S.Delivering the truth to power has always been a daunting and risky business, as Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny recently recalled after being rescued from a poisoning plot that was told by the Kremlin.
Countless Kurdish activists have been jailed for challenging Turkey’s modern-day sultan. In Iran, human rights lawyer Nasreen Sotaudeh is brutally punished for championing women’s causes. In Zimbabwe, Emerson has accused Catholic priests of treason for insulting condemnation by the Mangangwa regime.
When China imprisoned Ren Ziqiang, critics of a well-known communist party who mocked Emperor-President Xi Jinping as “clowns” shook much of the world. What else to expect from a dictatorship that survives through gulags and collective oversight?
But when supposed democracies behave in a similar fashion, alarm bells ring. This is the situation in India now. The famous Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his right has also vert a repressive, Hindu fundamentalist power, where the secular traditions embodied by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru stood proudly.
Like Russia, Turkey, Iran and Zimbabwe, India has chosen leaders, a representative parliament, independent judges and a constitutional constitution. And like them, this increasingly looks like a deceptive facade. Under Modi’s rule, the “world’s largest democracy” has become the eastern home of cards, dominated by Hindu nationalist knives and clowns.
Discussing Modi’s glorious election victory last year, Indian writer Pankaj Mishra said, “This will be the guru who emphasized his humble roots, inciting India in a style of jealousy and hatred, inequality, division and class animosity.” Mishra wrote that Modi’s policy was to give the title of funding and angry population with the boycott of minorities, refugees, leftists, liberals and others while fueling the victimized forms of capitalism … And to Indian Muslims for their ‘anti-national’ Indian appeasements. ”
Modi’s intolerant racial-religious dominance was recently revealed last week with a bid to appease his government’s leading “appeasement” – Amnesty International, a global advocacy group that has made it a habit to speak the truth to the authorities.
Amnesty came into being in 1961 after writing an influential article in Peter Bennesson, an English lawyer. Inspector, Forgetting inmates, highlights the plight of people locked up in prisons for peacefully expressing their views. The group has since helped free thousands of “prisoners of conscience”.
Amnesty announced last week that it had been forced to suspend operations in India after the government ordered the freezing of its bank accounts – in clear connection with an investigation into alleged financial misconduct. The truth is that after Modi first came to power in 2014, there was a crude bid to stop Amnesty’s report on the growing human rights violations by Muslims and other minorities. Independent civil rights groups, journalists, activists and lawyers.
If Modi hopes to suppress Amnesty India’s criticism, he will be disappointed. On the contrary, shutdowns are likely to increase international scrutiny of systemic non-governance. Let’s start with Kashmir.
Modi imposed direct rule on the state last year, which was ruled by a constitutional coup. Detailed by Amnesty, the next Draconian lockdown was lifted, then re-introduced as the Covid-19 spread. The Indian Army maintains half-a-million troops in Kashmir, thousands of arbitrary detentions continue amid sporadic violence, and internet and media restrictions and access restrictions, ensuring that the majority Muslim population is largely isolated.
The economic uplift and new investment promised by Modi has not been fulfilled. “Normal” is not returned. Meanwhile, an officially sanctioned program of Hindu colonization is underway, promoting allegations of colonialism. It is claimed that Kashmir is the “new Palestine”.
A stern amnesty report on “multiple human rights violations” by the police, and inflammatory speeches made by Modi’s political allies before and during the communal riots in Delhi in February, also deserve extensive attention.
Dozens of Muslims were killed in the riots. And yet, Amnesty said, “Even after six months, there has not been a single inquiry into the role of the Delhi Police.” It condemns “state-sponsored ongoing liberation.”
Amnesty also focuses on daily violence, harassment and discrimination against women and girls. Rape is reported every 15 minutes in India. The deadly gangrape of two young Dalit women in Uttar Pradesh sparked a nationwide protest last week.
In 2018, Modi – previously accused of a tragedy – devised a “women first” national strategy. But like its many gorgeous wheels, it’s not so much.
There has been some progress, such as expanded rural electrification and banking, and cooking-gas and toilet construction schemes. But Modi’s rule has not brought India rapid development, national security and enhanced global status, which he promised six years ago.
Unemployment skyrocketed after he was elected. His 301 currency reform was devastating, as it has been managed due to the epidemic. And there have been recent armed clashes with Pakistan and China, with India being the worst on both occasions. Oddly enough, Modi is sending tanks to the Himalayas. It could be a battle on a hill.
Internationally, India has continued to punch below its weight. As a clearly equal partner for the West, its current leadership is a major disappointment.
Donald Trump can approve of Modi’s talk of a divided “new India” and ignore it for civil rights. B will not bid. Biden’s Indian-American couple Kamala Harris has been very critical of Kashmir. Many people in Europe have not forgotten his sad record as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
The way things are going, it is not certain that India, once an excellent role model for the post-colonial developing world, can still be considered a functioning democracy. This is cooling. This is terrible. This is Modi.
