Keeping an avatar of Hitler from the U.S.
[Author]
Nishrin Hussein, a resident of Delaware since 1989, suffered immeasurable trauma in February 2002. Her father, Ehsan Jafferi, a former member of the Indian national parliament and a poet, was dragged out of his house and burned alive by a rampaging mob.
In that week more than 2,000 members of a religious minority were killed and burned, more than 150,000 were rendered homeless and many women were raped,often as police watched and stubbornly refused to protect religious minorities in Gujarat, a state in India. According to human rights organizations, Indian government commissions and even the U.S. government, the man ultimately responsible for this state-facilitated genocide was Narender Modi, then and now the chief minister of Gujarat again.
Modi is now seeking a U.S. visa to come and speak to his supporters and admirers in New Jersey in August. His visit also forces victims like Nishrin Hussein to relive their trauma.
Narender Modi belongs to a Hindu fascist movement that seeks to make India a global power by first religiously and culturally purifying it through elimination of religious minorities. International Religious Freedom Reports, prepared by the U.S. State Department, implicate Narender Modi's political party -- the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its religious affiliates in systematic killings of Muslims and Christians and burning of their homes and businesses, year after year.
Modi is a self-styled disciple of Adolf Hitler. He has often expressed his admiration for Hitler and even members of his own party sometimes refer to him as the Hitler of India. In Gujarat, Adolf Hitler is glorified in higher secondary school textbooks. Modi and the state of Gujarat's growing admiration for Hitler has even spooked Israel. Former Israeli Councilor General David Zohar Zonshine has made significant efforts to rectify the matter, including holding exhibitions to educate Modi's followers about the Holocaust. But textbooks printed before Israeli protests are still being used in schools.
Modi frightens me. I think he is sowing the seeds of hatred and preparing the people of Gujarat for a bigger and more ominous genocide in the future.
Modi now wishes to mobilize his supporters in New Jersey. Fortunately, a broad spectrum of Indians in America, American academics, human rights organizations and members of the U.S. Congress, like Betty McCollum (D- Minn.) have come together to forge a coalition against genocide and are pressing the State Department to reject this avatar (re-incarnation) of Hitler.
The Indian elite, empowered by recent economic successes, wish to piggyback on the U.S. to superpower status. They wish to forge a new strategic alliance with the U.S. that will facilitate the transfer of critical military technology, attract financial investments, open U.S. markets to Indian businesses and enlist U.S. diplomatic support for Indian ascendancy.
Modi seeks to increase his influence in the United States. He also wishes to increase fundraising from the rich Indian American community to finance his politics in India. It is vital to his cause that he has intimate access to the U.S.
At the moment, Hindu nationalists cannot have both Modi as a national leader and the U.S. as vehicle to global power. As long as Modi is shunned by the U.S., he is ineligible for national office. It is therefore essential for his supporters to purify his image, and they hope to do so by bullying the U.S. government into allowing him entry. If he was received in the U.S., he will be projected in India as a leader of global stature.
U.S. law on international religious freedom prohibits the State Department from allowing people who commit egregious violations from coming to the U.S. Modi is now enforcing a new law against religious conversions in Gujarat which primarily targets Christians. This single act of curbing religious consciousness triggers a section of that law and alone makes him ineligible for a U.S. visa.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedoms has also asked the State Department to deny Modi.
The Bush administration has been excellent on this issue, so far. In 2005 it not only denied Modi a diplomatic visa, but also rescinded a valid tourist visa underscoring his status as an untouchable. All the signals from the State Department suggest that the U.S. will reject any new application from Modi.
All politics is now global. The struggle between secular Hindus and minorities and Hindu nationalism has spilled over to Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill. The U.S. cannot stay away. It must engage and fight with the Coalition Against Genocide to preserve India's democracy and its pluralistic traditions.
Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080715/OPINION07/807150320/1004/OPINION
Tehelka editor meets daughter of Gujarat riot victim
November 29, 2007
Norendra Modi-the butcher of Gujarat
As the police watched in Modi's Gujarat, a genocide was in progress
The Inferno of Hate and Horror in Gujarat
|
Supporters of Shiv Sena shout slogans in Ahmedabad |
Some of the Victims of Gujrat riot ............................................................
[* Moderator's Note - CHOTTALA is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political and non-discriminatory organization.
* Disclaimer: Any posting to the CHOTTALA are the opinion of the author. Authors of the messages to the CHOTTALA are responsible for the accuracy of their information and the conformance of their material with applicable copyright and other laws. Many people will read your post, and it will be archived for a very long time. The act of posting to the CHOTTALA indicates the subscriber's agreement to accept the adjudications of the moderator]
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
