Hitler's avatar seeks US visa
Submitted by kashif on 14 July 2008 - 4:26pm.
By Muqtedar Khan
Nishrin Hussein, a resident of Delaware since 1989, suffered immeasurable trauma in February of 2002. Her father, Ehsan Jafferi a former member of the Indian national parliament and a poet was dragged out of his house and burned alive by a rampaging mob.
In that week over 2000 members of a religious minority were killed and burned, over 150,000 were rendered homeless and many women were raped; often as police watched and stubbornly refused to protect religious minorities in Gujarat, a state in India. According to human rights organizations, Indian government commissions and even US government, the man ultimately responsible for this state facilitated genocide was Narender Modi, the current and then Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Modi is now seeking a US Visa to come and speak to his supporters and admirers in New Jersey in the month of August. His visit also forces victims like Nishrin Hussein to relive their trauma.
Narendra Modi
Narender Modi belongs to a Hindu fascist movement that seeks to make India a global power by first religiously and culturally purifying it through elimination of religious minorities. International Religious Freedom Reports, prepared by the US State Department, implicate Narender Modi's political party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its religious affiliates in systematic killings of Muslims and Christians and burning of their homes and businesses; year after year.
Modi is a self-styled disciple of Adolf Hitler. He has often expressed his admiration for Hitler and even members of his own party sometimes refer to him as the Hitler of India. In Gujarat, Adolf Hitler is glorified in higher secondary school textbooks. Modi and the state of Gujarat's growing admiration for Hitler has even spooked Israel. Former Israeli Councilor General David Zohar Zonshine has made significant efforts to rectify the matter, including holding exhibitions to educate Modi's followers about the holocaust. But textbooks printed before Israeli protests are still being used in schools.
Modi frightens me. I think he is sowing the seeds of hatred and preparing the people of Gujarat for a bigger and more ominous genocide in the future.
Modi now wishes to mobilize his supporters in New Jersey. Fortunately a broad spectrum of Indians in America, American academics, human rights organizations and members of the US Congress, like Betty McCollum (D- Minnesota) have come together to forge a coalition against genocide (CAG) and are pressing the State Department to reject this Avatar (re-incarnation) of Hitler.
The Indian elite, empowered by recent economic successes, wish to piggy back on the US to superpower status. They wish to forge a new strategic alliance with the US that will facilitate the transfer of critical military technology, attract financial investments, open US markets to Indian businesses and enlist US' diplomatic support for Indian ascendance.
Modi seeks to increase his influence in the US. He also wishes to increase fund raising from the rich Indian American community to finance his politics in India. It is vital to his cause that he has intimate access to the U.S.
At the moment, Hindu nationalist cannot have both; Modi as a national leader and the US as vehicle to global power. As long as Modi is shunned by the US he is ineligible for national office. It is therefore essential for his supporters to purify his image, and they hope to do so by bullying the US government into allowing him entry in to the US. If he was received in the U.S., he will be projected in India as a leader of global stature.
US law on international religious freedom (section 604) prohibits the State Department from allowing people who commit egregious violations from coming to the US. Modi is now enforcing a new law against religious conversions in Gujarat which primarily targets Christians. This single act of curbing religious consciousness triggers section 604 and alone makes him ineligible for a US visa.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedoms has also asked the State department to deny Modi.
The Bush administration has been excellent on this issue, so far. In 2005 it not only denied Modi a diplomatic visa, but also rescinded a valid tourist visa underscoring his status as an untouchable. All the signals from the State Department suggest that the US will reject any new application from Modi.
All politics is now global. The struggle between secular Hindus and minorities and Hindu nationalism has spilled over to Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill. The US cannot stay away. It must engage and fight with the Coalition against Genocide to preserve India's democracy and its pluralistic traditions.
--------------------
Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
Like this article? share it with the world:
Dear all, you know it seems
Dear all,
you know it seems to me that a large number of bloggers here are very confused about some things. First of all this 'Hinduism' not a uniform, egalitarian and standardized faith like semitic religions or others like Sikhism etc. Infact so vague is this broad mix of cults, that even its name, 'Hindu' comes from the Persian language!! Many of its customs too have been borrowed from middle and far eastern cultures. So basically one cannot call Hinduism a religion or even a way of life at all. No region, ethnic group, language or culture in the indian subcontinent resembles the other to a very large extent. Hence india is more like a europe type landmass where different nations exist together, except that India was forced to unite after the brits left. Patel's covert Hindi Hindu Hindustan agenda is half the reason for all the caste, communal and regional strife this country is facing today. Im sorry to burst the hindu self-ascribed victims collective bubble, ....there is nothing called a hindu sentiment! Please don't confuse the childish double standards and faux morality of the indian upper caste middle class with this notional hindu sentiment... Do you actually believe that the regular swarthy joe who earns 3000 rupees a month for guarding your local ATM and hails from some remote tribal belt could give a flying welinda about MF Husain's (stunningly beautiful) artworks insulting your narrow world view and crying ignorance about your own 'so called' faith? I think not. One of the best things about the various cults, sects and classical traditions like the (long forgotten and much perverted) vedantic philosophy, is, that one may interpret it in a multitude of ways, thus the scope for percieved slights and blasphemous insults is drastically reduced. Unfortunatly this whole new (fake) Hindu unity bullshit has radicalised and denigrated one of the oldest living (now dying) tradiions in the world. India from a land of thinkers and intellectuals, artistes and virtuosos has turned into a corrupt country full to the brim with cow-urine lovers, ignorant shopkeepers and gormless wierdos who bathe (hardly!) in the same water they chuck their daily turds and ancestral ashes in!! What a comedown from "The maha-bharata" HA HA lol
Modi God of Gujarat
I think Mr Khan should refrain from such articles and should be fired as he is misleading the society,without showing the actual fact about the Godhra incident where all the Hindus in the train were raped and burnt alive.
Thanks for denying Visa to
Thanks for denying Visa to Modi. It helps us in forgeting the day when 15 women and 20 babies were burnt like coal by muslims in a train . It fills me with tear when I think about the day . It should remind you also wherever you do Godhra we will wipe you out from the place.
Jai Hind.
Wah, what a dirty mentality
Wah, what a dirty mentality of a terrorist Hindu.
Okie I am a "terrorist
Okie I am a "terrorist Hindu" for stating the obvious but what will you call the people who burnt women and babies like coal in the train ? If we remember what happened in Godhra then we are labeled terrorist then what will you say about people who remember post Godhra.
FYI I am no hindu.
What nonsense, silly liar,
What nonsense, silly liar, you are so obviously hindu! When the forensic science laboratory (situated in ahmedabad btw) has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the fire occured from inside the coach, and that no oil was involved in it and also, that the bogies doors were locked from inside when it happened... why are you going on about this non-issue called Godhra!? Modi is an and so is bush. Im not impressed by his visa refusal... If I had my way I would try both him and George W in the world criminal court at brussels and cut off as punishment!
Only confirms nazi theory
the fact that a non-hindu,obviously a minority,has been brain-washed to accept modi/bjp/rss ideology and is bubbling so with hatred,only confirms the writer's fear of genocide at the hands of these neo-nazis;therefore the need for mobilising global resources to rein in these self-styled murderers of their own fellow-citizens
You should read things
You should read things carefully before making comments . I am just asking if those talking of Godhra are terrorist then what will you call people talking about post Godhra. Have you seen snaps of Sabarmati Train and how Muslims burnt the kids like coal if yes then you will talk like me . Google for it and you will know the answer.
You should read things carefully reports by forensic labs.
Sir please try to read report of forensic lab. which is authentic.
Not report presented by some extremist for creating hatred.
There is no way Railway compartment can be locked from outside.
They were all travelling with all inflammable materials.
Politicians just needed and excuse.
It is widely proved that train was not burn but fire erupted inside the compartments.