Narendra Modi: India's ‘democratic’ dictator
Pressing events in Sri Lanka may have distracted our media from the momentous events that took place last week in the land of our ‘relations’ -- as Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa called it recently
In Ahamedabad’s Sadar Patel Cricket Stadium -- the largest cricket stadium in the world -- our big brother Narendra Modi and his newly found American brother, the biggest brother of them all, were embracing each other and paying mutual compliments to each other such as being ‘Great Guy from a Great Country’ etc.
While this international backscratching jamboree was going on to the cheers of near 100,000 wildly cheering Modi fans, in New Delhi there was bloody murder and mayhem taking place since 1984’s anti- Sikh riots which erupted after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
According to Western and Indian media reports, on Sunday itself 42 people were killed and hundreds severely wounded, mosques torched, homes and business establishments, mainly of Muslims, set on fire while pro-BJP mobs went around chanting slogans: ‘ Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘ Hindustan Ka Hindus’( India for Hindus).
While on an Indian TV talk show, BJP supporters attempted to portray that this was a spontaneous communal riot, what was witnessed in Delhi was targeted violence against Muslims, press reports claimed
Violence started after Kapil Mishra, a local BJP member, told a rally on Sunday that unless the police cleared the streets of protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act ( CAA), he and his supporters would do it themselves.
The CAA is highly controversial law that has drawn widespread protests throughout the country from Muslims, liberals, students, and activists who are for India remaining a secular state as envisaged in the constitution. This law allows undocumented migrants from neighbouring Muslim countries to seek citizenship excluding Muslims.
While the BJP government says that Muslims who are already citizens will not be affected by this law, Muslims say that they are being systematically marginalized. The CAA in combination with other recent moves such as the compilation of the National Population Register ( NPR) and the proposed National Register of Citizens ( NRC) are moves to marginalise them. Muslims form nearly 15 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people.
While the northern and eastern regions of New Delhi went up in flames, the powerful ruling BJP appeared to be seemingly unconcerned with reports, including those of Western correspondents saying that the New Delhi police were complicit with the rioting Hindu mobs. A Hindu rioter claimed on Indian TV that when their mobs ran out of stones to pelt Muslims the police supplied them with a stock of stones.
Civil activists had petitioned the New Delhi High Court to order action against the rioting and judge S. Muralidaran had castigated the Delhi Police, saying the court could not let ‘ another 1984’ happen again and directed the government to ensure that displaced victims be given shelter as well as medical treatment. While the judge’s comments made headlines, he was transferred the same night he had made those comments! This had caused outrage but Justice Minister Ravi Shanker Prasad had said that the transfer was ‘ routine’ and had been decided on some time ago.
The Delhi riots last week made headlines round the world particularly because the two leaders, one the leader of the Greatest Democracy and the Other of the Biggest Democracy, were performing not very far away
The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, apparently not much impressed with the performances of Narendra Modi in recent times on human rights and the performances in the cricket stadium going on last weekend, made an application to the Delhi Supreme Court to be made a Third Party (amicus curiae) to a petition made to court on the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The Indian government snapped back with a reply at Michelle Bachelet which she is very much familiar with: “The CAA is an internal matter of India and concerning the sovereign right of the Indian Parliament to make laws. We believe that no foreign party has any locus standi (rights) on issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty.”
The UNHRC chief may be somewhat confused with India’s attitude towards violations of human rights from the perspective of her organisation. In one instance, at least, India supported such a resolution against Sri Lanka although it was an internal issue of the sovereign state of Sri Lanka but now India is on the reverse gear!
The recent regrettable events in New Delhi can be seen to be in line with the continuous career of Narendra Modi and as part history of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Modi’s biography has it that he joined the Hindu extremist organisation the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) when he was 8.
The RSS was a disreputable group, of which Mahatma Gandhi’s Assassin Ram Vinayak Godse was a member. Modi proved his worth in the RSS and was recommended by them to join the BJP, an affiliate political body. Hindu nationalism was the dominant force in both these organisations. And Modi a boy from humble beginnings climbed the rungs of the Gujarat BJP and was nominated to contest the state national assembly.
He became the Chief Minister of the Assembly thrice and was alleged he was complicit in the 2002 Gujrat riots. However, a special commission appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the riots found no evidence to prosecute Modi.
Yet, the stigma of the Gujarat riots remained and he was refused a visa to visit the United States while he was the chief minister. Despite the besmirching of his international image, the Hindutva ideology is also the main thrust of his unstoppable political success.
He won the 2014 General Election convincingly as the leader of the BJP carrying the Hindutva flag. During his first term he did start his Hindutva practices such as the anticow slaughter moves that resulted in the persecution of Muslims. His anti-Pakistan policies resulted in the paralysis of SAARC while he tried to better relations with other South Asian nations though without much success.
Narendra Modi’s second sweeping electoral triumph appears to have convinced him that he has got the licence to ride rough shod over all minorities. Having won 303 seats of the 543 seats of the Lok Sabha, he can rule India with his own BJP without the help of any other party.
The first rash act of his in his second term was the abolition of article 370 of the Indian Constitution which pledged relative autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. The instrument of accession was signed by the then Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Hari Singh. The terms of the accord stipulated that parliament could legislate for J&K only over matters concerning external affairs, defence and communications. If parliament intended to legislate over others matters it could do so by consulting the state government and in certain other matters it required not only the concurrence of the state government but also ratification of J& Ks constituent assembly.
Constitutional niceties are obviously not in the Hindutva Book and what Modi did was to create two states of J&K carving out a state of Ladakh and reducing the state of J&K. Article 370 was a provision of the Indian Constitution which remained intact for 72 Years. The raw military and police powers deployed to enforce it exceed the powers exercised by any dictator anywhere in the past few decades.
What power did the leader of the biggest ‘democracy’ in the world exercise to hold 12.55 million Kahmiris locked up in their homes, cut of all forms of communications for months and their leaders held incommunicado under house arrest for months? It was simply unbridled power of a parliamentary majority! Those particularly in democratic developing countries where other institutions for checks and balances against dictators are not as effective as in more mature democracies should watch out. In India there are allegations that the police are in cahoots with the ruling BJP.
On January 5, more than 50 masked persons entered the JNU Campus in New Delhi, armed with sticks, roads, acid and attacked students and teachers. According to eye witnesses, policemen in the campus did not intervene to stop the mob. Such reports of police passivity in sympathy with attacking thugs will cause much apprehension among minorities who even fear for their citizenship following new moves of Modi -- the CAA and the NRC although their generations have lived in the country for centuries before them.
International opinion is building up against the Hindu Nationalism of Modi as evident by the application of the Human Rights Commission chief to come in as amicus curiae on an FIR filed in the Indian Supreme Court. But Modi may not give two hoots to UNHCR concerns, his buddy Donald Trump having called it a cesspool of political bias.
But this time trusted friends like Iran too are concerned. Iranian Ambassador to New Delhi was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for his Foreign Minister’s comments condemning the wave of organised violence against Muslims.
Modi may soon find most of India’s non-aligned friends against him and Donald Trump with notorious dictators and strongmen with him.
What should concern Sri Lankans most of all is not how India treats its minorities but to beware of democratic dictators like Narendra Modi who seize power bamboozling the people.
( Gamini Weerakoon was a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and Consulting Editor of the Sunday Leader)