Skip to main content

US-based Ghadar Alliance report says Modi's 100 days point towards an emerging disaster to happen in India

 The newly-formed Ghadar Alliance, a US-based educational watchdog coalition created by activist-scholars calling themselves “concerned citizens”, has released a comprehensive 100-day report of Modi saying they point towards an “emerging disaster” waiting to happen in India on issues of human rights. Titled "Fast Track to Troubling Times", the report has been released even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepares for his first visit to the US. Modi’s US tour begins on September 26.
The report says, “The Modi model of development is based on a deeply authoritarian vision that is focused almost exclusively on economic growth while excluding considerations of social inclusion, economic equality or environmental sustainability. This exclusion manifests itself in Modi’s policies as a consistent hostility towards democratic processes of informed consent and public deliberation.”
To prove its point, it gives following examples:
  • In July 2014, coal mine projects with capacity above 16 mtpa were exempted from the requirement of seeking consent from the local communities that are affected by the project. 
  • The National Board for Wildlife was reconstituted in July 2014 by slashing the number of independent members from 15 to just three. 
  • The Ministry of Environment & Forests is planning to amend the National Green Tribunal Act that will dilute the powers of the body by turning the judicial tribunal into an administrative one.
  • The need for consent from gram sabhas (village councils) before prospecting for minerals in forests is sought to be removed from the Forest Rights Act. 
Claiming to be the first independent people’s report to be published since Modi came into office, the report identifies the economy, religious extremism and human rights as grave areas of concern. “We have been very careful and meticulous in collecting data only from public sources to build an evidence-based and fully data-driven report,” said Raja Swamy, economic anthropologist and one of the authors of the report.
“When it comes to the economy, our report shows that the new administration wants to eliminate all democratic protections in favor of corporate giveaways and ripoffs. One example of this are the amendments that the Modi regime has proposed to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013 that do away with meaningful safeguards for those losing land, especially for India’s poor, marginal peasantry and indigenous peoples”, Swami pointed out.
He added, “The proposed amendments accept in-toto all corporate demands and eliminate existing safeguards. From the evidence available, can we not conclude that the minimal protections for ordinary people are being wiped out to favor corporations?” The report is replete with such details, even as comparing the Modi budget with the previous United Progressive Alliance’s budget. It says how the BJP government is planning to raise four times more money through the ‘sale of state assets’ than what the previous government did.
The report highlights the empowerment of violent gangs of the “supremacist Hindu right” under the Modi dispensation. “In the three months since Modi took charge, there have been over 600 cases of anti-minority violence in one single state, Uttar Pradesh, and several cases of forced reconversion of Dalits to Hinduism.
“If there is one thing that is clear already it is that under Modi, Hindu supremacist gangs will virtually rule the streets. There is a palpable sense of insecurity today among minorities, Dalits and women as non-state actors have turned hyper-aggressive, and Modi, through his consistent silence and refusal to hold offenders accountable, has given tacit approval” said Anu Mandavilli of the San Jose Peace and Justice Center and co-founder of Ghadar Alliance.
“The privileging of economic growth as the primary goal functions to dictate amnesia about Modi’s Gujarat record with US investors eager to capitalize on the Indian market,” added Professor Snehal Shingavi, also a co-founder of the Alliance. “And for many of us born and raised in a racialized US context, the targeting of minorities in India by Hindu reactionaries uncomfortably corresponds to our own experiences with anti-immigrant racism here.”
The report compares the first 100 days of the new government with Modi’s 12 years of rule in Gujarat. “Examining Modi’s first 100 days in the context of his record in Gujarat reveals a number of disturbing parallels, and these parallels legitimize the report’s predictive capacity,” said Mandavilli.
"The report is the first in a series of actions that the Ghadar Alliance is initiating to keep a consistent and critical focus on the BJP/RSS from outside India", a statement issued by the Alliance said, adding, “We represent the true diversity of India rather than the narrow homogeneity of Modi supporters lining up to welcome him here in the US.” 

Comments

TRENDING

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.