Why Speaker Pelosi Must Not Allow Trump to Visit Burning India
Why Speaker Pelosi Must Not Allow Trump to Visit Burning India
If America respects human rights and democratic principles, Speaker Pelosi should intervene and stop Trump’s visit to India, a country which is already under the U.S. radar for corruption and human rights violations.
By Rakesh Raman
After refusing to come as the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations of India in January 2019, reports suggest that the U.S. President Donald Trump is now planning to visit India in February 2020, as India’s Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has invited Trump.
However, Trump’s visit will depend on his fate in the Senate trial, which is expected to begin this week, to decide if Trump needs to be removed from office in impeachment proceedings.
Trump has become the third president in the U.S. history to get impeached. The House of Representatives – the lower house of the United States Congress – has passed 2 articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Democrats allege that Trump abused his power to take Ukraine’s help to get his Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden investigated in a closed corruption case. And when Congress started impeachment proceedings against Trump, he obstructed the impeachment inquiry by refusing to provide related documents and also stopped witnesses from participating in the impeachment hearings.
The timing for Trump’s travel seems weird because both Trump and Modi are facing fierce opposition from common people and political parties in their respective countries. They do not truly represent the people of their countries.
Trump, for example, is facing multiple investigations – which may lead to his termination after the Senate trial. Modi, similarly, is facing vociferous protests across the country for his failure as PM and anti-people policies.
Under these adverse circumstances, the Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should never allow Trump to visit India.
While Americans believe that Trump is not fit to become the President because of his uncivil language and unstable thoughts, most Indians are equally disturbed with Modi’s work and his past record. In an ongoing RMN Poll, only 19% people in India are satisfied with the performance of Modi.
Also, hundreds and thousands of Indians have been protesting aggressively for the past one month against the government owned and operated by PM Modi along with his close associate and Home Minister Amit Shah. The protesters are demanding their resignations.
SANCTIONS ON MODI AND SHAH
Of late, the U.S. has warned both Modi and Shah that if they did not work in a democratic manner, they should be ready to face U.S. sanctions. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has indicated that it will begin by imposing travel ban on Modi and Shah.
Also, a bipartisan resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives has urged Modi government to ensure that any actions taken in pursuit of legitimate security priorities should respect the human rights of all people and adhere to international human rights law.
The resolution has come in view of the anti-Muslim laws introduced by the Modi government and nationwide protests against these laws.
Introduced by Democrat lawmaker Pramila Jayapal and her Republican colleague Steve Watkins on December 6, Resolution 745 has specified a number of steps that the Indian government must take to ensure protection of human rights.
It is being observed that the Modi government is trying to rule India by dividing people based on their castes and religions, while almost all ministers and bureaucrats in the government are clueless about different aspects of governance. Modi himself is also not quite educated and mostly keeps roaming aimlessly in different parts of the world.
Today, under Modi’s misrule, massive bureaucratic and political corruption, unemployment, lethal pollution, and human rights violations are increasing in India. As a result, all the four pillars of democracy have collapsed in the country. The compromised judiciary, corrupt journalists, and spineless opposition leaders are allowing the Indian rulers to run the country in a dictatorial manner.
The voters have lost relevance while electronic voting machines (EVMs) are manipulated by the Indian rulers to win elections. Also, Modi’s BJP frequently purchases legislators in horse-trading deals to reverse the election results and form governments unscrupulously.
As a result of the despotic centralized control of Modi, the collapse of the Indian economy is quite visible. While rampant frauds are happening in banks, the NPAs of Indian banks have crossed the alarming limits.
Now banks are not allowing people to withdraw their own money deposited in banks. Extreme inflation is another irritant. Thus, India is in a state of civil unrest. The increasing turmoil in India will have serious consequences for the entire world, as mass migration is expected from India.
In order to avert this fateful situation, the sanctions – including trade, travel, and transaction – on India and Indian leaders, Modi and Shah, are inevitable.
MODI AGAINST MUSLIMS
Traditionally, Modi – like Trump – carries an anti-Muslim image. The Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is an overtly Hindu party, has gone to an extreme to make India a Hindu Rashtra (a nation only for people who belong to the Hindu religion). And in the current Modi rule, all attempts are being made to persecute Muslims in India.
As Modi won the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections by exploiting the religious sentiment of Hindu voters (almost 80% of people in India are Hindus), he is actually a communal politician. In order to woo the Hindu voters, he can even resort to violence against minority communities.
Modi, who was an accused in the Gujarat riots of 2002 in which nearly 2,000 Muslims were murdered, won the Lok Sabha elections on the promise that he will make India a Hindu Rashtra where local Muslims will not be treated as true Indians.
Most Hindu voters bit the bait and voted for Modi as a religious demagogue rather than a wise leader. The dilemma began for Indian people as soon as Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014 because he is not trained to manage any field that requires professional competence.
In the 2002 Gujarat riots, while about 2,000 Muslims were killed, there were incidents of rape, robbery, and widespread destruction of property affecting Muslims.
It was alleged that the killings were executed at the behest of Modi who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Although Indian courts have almost exonerated Modi in this case, most Muslims in India still believe that Modi was responsible for Gujarat massacre. The less said about the Indian courts, the better.
According to Human Rights Watch, the attacks against Muslims in Gujarat were actively supported by state government officials and the police. Police told Muslims, “We don’t have any orders to save you.”
As a result, the U.S. administration denied visa to Modi in view of the allegations of human rights violations against him in the 2002 incidents of riots and carnage. But now as he has become the PM of India, Modi is visiting the U.S. frequently because now he enjoys political immunity.
INCOMPETENT MODI
In the past over 5 years since he became the PM, Modi has aimlessly visited more than four dozen countries. He is wasting public money worth millions of dollars (or crores of rupees) on his foreign tours that are nothing more than fun trips of a simpleton who is desperately trying to find an identity on foreign soils.
Obviously, people of India including the opposition parties are perturbed over Modi’s excessive foreign excursions because there is no Return on Investment (RoI) analysis available on his travel expenses while he keeps traveling in the name of managing external affairs.
But is Modi a suitable person to represent India in developed parts of the world? No; because Modi is perhaps the most naïve and illiterate PM that India has ever seen. He can’t utter even a single word about any modern subject. His level of knowledge is not more than that of a bumpkin.
There is a huge controversy in India about the educational qualifications of Modi. A political outfit Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) headed by Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal says that the academic degrees being shown by Modi to prove his literacy level are fake. AAP’s allegations against Modi carry weight.
Picture this: Even when Modi reads the speeches written for him by others, it’s difficult to make heads or tails of his meaningless utterances as he is uneducated and speaks in broken English. West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee said that Modi can’t speak a line in English properly and needs constant help from a teleprompter.
In fact, educated Indians believe that Modi should never be sent on any foreign trip because with his naivety he is giving a bad name to India. And no wise person would attend his events in India or abroad.
If foreign corporate leaders or politicians are making a beeline for Modi, they see a foolish buyer in him. As the PM of India, he is squandering public money worth billions of dollars to buy foreign products and services which are not required at all in India.
Modi is spending public money lavishly just to gain some cheap publicity for himself on foreign lands because as an illiterate, Modi is suffering from inferiority complex.
During the past 5 years of Modi’s rule in India, the country has gone back by almost 50 years. While the religious persecution against minority communities is rampant, unrestrained inflation, dwindling economy, and political corruption have become pain in the neck for commoners in India.
Under Modi government, the already deformed democracy in the country has become a plutocracy or perhaps kleptocracy (the rule by thieves) controlled by the corporate bigwigs who hobnob with Modi.
If America respects human rights and democratic principles, Speaker Pelosi should intervene and stop Trump’s visit to India, a country which is already under the U.S. radar for corruption and human rights violations. Also, Modi should not be allowed to enter America. Rather, the U.S. administration must cancel Modi’s visa like the previous U.S. administration had done.
This article will also be published in the Real Voter digital magazine that focuses on politics and governance in India.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications on different subjects.
