An eerie similarity comes from the stories of 2002. Abdul Aziz, age 25, from Chartoda Kabristan, told Human Rights watch that on the afternoon of February 28, 2002, his brother was coming home from work. The police claimed a curfew was on in the town. “A crowd gathered to attack. The police was leading the crowd. They were looting and people followed, looting and burning behind them. The crowd was shouting, ‘Go to Pakistan. If you want to stay here become Hindu.’ The police very clearly aimed at my brother and fired at him.” He died not long afterwards.
The judicial process for both the anti-Christian violence in Dangs and the anti-Muslim violence across Gujarat has run aground. Investigations seem conclusive, but the courts seem unable to proceed to sentences. The most serious charge, that Modi stoked and abetted the violence, has not proceeded far enough. Modi’s hands are stained with the events, with the Special Investigation Team offering evidence of Modi’s complicity. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court decided not to act, offering “no criminal case against Narendra Modi.”
The US Visa
Pressure from concerned Indian Americans and from Christian groups on the US State Department in 2005 laid the basis for the US government to deny Modi’s application to come and address a trade body in Florida. The previous year, in 2004, Modi’s political party, the BJP, had lost the general elections and gone into the political wilderness. The Congress-led UPA coalition was in power, and seemed eager for a close entente with the US government (this would mature into the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement of 2005, close commercial ties fostered by the new Congress government and George W. Bush’s visit to India in 2006). Bush’s evangelicalism had given support to a 1998 Congressional body, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose members included those genuinely concerned about religious bigotry overseas and those (like Richard Land) who are religious bigots against non-evangelical Christians. A conjuncture of disparate interests coalesed to work against Modi’s visa (disclosure: I was involved in this as well as part of the Coalition Against Genocide. I wrote about this in Counterpunch on March 9, 2005, “Get Modi: A State Terrorist Visits American Hoteliers”). Modi’s visa was denied. He has since then not traveled to the US.
The conjuncture has shifted. The Congress-led UPA coalition has been weakened by a series of corruption allegations, and by a realization amongst sections of the Indian electorate that their economic woes are less karmic and more capitalistic. The BJP chomps at the bit to return to power. Their standbearer in all likelihood will be Modi. That is why the US State Department’s Victoria Nuland, on April 4, said that Modi is “welcome to apply” for a visa. A Republican Congressional delegation was recently in Gujarat. Nuland described their purpose as a way to “help support a strengthening of business to business ties, of people to people ties across India, in Gujarat.” It is business, the process of accumulation, that defines US priorities – given a change in the wind, the US is willing to hastily reconsider its policy to Modi.
It is well worth going back to a meeting that Modi had with US Consul General in Mumbai, Michael Owen, on November 16, 2006 (in the Wikileaks cache). Modi grumbled that the entire fracas over the visa denial was the work of “fringe NGOs” and those with “an axe to grind.” He wanted to talk about his accomplishments in office, mainly increased funds for infrastructure and easier licensing for investment. Owen said that he agreed with these “positive accomplishments,” but said that these do not diminish “the importance of holding people accountable” for the violence of 2002. “A visibly annoyed Modi launched a spirited defense consisting of accusations of USG meddling, attacks on US human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and allegations that Muslims were better off in Gujarat than anywhere else in India.” Modi said that there was no chance of an apology.
Why was Modi interested in the US government’s estimation? Obviously he was eager for business relations with US capital, but there was more to it than that. Owen asked BJP parliamentarian Vallabh Kathiria if Modi was interested in a national role, namely to be Prime Minister. “Kathiria responded with a broad smile and vigorous head waggle,” wrote Owen. From 2006, at least, Modi has lobbied the US behind the scenes for a clean chit – eager to remove this issue from the table as he tried to morph from being seen as the Milosevic of Gujarat to the Lee Kwan Yew of Gujarat.
It tells you something about the state of Indian politics that the man who sounded sane to US Consul General Owen was the descendent of a royal family, the Wankaner’s of Gujarat, Digvijay Sinh. He told Owen that Modi could not be the Prime Minister because he “lacks the polish and refinement.” What others might call Modi’s dictatorial tendencies is sniffed downward by sections of the elite as simply the brash ways of thevillageois. It is a common view amongst the businessmen at the CII. Both the Congress and the BJP are willing to line the pockets of the private firms. But Gandhi is more refined than Modi, which is what gives him the edge in the sweepstakes of class bias. He is part of what Sinh, in another context, called the “cream of society.”
But there is no need to pity Modi. His dictatorialness is rooted in his ideology and not in his personality or his class background. He is an adherent of Old Fascism dressed up in the cloak of Business. On the last day of the Gujarat Assembly a few days ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General submitted its report which showed that the Modi government had been involved in corrupt deals that lost the exchequer above Rs. 13.11 billion – close to $300 million. Old fashion crony capitalism that is favored by the CII members when they don’t have the microphones on. The US government’s vacillation is motivated entirely by the saliva generated by these numbers. All talk of morals and justice, of religious freedom and good governance go out the window when a sack of dollars sits by the front door..
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