What's Left to Say About Modi

Narendra Modi is Chief Minister of Gujarat. He was re-elected after he oversaw the 2002 carnage when his party and its family went after the livelihood and lives of Gujarati Muslims. The election campaign was as divisive as the riots, with an appeal to the Hindu majority to abjure the Congress (which in Gujarat is also heavily compromised by communalism). The BJP would protect the Gujarati Hindu from “anti-national elements,” which, in a border state, hreferred not so much to Pakistan, but to what the BJP considers as Pakistan’s fifth column, Indian Muslims.

Modi, therefore, ran for re-election of Hindu Gujarat, not of the State of Gujarat whose laws and legal standing is based on that of the Indian Republic. Modi is a violator of the Indian Constitution (according to the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court), taking his orders from Hindutva, not from the values of the Constitution.

Modi is not India. He is the poster-boy of Hindutva.

We, Indian Americans, are not India either. We are people who hail from India and have all kinds of complicated emotional and personal ties with the Republic. We are regularly in touch with our families, we travel to India every year, and we want the very best for India. But we are not India itself.

“India” is an abstraction. When people say that the revocation of Modi’s visa is an insult to India, they mean many different things. The most reasonable definition is that “India” is a sovereign state, a democratic republic, with a seat in the United Nations. The United Nations Charter (Article 1, Sec. 2) asks for the UN to “develop friendly relations among nations,” which is one of the foundations for the modern reciprocal visa regimes. A sovereign state welcomes the citizens of another sovereign state to increase people-to-people contacts and commercial relations.

When the US State Department denied Modi’s visa based on political grounds, it violated this convention. In doing so, the it opened the door for the Indian government to do one of the following two things: (1) protest the denial based on the notion that Mr. Modi is an Indian citizen (let alone an elected official), and that since he has not been found guilty based on Indian law the U.S. cannot act on innuendo; (2) in a reciprocal manner deny a visa to a US citizen (preferably a US elected official) on the same grounds (for instance, since the UN’s Secretary General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war “illegal,” the Indian Home Ministry could deny a visa to President George W. Bush, even as though he has not been indicted in a U.S. court). The denial of Modi’s visa, in this abstract, institutional sense, is an insult to the sovereignty of India, as Modi, as of yet has not been indicted or found guilty of a crime, remains a bonafide citizen.

However, Article 1, Sec 2 is broader than cited above. It adds that “friendly relations” are to be “based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of all peoples.” Furthermore, the inter-state system should “take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.” Those who do not respect “equal rights” and “self-determination of all peoples” can be turned away. The principle of “equal rights” and of “self-determination of all peoples” trumps that of state sovereignty. In other words, inter-state relations can be based not so much on inter-state relativism, but on states taking an active judicious role in judging the merits of another state.

There is considerable ambiguity on this point even within the UN Charter. It asks states to respect the internal affairs of each other, to tolerate each other, and yet it demands that states, individuals and the UN “promote social progress and better standards of living in larger freedom” (Preamble of the UN Charter). States must mutually respect each other’s sovereignty, but this did not mean that states should tolerate injustice across borders. States must strive to respectfully work with other states, not to confront them in a hostile manner. If there is injustice in another state, then should one’s state act decisively to end that injustice?

The U.S. government did not, however, act decisively. In fact, it would have not acted at all if it were not pushed to act. Modi had a visa in 1998. The pogrom against Gujarati Muslims took place in 2002. This is 2005. The U.S. State Department did not revoke his visa during the past three years, even though it did criticize Modi in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and in its International Religious Freedom Report. These reports borrowed from the National Human Rights Commission of India, which argued that there was “a comprehensive failure on the part of the state government to control the persistent violation of rights to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the people of the state.” The State Department quoted this statement at its March 21, 2005 press conference in New Delhi announcing the visa revocation. Why did the U.S. government act in 2005, when it allowed its officials within India to hob-nob with a man it has now considered persona non grata?

The simple answer is that since the 2002 pogrom this has been Modi’s first attempt to enter the United States. However, Modi had announced his trip long before the State Department made any statement. The first stirring of trouble for Modi came in late February with the formation of the Coalition Against Genocide (CAG), a 35 organization umbrella group that decided to raise the ante. CAG initially questioned the Asian American Hotel Owner’s Association (AAHOA) for its invitation to Modi.

Is Modi really good for business and could AAHOA not find any other Indian politician to honor as its chief guest. Even here the answer is simple: almost 45 percent of the several thousand AAHOA members hail from Gujarat, and since Modi is Gujarat’s CEO (as he fashioned himself at the Confederation of Indian Industry meeting last year) he is the obvious choice. When asked by by the media about the invitiation, AAHOA’s Vice Chair M. P. Rama noted, “We were looking at the Gujarat government, not at Narendra Modi. We are telling the Gujarat government to address our membership. Modi just happens to be the chief minister.”

But has Modi been good for Gujarat? Unemployment is up, so is the depth of poverty and agrarian stagnation. And besides, in October 2002, a few industrialists formed the Group of American Businesses in Gujarat to promote their interests. Industry Minister Suresh Mehta addressed the founding meeting of this group, created to “re-brand” Gujarat after the 2002 pogrom.

“Some doubts have been created in foreign countries,” said Mehta, as the group’s Vice Chairman Kaushal Mehta (CEO of Motif) noted, that industrialists would have to “create brand awareness about Gujarat in US.”

Modi and his pogrom have not only been a catastrophe for Gujarati Muslims, but they have also affected the global ability of Gujarati industry. For this reason, Modi’s government has turned to NRIs, hoping for NRI dollars to bail out Gujarati industry. Rama of AAHOA noted that Gujarat’s government has been “rolling out the red carpet for NRIs to invest in its infrastructure, development, tourism and manufacturing.”

Gujarat is desperate for this source of capital inflow, banking on our good feelings for our homeland, knowing that commercial capital is loath to enter a state governed by a man prone to create social instability for political and ideological gain. Where the banks fear to tread, Modi wants the NRIs to come running.

For CAG, this is a travesty. In our love for India, we can’t afford to love everyone who is a public official in India because they are Indian. That kind of blind patriotism not only violates the spirit of the UN Charter, but it also bodes ill for India. Should all Yugoslavians have rooted for Milosevic or all Iraqis defended Saddam? Why should all Indian Americans rally around Modi, who has been all but indicted for the 2002 pogrom?

Because the Indian government has not acted against Modi does not mean that India’s own citizens have not rejected him. Wherever Modi speaks within India people protest, not just the Left organizations, but also business leaders (at two CII events in 2003 and 2004, industrialists openly disdained his role in the riots and in the collapse of business that followed).

CAG and others have simply taken their lead from those Indians within India who continue to try to hold Modi and his clique accountable for the death of thousands.

AAHOA hrefused to act. Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball felt the pressure and withdrew as Modi’s co-keynote. Then the US government acted, feeling the heat from Indian Americans organized by CAG, from the Commission on International Religious Freedom (chaired by Preeti Bansal) and from Congressman John Conyers.

We did not fight to deny or suppress Modi’s speech. This is not a question of freedom of speech. The first Amendment of the Bill of Rights says that Congress will make no law to abridge the freedom of speech (Note: Modi is not a U.S. citizen, so he has no first amendment rights). It does not say that the US government should welcome any applicant for a visa based on their (non-existent) first amendment rights. If it did, then the immigration screening process is a violation of the first amendment.

Modi’s right to speak has not been abridged. A substantial number of Indian Americans have forced the U.S. government to honor the principles of the UN Charter, to wit to condemn a sovereign state for violations of the Charter. Modi denied Gujarat’s Muslims their human dignity, and in doing so, he violated the rights of all Gujaratis. This goes against the spirit of the tremendous Indian Constitution, of the UN Charter and of many international conventions.

Modi can say all he wants, but he has to also be held accountable for his actions in 2002. The revocation of his visa is one small baby step toward the final accountability for Modi’s final solution.