Denial of US Visa to Modi-Human Rights Violations or Political Expediency?

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<siaram (AT) bellsouth (DOT) net><siaram (AT) bellsouth (DOT) net>Denial of US Visa

to Modi-Human Rights Violations or Political Expediency?Tue, 29 Mar 2005

22:26:13 -0500Denial of US Visa to Modi Human Rights Violations or Political

Expediency? The Indian American community is outraged and appalled at the

recent US’ decision to deny Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi a diplomatic

visa and to revoke his pre-existing tourist/business visa. While every nation

has the right to deny visa to a foreigner, the grounds upon which the US denied

Modi a visa raises serious doubt about the real motive of US foreign policy

towards India.Modi was denied a visa under the US Immigration and Nationality

Act and the International Religious Act which prohibit the admission to the US

of any foreign government official responsible to

serious violations of religion freedom. When applying this law, the State

Department’s Mr. Adam Ereli said that “It’s a matter of US responding to NHRC

(National Human Rights Commission) finding [which points] to a comprehensive

failure of the Gujarat Government to control persistent violation of rights” (

PTI 3/20/05). Reacting to the above, a top NHRC official denied condemning Modi

and commented: “There was no indictment in general of Modi or his government”

(UNI Report). It means that NHRC was wrongly implicated in the US’ decision to

deny a visa to Modi. Even most Indian political leaders, setting aside their

political differences, condemned the US action. The Indian government also

lodged a strong protest with the US and asked it to review its decision.

Notwithstanding the NHRC and Indian government’s reactions, Modi,

constitutionally elected with more than a 2/3rd majority in the world’s largest

democracy, has neither been charged with nor found guilty of being

“responsible for or [having] directly carried out particularly severe violations

of religious freedom” by any court of law in India. Obviously, the US’ decision

to deny Modi a visa must have been made on factors other than those stated by

the State Department. Ever since passing the anti-conversion law in Gujarat,

Modi has been the target of Christian Evangelists upon whose strength President

Bush won the recent election. They and their supporting allies, fundamentalist

Islamists, Marxists/Leftists and a score of so-called human rights

organizations in India and US had spearheaded a virulent and malicious hateful

anti-Modi campaign over the last several months. By making Modi the scapegoat,

the US government has not only satisfied the main Christian vote bank but has

also mollified the Islamic world which hates America for its several human

rights violations including the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, that too at

the expense of India.The well orchestrated

‘stop-Modi’ campaign was based on innuendoes, insinuations, and gross

misrepresentations of facts about the Gujarat riots and Modi’s response to

those riots. The campaign theme was to demonize Modi while distorting the facts

about the provocative cause of the Gujarat riots, the premeditated Godhra

massacre where 58 innocent Hindu pilgrims, mainly women and children, were

burnt alive by a mob of more than 2000 Muslims who set a train compartment on

fire. Another lie was invented to project Modi as a promoter of racial

supremacy, racial hatred and Nazism through a high school text book. The truth

is “that book was prepared, published, and enlisted as a prescribed textbook in

1992 when neither Mr. Modi nor the BJP were anywhere near power in Gujarat which

was then ruled by the Congress. Mr. Modi, on becoming Chief Minister, had this

particular textbook removed from the list of prescribed school books” (Kanchan

Gupta, Pioneer, 3/20/05).There have been many prior riots throughout

India including Gujarat. More than 3000 Sikhs were murdered in Delhi in 1984

when Mrs. Indira Gandhi was killed and the recent inquiry report submitted to

the Indian Government points fingers at some Congress Party workers and a few

prominent Congress leaders (who continuously travel to US) for their

involvement in the riot. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims have been killed in

Kashmir by the Islamic terrorists. There were communal riots in Gujarat in 1969

and 1985 when the Congress Party was in power. In all these riots and many

similar ones no head of the state has ever been branded guilty. Why then are

these selective morality, selective justice, and selective criticism being used

against Modi? Why have NHRC, Amnesty International, and may of these bleeding

‘Human Rights organizations’ remained completely silent in these bloody events?

Why didn’t the Muslim and Communist partners in the anti-Modi coalition speak

out against the brutalities committed against innocent Muslims,

especially women by the Taliban in Afghnistan? Where was their conscience when

more than half a million were slaughtered in Rwanda? Why didn’t they form the

similar coalition against Sudan when thousands of black African Muslims were

butchered by the Arabs in Darfur? While the US denied Modi a visa based on

religious and human rights violations, it paradoxically ignores the Human

Rights Watch’s denunciation of countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, and

Pakistan (all autocracies) when granting diplomatic visas to their leaders.

Surely, these countries aren’t exactly a shining epitome of religious freedom.

In regards to China, Human Rights Watch writes that China “remains a highly

repressive state” and continuously violates “rights to free expression,

association and assembly, religion and belief [and] repress[es] minorities in

Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia.” Non-Muslims are strictly forbidden to

worship their religions in Saudi Arabia. The Washington Times reported on

3/26/05 that the “Saudi religious police have destroyed a clandestine makeshift

Hindu temple in an old district of Riyadh and deported three worshippers found

there” (www.washtimes.com/world/20050326-111002-8593r.htm). The pervasive human

rights violations like arbitrary detention, torture of detainees and lack of

official accountability in Saudi Arabia are well recorded and documented. But

still these autocratic Wahabi rulers are accorded red carpet treatment by the

US President. Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, and Islamic terrorism are the products

of Pakistan. President Mushrraf is the father of the Kargil War and terrorism

in Jammu & Kashmir. More than 400,000 Hindus have been ethnically cleansed from

their homeland, Kashmir by Pakistani sponsored Islamic terrorism. The Hindu

population in Pakistan has been reduced from 30% in 1947 to less than 1% now.

In spite of all these recorded human rights abuses by Pakistan, President

Mushrraf is warmly welcome by President Bush and hosted

at his ranch in Texas. There is genocide of Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians

taking place in Bangladesh but their leaders are given diplomatic visa by US.

One can site a long list of such countries involved in human rights abuses with

whom the US is friendly and their rulers are regularly allowed diplomatic visas.

It is obvious that the US’ definitions of human rights abuses and religious

intolerance are based on political expediency and convenience. Unfortunately,

when the world’s most powerful country sets its foreign policy based on double

standards, hypocrisy, and a complete disregard of its own human rights

violations for centuries, it risks losing its moral authority and respect in

the world forum. This is not what America is about. If the US Supreme Court

allows US flag burning and freedom of speech even to the Nazis, allowing Modi

to visit US would have shown to the world that America still stands for

justice, liberty and freedom of speech. In denying a

visa to Modi, the US has insulted India and Indian Americans living in US. It

has created a worldwide perception that America still considers India as a

‘Banana Republic’ which can be a pushover. Undoubtedly, the Modi episode has

severely undermined the growing relationship between the US and India,

especially the warming between the people of world’s two largest democracies.

Walter Andersen, former State Department official, now associate director of

the South Asian Studies Department at the John Hopkins University said “It is

an issue fraught with dilemmas. It has opened up something of a Pandora’s Box

for the US.” Further he stated: “But in some ways, it does turn out to be a

blunder as some people have maintained” (Indo-Asian News Service). Who

benefited from this visa denial to Modi? Certainly, the US national interests

were not threatened in any respect if Modi was allowed to visit America. He is

a small fry in the overall US-India relationship. As a matter of fact,

Modi’s proposed mission to America was to promote bilateral business and trade

relations between Gujarat and US. In denying him the visa, America not only

lost a business opportunity but may have changed Modi’s positive perception of

the US to a negative one. The only winners in this game are the diehard

anti-America, Anti-India, and anti-democracy Marxists and fundamentalist

Islamic partners in the ‘stop-Modi’ coalition.And finally, some Indians and

NRIs, masquerading as intellectuals, secularists, and human rights protectors

have joined the anti-Modi forces and sold their souls and the country for their

own political or financial agenda. But they should realize that they have

unknowingly become a tool in the hands of those forces that are trying to

Balkanize and weaken India. They will go down in history as ‘betrayers of their

motherland’ and the modern day ‘Jaichands’ Have we already forgotten the East

India Company and the consequent colonization of India? Dhiru

ShahMarch 29, 2005

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