India at WEF2023: UP CM Yogi Adityanath Feared Arrest, Canceled Davos Visit
Yogi Adityanath, the radical Hindu Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, canceled his plans to lead a delegation to the 2023 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The cancellation came after a criminal complaint was filed against the Hindu Nationalist leader who is widely seen as Prime Minister Modi's successor.
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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L), UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (R) |
Adityanath was planning to lead a delegation to the World Economic Forum-2023 meeting at Davos, Switzerland, according to reports in the Indian news media. The state government put up a pavilion to showcase Uttar Pradesh as “the best investment destination”.
The complaint was filed under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” by law firm Guernica 37. It alleges that Adityanath ( real name Ajay Singh Bisht) “ordered the false imprisonment, torture and murder of civilians between December 2019 and 2020” and that “these acts may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Guernica 37 (G37) describes itself as a "Specialist Group of International Criminal and Human Rights Lawyers with a Socially Committed and Multi-Disciplinary Outlook". It claimed that the chief minister does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, and hopes the filing will have a cooling effect on WEF attendance in the future by any political or business figures alleged to have committed criminal acts.
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| Top Radical Hindu Leaders: Modi (Left), Yogi (Middle) and Shah (Right) |
Prior to being elected Prime Minister of India, Modi was barred from visiting the United States and the United Kingdom for his role in the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. Speaking about the US decision to grant immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that it was “not the first time” that the US government has designated immunity to foreign leaders and listed four cases. “Some examples: President Aristide in Haiti in 1993; President Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001; Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014; and President Kabila in the DRC in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers,” he said.
Like his leader Modi, Yogi is a highly divisive Indian Hindu politician. His incendiary anti-Muslim rhetoric and bulldozing of Muslim homes have won him popular Hindu support in India. He is also very popular among the Hindu Indian diaspora.
"We are all with you Modiji and Yogiji", shouted an Indian American man who tweeted a video clip of a a 2022 car rally in Silicon Valley, California. Rally participants can be seen carrying pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Some also carried BJP's lotus flags. Hindu Americans enjoy the freedom to practice their faith and culture in the United States while at the same time they support Hindutva fascist rule in their country of origin.
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Riaz Haq Youtube Channel
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Comments
Do Jihad, be a good Muslim. And I will always love you.
Mr. Haq, instead of highlighting the bad in India , highlight the good , for in any country including Pakistan there is more good than bad.
I see Hindutva fascism among the biggest threats to world peace and security today.
Defeating it is a responsibility for all of us.
I will continue to do my modest part in this common battle to save humanity.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-narendra-modi-bbc-documentary-protests-gujurat-riot-rcna67795
SRINAGAR, India — When the lights were suddenly cut off, the crowd of young people switched on the flashlights on their smartphones. They turned them toward the seat of a motorbike, where student activist Aishe Ghosh stood in defiance.
“They will shut one screen, we will open hundreds,” she shouted.
The students had gathered at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the Indian capital, for an outdoor screening of a new BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his role in the deadly 2002 riots in Gujarat when he was the western state’s chief minister.
After the power outage — Ghosh blames the university administration, which hasn’t commented on it publicly — students streamed the film on their phones and laptops instead, either through VPNs or by sharing proxy links to archived footage via encrypted apps.
Authorities in India, the world’s largest democracy, have gone to extraordinary lengths to stop people inside the country from seeing the film since the first part aired in Britain last week, invoking emergency powers to order the removal of any clips or links that are posted on social media platforms including YouTube and Twitter. For Indians dismayed by what they see as rising authoritarianism under Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, watching the documentary has become a symbol of protest.
Many of India’s young people have no memory of the riots, in which more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed. Modi denies being complicit in the attacks, and India’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling last year that he should be cleared of all charges.
Over half of India’s 1.4 billion people are under the age of 30, and they are shaping up to be a pivotal political force in the 2024 general election and beyond, Ghosh told NBC News.
“It is very important for the BJP to control these minds,” she said.
Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, called the BBC film, “India: The Modi Question,” a “propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative” and said it reflected a “colonial mind-set.”
In a statement, the British broadcaster said that the film had been “rigorously researched” and that the Indian government had declined to comment on the allegations.
The first part of the documentary is about Modi’s political career before he became prime minister. Gujarat was convulsed by riots in early 2002 when Hindu mobs, blaming Muslims for the deaths of 59 Hindu pilgrims in a train fire, retaliated against Muslim communities.
According to the film, British officials said the violence bore “the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing” and that Modi, as chief minister, was “directly responsible” for letting it happen.
Harsh Mander, who quit his job as a civil servant to become a rights activist after the riots in Gujarat, said they “showed us a very different India than what we had promised ourselves at independence” in 1947.
“Today’s generation needs to see what happened in 2002 and make an informed choice,” he added. “Is this the India you want?”
For years, Modi was barred from traveling to the United States over his role in the riots, being invited back only after he became prime minister in 2014. The second half of the BBC documentary, which aired in Britain this week, focuses on his leadership since then.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-narendra-modi-bbc-documentary-protests-gujurat-riot-rcna67795
Critics say Modi has promoted discrimination against India’s Muslim minority and quashed dissent, especially since his re-election in 2019. Some journalists have been stopped from traveling overseas, and government demands for the removal of content on Twitter have soared. Last year, India fell to 150th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday that the U.S. supported press freedom and other rights that strengthen democracies.
“This is a point we make in our relationships around the world,” he said at a regular briefing. “It’s certainly a point we’ve made in India as well.”
Opposition lawmakers in India have also pushed back, sharing links to the documentary that have since stopped working.
“Sorry, Haven’t been elected to represent world’s largest democracy to accept censorship,” Mahua Moitra, a member of Parliament from the center-left All India Trinamool Congress, said on Twitter. “Here’s the link. Watch it while you can.”
But Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser to India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, called the film “anti-India garbage” and said YouTube and Twitter had complied with government orders to block it from being shared.
Both platforms have struggled with free speech issues in India. Twitter sued the Indian government last year over sweeping regulatory changes that give officials greater power to demand the removal of online content they deem threatening to the state, the same changes now being used to censor the BBC documentary. The future of the lawsuit is uncertain under the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.
“First I’ve heard,” Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, said on Twitter this week when asked about the BBC film’s censorship in India. “It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
Kunal Majumder, the Indian representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said officials had weaponized an emergency provision of the laws, which are known as the Information Technology Rules, against legitimate journalism.
“The government has reacted to the documentary calling it propaganda and [part of a] colonial mind-set,” he said. “How does that qualify as an emergency?”
‘We created a plan’
Nivedya P.T., a student in New Delhi, was 2 years old at the time of the riots in Gujarat. She and others defied warnings from her university, Jamia Millia Islamia, not to screen the BBC film because “it is very important for us to know about our history,” she said.
“You cannot just block a documentary arbitrarily saying it is propaganda. That’s not right,” Nivedya said. “We have freedom of expression in this country, and we can watch any documentary and movie we want. So we created a plan.”
The screening was set for Wednesday night. That morning, Nivedya said, university staff chased her around campus and confiscated her phone. In the afternoon, she and three other students were taken away by police.
Students staged a protest near campus that night demanding Nivedya’s release, clashing with police officers equipped with tear gas and riot gear. Five students from the protest were detained as well, she said.
The campus remained closed the next day, students told NBC News, and police have maintained a strong presence in the area.
Nivedya’s detention came on the eve of Republic Day, a national holiday marking the anniversary of India officially adopting its Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
“We are being deprived of our fundamental rights,” Nivedya lamented after she was released. “I’m not sure how democratic India is anymore.”
CMs don't enjoy the same immunity as PMs and presidents.
In fact, Jack Straw said Modi could have been arrested in UK when he traveled to London as CM.
Chilean President Pinochet was arrested in Britain on a judge's order.
https://thewire.in/world/full-text-karan-thapar-jack-straw-2002-riots
Here's a Politico report:
SCARING OFF THE TALENT: But if you thought it was only Russians being chased out of town here in the Swiss Alps, think again. Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of the Indian state government of Uttar Pradesh and a possible successor to Narendra Modi as Indian prime minister, is having his WEF party spoiled by a criminal report filed to the Swiss federal prosecutor.
Chilling effect: Filed under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” by law firm Guernica 37, the report alleges Adityanath “ordered the false imprisonment, torture and murder of civilians between December 2019 and 2020” and that “these acts may amount to crimes against humanity.” Guernica 37 alleges the chief minister does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, and hopes the filing will have a cooling effect on WEF attendance in the future by any political or business figures alleged to have committed criminal acts.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-insider/2023/01/19/davos-world-economic-forum-00078484
Sandeep Acharya is a popular musician. Millions of users stream his songs online, and thousands of fans attend his concerts. He belongs to India's Hindutva music scene — an Islamophobic scene that has been on the rise in India. Hindutva pop is often played when Hindu groups rally in India. Some songs have even sparked violence and riots.
NARAYANPUR, India — Over two decades of practicing and proselytizing Christianity, Badinath Salam had been kicked out of his home several times and often harassed. But in December, he recalled, the vitriol turned virulent.
Leaders in his Indigenous Indian village beat drums to summon all 100 households to a clearing, he said. There, gathered villagers pummeled their Christian neighbors, who made up one-fifth of their village, and left Salam hospitalized for three days.
When the drumbeats began again a week later, on Jan. 9, Salam ran for his life. In this part of central India, he wasn’t the only Christian forced to flee.
Since December, Hindu vigilantes in Chhattisgarh state in eastern India, enraged by the spread of Christianity and rallied by local political leaders, have assaulted and displaced hundreds of Christian converts in dozens of villages and left a trail of damaged churches, according to interviews with local Christians and activists and as seen during a recent trip to the area.
That visit to the remote region — a day’s drive from the nearest airport — revealed the extent of the chaos and its uneasy aftermath. In villages, bruised and beaten Christian converts picked through the rubble of churches destroyed by mobs wielding sledgehammers. In dusty townships, Hindu nationalist leaders led impassioned rallies promising more action against Christian conversions. In an empty government gym of the dusty township of Narayanpur, evicted families including Salam’s sought refuge, sleeping on mats next to a few sacks of spare clothes and grain.
The violence played out in one of the most culturally unique parts of India, a stretch of forested hills where missionaries from different religions and even Maoist guerrillas have long vied for the hearts and souls of Indigenous tribes. But the episode also illustrated a broader truth about India today: that antipathy toward the Abrahamic religions of Islam and Christianity — often portrayed as alien religions brought to India by its historical invaders — can be wielded as an effective mobilizing force for political ends.
Across India, reports of violence against Muslims often increase in the run-up to elections, a phenomenon that some political scientists have attributed to attempts by Hindu parties to energize their base. In the region of southern Chhattisgarh known as Bastar, the boogeyman has been the Christian.
The violence that roiled Bastar began in December and eventually affected about 100 villages, local activists said.
On Jan. 2, members of a local Hindu group known as the Janjati Suraksha Manch stormed a Catholic church in Narayanpur town, where they destroyed statues and threw rocks through stained-glass windows. On Jan. 12, more than 200 men in Chimmdi village climbed onto the roof of the small church built by Jai Singh Potai and tore it down. Around the corner, they smashed another church and wrote on a blackboard: “If you don’t leave Christianity then the same will happen again.”
NARAYANPUR, India — Over two decades of practicing and proselytizing Christianity, Badinath Salam had been kicked out of his home several times and often harassed. But in December, he recalled, the vitriol turned virulent.
Leaders in his Indigenous Indian village beat drums to summon all 100 households to a clearing, he said. There, gathered villagers pummeled their Christian neighbors, who made up one-fifth of their village, and left Salam hospitalized for three days.
When the drumbeats began again a week later, on Jan. 9, Salam ran for his life. In this part of central India, he wasn’t the only Christian forced to flee.
Since December, Hindu vigilantes in Chhattisgarh state in eastern India, enraged by the spread of Christianity and rallied by local political leaders, have assaulted and displaced hundreds of Christian converts in dozens of villages and left a trail of damaged churches, according to interviews with local Christians and activists and as seen during a recent trip to the area.
That visit to the remote region — a day’s drive from the nearest airport — revealed the extent of the chaos and its uneasy aftermath. In villages, bruised and beaten Christian converts picked through the rubble of churches destroyed by mobs wielding sledgehammers. In dusty townships, Hindu nationalist leaders led impassioned rallies promising more action against Christian conversions. In an empty government gym of the dusty township of Narayanpur, evicted families including Salam’s sought refuge, sleeping on mats next to a few sacks of spare clothes and grain.
The violence played out in one of the most culturally unique parts of India, a stretch of forested hills where missionaries from different religions and even Maoist guerrillas have long vied for the hearts and souls of Indigenous tribes. But the episode also illustrated a broader truth about India today: that antipathy toward the Abrahamic religions of Islam and Christianity — often portrayed as alien religions brought to India by its historical invaders — can be wielded as an effective mobilizing force for political ends.
Across India, reports of violence against Muslims often increase in the run-up to elections, a phenomenon that some political scientists have attributed to attempts by Hindu parties to energize their base. In the region of southern Chhattisgarh known as Bastar, the boogeyman has been the Christian.
The violence that roiled Bastar began in December and eventually affected about 100 villages, local activists said.
On Jan. 2, members of a local Hindu group known as the Janjati Suraksha Manch stormed a Catholic church in Narayanpur town, where they destroyed statues and threw rocks through stained-glass windows. On Jan. 12, more than 200 men in Chimmdi village climbed onto the roof of the small church built by Jai Singh Potai and tore it down. Around the corner, they smashed another church and wrote on a blackboard: “If you don’t leave Christianity then the same will happen again.”
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The group, in its press release, cited the “principle of universal jurisdiction” in Article 264 of the Swiss Criminal Code.
The group has singled out Adityanath and his administration’s treatment of protesters, noting that the suppression of protests could amount to crimes against humanity.
Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath is reported to have ordered the false imprisonment, torture and murder of civilians between December 2019 and January 2020 in the state of Uttar Pradesh to suppress protests against the adoption of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India. As set out in the criminal report, these acts may amount to crimes against humanity as they are alleged to have been committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians, mostly the Muslim population in the country.
The group notes that it has “sufficient basis to believe that senior members of the UP State Government, including Chief Minister Adityanath, are responsible for ordering the UP police under their command” and singles out Adityanath’s speeches.
“The Chief Minister’s role in the escalation of police violence is particularly apparent in a speech given on 19 December 2019 calling on the police to take “revenge” against protesters. Despite being an Indian State official, the Chief Minister does not enjoy diplomatic immunity for these crimes.”
The lawyers also note that following the adoption of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019, “which embodies a wider pattern of discrimination against Muslims in India,” many members of the Muslim community across the country took to the streets to peacefully protest the law. However, it says, UP Police violently cracked down on protesters.
“In the course of this crackdown which lasted six months, the UP police reportedly killed 22 protesters, at least 117 were tortured and 307 were arbitrarily detained,” it said.
https://thewire.in/world/adityanath-guernica-37-chambers-swiss
https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/india-is-continuing-on-its-path-to-majoritarian-chauvinism
Varanasi, INDIA - MARCH 04: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds of supporters during a roadshow in support of state elections on March 04, 2022 in Varanasi, India. India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is holding state elections in seven phases, as the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Modi looks to defend its majority in its "cow belt" heartlands. The election is expected to be a barometer for the national political mood amid deepening sectarian divisions
Narendra modi had a better 2022 than most world leaders. India’s prime minister was projected to end the year as leader of the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with growth close to 7%, in spite of multiple global crises.
Russia’s war in Ukraine plunged Europe into an energy crisis and strained relations among Western allies. In India, by contrast, it facilitated the purchase of cheap Russian oil and lifted Mr Modi’s international standing. As Western countries jostled to gain India’s support, the prime minister succeeded in styling himself as an ostensibly neutral advocate of resolving the conflict peacefully, managing to scold Vladimir Putin while simultaneously resisting Western entreaties to join the anti-Russia coalition for good.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/03/02/on-india-say-nothing-00085164
No matter how many opportunities the Biden administration gets, officials just can’t get themselves to criticize India.
The latest example comes from Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, who in New Delhi today dodged a question about human rights abuses committed by Prime Minister NARENDRA MODI’s government.
“We have to continue to hold ourselves to our core values, including respect for universal human rights, like freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly — which makes our democracy stronger,” Blinken said in restrained language while stressing the U.S. isn’t perfect, either. He did, however, insist that he raises such topics with his Indian counterpart.
Blinken’s answer was illustrative of how carefully President JOE BIDEN’s team treads when it comes to India. That’s despite the Indian government’s amply documented crackdowns on minorities, the media and civil society. And it has persisted even amid India’s surge in trade with Russia that undermines U.S. sanctions designed to end the war in Ukraine.
The Biden administration considers India a critical counterweight to China. So the U.S. is often reluctant to publicly say anything that might undermine this convenient alliance, even if it harms the administration’s narrative of standing up for human rights and democracy worldwide, human rights advocates say.
The U.S. and India may “speak privately about human rights issues, but problematic governments don’t change their conduct unless they face public scrutiny, so, of course, that’s why it’s important to speak publicly,” said JOHN SIFTON, an advocacy director with Human Rights Watch.
The group sent Blinken a letter ahead of his India trip asking him to raise specific human rights concerns while he was there. The letter urged him to do so “including in your public comments.” (Yes, the italics were in the letter.)
The Indian government, meanwhile, is pursuing what it sees as its national interest. That means joining the United States against China, and buying cheap gas from a needy Russia. It’s easy to have it both ways when both countries need you.
The Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Indian officials have generally denied abusing human rights, often citing legal and security-related reasons for various crackdowns.
Inside the State Department, many diplomats are frustrated by the kid-glove treatment. The caution toward India isn’t just in public settings, they say, but also in internal, private documents.
A Feb. 17 State Department cable from the U.S. Embassy in India, for instance, recounted a 60-hour raid Indian authorities recently carried out at the BBC’s offices in New Delhi. Indian officials called it a “survey” to examine allegations of tax evasion. But it happened to follow Indian fury over a BBC documentary about Modi’s role in past anti-Muslim violence.
What was striking about the unclassified cable, a copy of which NatSec Daily obtained, was how it avoided any real analysis or direct conclusions from U.S. diplomats. Instead, it recited basic facts and relied on the voices of outsiders, such as opposition politicians or Indian journalists, to raise critical points.
“One senior journalist asked why Indian authorities confiscated phones of working level reporters when the alleged tax offenses would have been committed by BBC management,” the cable noted. There was no mention of U.S. officials raising the issue with the Indian government.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/03/02/on-india-say-nothing-0008516
One State Department official said the language in the cable showed the challenges of reporting on the reality of India that Washington sometimes does not want to hear. A second State official was more blunt, saying the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi was well-known among diplomats for having “clientitus” — meaning it tends to parrot a host country’s line or at least avoid looking at it through a critical lens.
“Delhi is terrible on any kind of human rights reporting,” the second official said of the embassy there. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the cable, but insisted that U.S. officials regularly engage with top Indian officials on human rights issues.
https://thewire.in/rights/kannada-actor-chetan-kumar-ahimsa-arrested-hindutva-lies
Chetan Kumar 'Ahimsa' slammed a series of claims made by right-wing groups as lies, adding that Hindutva "can be defeated by truth".
New Delhi: On Tuesday, March 21, Bengaluru police arrested Kannada actor Chetan Kumar for his tweet that said that Hindutva was “built on lies” and that it could be “defeated by truth”.
On March 20, the actor tweeted that Savarkar’s version that the Indian nation began when Rama defeated Ravana and returned to Ayodhya was a lie, as was the claim in 1992 that the Babri Masjid is the birthplace of Rama.
His tweet also said that the claim in 2023 that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda killed Tipu Sultan was a lie.
This refers to the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent claims that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda – whom historians consider to be fictional characters – were chieftains from the Vokkaliga community who killed Tipu Sultan. As per historians, Tipu Sultan died in 1799 while fighting the British in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore war. Historians have also questioned the portrayal of the two Vokkaliga chieftains as killers of Tipu Sultan for the first time in a play that was published last year.
However, state BJP leaders have used this fictional link in election rallies, and as per some reports, to effectively pit the Vokkaliga community against Muslims. On the other hand, Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) leaders have maintained that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda are fictional characters.
Both Muslims and Vokkaligas have taken exception to the introduction of these new characters into the historical narrative. For instance, the Vokkaliga Sangha on March 19 said they would launch an agitation under the leadership of local seers if the state government did not stop peddling lies.
‘Hurting religious sentiments’
Based on a complaint filed by a Bajrang Dal member on the content of the tweet by Kumar, who is also known as Chetan Ahimsa, Sheshadripuram police arrested the actor – who is also a Dalit and tribal rights activist – under IPC sections 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred, or ill-will between classes) and 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), as per Deccan Herald.
A Bengaluru lower court remanded the actor to 14-day judicial custody.
In February 2022, Ahimsa was arrested for a tweet about Karnataka high court Justice Krishna Dixit, who was then hearing the case challenging the ban on hijab in Karnataka government schools.