJP pursue the Hindutva ideology of
pushing attrition, bigotry, and religious persecution of minorities as state
policy.
In 2002, as
Chief Minister, Modi oversaw riots that targeted Muslims in Gujarat – over two thousand
people were killed; thousands more were forced to leave their homes and
businesses, and Muslim women were raped. Since Modi came to power in 2014,
India, a pluralistic and multi-ethnic democracy, has seen a sharp escalation in
religious violence, lynching, and denial of fundamental rights. Violent mobs,
mostly inspired by the atmosphere of hate perpetrated by the BJP, now attack
and lynch Muslims, Christians, and Dalits daily with complete impunity.
Criminals in all these cases have not been punished thanks to the complicity of
the ruling party and its machinery.
The U.S. Department of State, USCIRF, U.N. Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have noted that Mr. Modi’s Hindu extremist BJP party encourages sectarian violence, and the BJP’s federal and state governments provide impunity to perpetrators, pushing bigotry and religious persecution as part of state policy.
