Critics slam Modis’ visit to US as he starts day with yoga event at UN | Narendra Modi news

[ad_1]

Washington, DC Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off a controversial visit to the United States by hosting a United Nations yoga event.

Critics were quick to condemn the exhibit, which was held on the lawn of the United Nations in New York on Wednesday. They said it distracted from allegations that the Modis administration leaned into a Hindu nationalism that targeted minorities, eroded democracy and ignored human rights.

That criticism was also aimed at US President Joe Biden’s administration, which is expected to host Modi for an official state dinner on Thursday night, one of the highest honors bestowed on visiting officials.

The two leaders are also expected to hold a joint press conference on the day, and Modi will address a joint session of the US Congress.

Criticism of om-washing

Yoga means to unite. Your rally is therefore an expression of another form of yoga, Modi told attendees at the United Nations event on Wednesday morning, hours before he was hosted by Biden at the White House.

But Ria Chakrabarty, policy director at Hindus for Human Rights, accused the prime minister of using the event as om-washing, a variant of whitewashing that employs the mantra om.

She explains that cultural Hinduism through activities like yoga, meditation and mindfulness has a lot of soft power in the West, with thousands of fans and adherents.

Essentially what he’s doing is taking advantage of that soft power, Chakrabarty said.

It’s really fair to create cultural soft power for him to go back to India and say look, I’m that person who put Hinduism on the world stage, even though what he really did was is to put Hindu nationalism on the world stage.

Chakrabarty spoke on Wednesday as part of a coalition of academics, former US government officials, Indian minority groups and journalists opposed to Modis’ visit. They called on the Biden administration to prioritize a long list of human rights allegations in its upcoming meetings with Modi.

Rights groups have documented growing abuses under Modi, who became prime minister in 2014. They include restrictions on free speech, arbitrary arrests of critics, increased communal violence, hate crimes based on caste and religion and the targeting of indigenous communities. .

Angana Chatterji, co-chair of the Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights Initiative at the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley, said the United States should not sacrifice human rights. rights and democracy for political reasons.

Eighteen years ago, a coalition similar to the one calling today’s press conference called for Narendra Modis’ visa to be revoked, she said.

At that time, the United States denied Mr Modi a visa, she said, referring to a 2005 decision to bar Modi from entering the United States for failing to stopping anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 when he was the head of state. This restriction ended when Modi became prime minister.

A decisive relationship to curb China

But much has changed since Modi was denied a US visa, with foreign policy analysts saying Washington and the Indian government are feeling growing unease over China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. .

Concerns about limiting China’s power, critics say, have largely trumped the Biden administrations’ vow to pursue a human rights-led foreign policy.

Speaking to a small group of reporters on Tuesday, Bidens national security adviser Jake Sullivan called Modis’ visit a pivotal moment in US-India relations, according to The Washington Post.

Sullivan predicted that the US-India relationship will be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century.

Pressed on the issue of human rights, Sullivan said Biden has always stressed the need to rally the values, norms and strengths of democracy. But, he added, Biden has also been clear that in this broader effort, we need constructive relationships with countries of different traditions and backgrounds.

Yet Zaki Barzinji, who served as the White House liaison to American Muslims under former President Barack Obama, said the US-India relationship needed a different turn.

What our President says and does over the next few days while Prime Minister Modi is on American soil, what our elected members of Congress say and do will directly impact the lives of millions and millions of families in Kashmir. and across India for a generation, Barzinji said. , who is also the co-founder of Americans for Kashmir.

In 2019, India stripped Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, of its limited autonomy. Since then, civil liberties groups have accused India of curtailing the rights to freedom of media, expression and peaceful assembly and severely restricting internet access in the region.

Modis’ visit could be a crossroads, Barzinji explained, for the US government to deal with the crisis.

I know the White House and Congress can give a big green light to Prime Minister Modis’ full-scale attack on democracy, he said. Or the White House and Congress can start a new conversation all together with human rights, religious pluralism and freedom front and center in any discussion about the future of our relationship with India.

Officials push to address human rights in India

Despite bipartisan support for Modis’ visit, some lawmakers echoed concerns raised by human rights observers.

On Tuesday, 70 members of the US Senate and House of Representatives issued a letter urging Biden to address troubling signs in India that point to a deteriorating human rights record.

Meanwhile, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent government body, also called on Biden to speak out on religious freedom issues.

It is vital that the US government recognize that Indian governments perpetrate and condone particularly serious violations of religious freedom against its own population and urge the government to uphold its human rights obligations, the USCIRF Commissioner said, David Curry, in a statement.

In annual reports since 2020, the commission has urged the US State Department to designate India as a country of particular concern for religious freedom.

More recently, he cited laws targeting religious conversion, interfaith relations, wearing the hijab, and cow slaughter, which negatively impact Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and Adivasis. He also noted the suppression of critical voices, especially in minority religious communities.

Speaking on Wednesday as part of the coalition, Nadine Maenza, the former chair of USCIRF, again called on Biden to make the nomination.

This is an opportunity for President Biden to show leadership by speaking directly to Prime Minister Modi about the gravity of the situation, she said.

[ad_2]