Modi's US Visa Denied

Who Benefits? Why Now?
/RAJ MISHRA
The US government has become the latest to join the list of forces working overtime to derail the movement for justice in Gujarat. The decision by the US to revoke Gujarat Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi's visitor/business visa and reject his diplomatic visa application has given a fresh opportunity to some of the political parties in India to play their divisive card afresh. .

The US State Department has joined the select "contrite" group that includes the former President of India, some judges of the Supreme Court and other public figures who silently watched the mayhem that transpired three years ago this month in the streets of Gujarat under Mr. Modi's watch, without exercising the power each had to weigh down on the killing spree at the time - but have belatedly "seen the truth". The women and men of conscience waging their uncompromising struggle for justice must ponder over the question of who benefits from the US visa decision. And why now?

The movement of the Indian people demanding rehabilitation of the survivors, punishment of the guilty and accountability of the authorities has endured against all odds and made a definite contribution to the political consciousness both inside and outside India. Amongst Indians abroad, the current opposition to Mr. Modi's visit is but the latest expression of the long running struggle against communal violence and state terrorism that has confronted Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajapayee, Lal Kishan Advani etc. during their foreign visits in the past. Experience tells that only those forces who are seeking political accommodation with the status quo by narrowing the scope of the movement against communal violence and state repression may find the US visa action helpful to them.

Parties like the BJP, Shiv Sena etc. or certain anti-BJP UPA alliance partners must be elated as it provides them with a welcome opening to take some initiatives. But for the people, who have not succumbed to the self-serving judicial activism of the courts or the antics of the anti-BJP forces, this imbroglio is just one more way to differentiate the wheat from the chaff. In fact, various people's movements such as the movement against privatization and liberalization, against WTO etc. have begun to join forces with the movement for justice for the Gujarat massacre victims and Delhi riot victims, the movement of the gas victims of Bhopal, the anti-war movement, environmental movements and the show solidarity for each other's cause in recent times - and they must be amused by the one-upmanship of the US, the UPA government and the BJP.

That the decision to deny a visa to Mr. Modi was taken at the highest levels of American state can only mean that this action was dictated not by the stated reasons of "opposition to religious discrimination" under Mr. Modi's watch but to serve the US geopolitical interest at this time. The broader US strategy is to engage India within the context of conquering Asia. In the short run it means: isolate Iran and North Korea, stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq militarily and contest China's claims to be the pre-eminent Asian power. For the US, China being a "strategic competitor" of the US and the LoC in Kashmir being the "most dangerous place on earth" go hand in hand with the hunt for Islamic terrorists in the post 9/11 phase and the Islamic charm offensive in the post-tsunami phase.

The US strategy requires the Indian government to stay on the side of the US, accompanied by episodic ups and downs in the engagement. The US kept mum in 2002 when Gujarat burnt under the watch of the BJP-led right-of-the-center government; it has fabricated the current visa embarrassment to neutralize political forces within the Congress-led left-of-the-center government. The US Secretary of State, Ms. Rice, must be smiling at how easily the visa decision was able to drown out any opposition to her war-mongering Asia trip or proposals to Indian government for taking up a role on the side of the US in Asia.

The evidence points towards the US decision to revoke Mr. Modi's visa being dictated first and foremost by US self interest. It reinforces the post-tsunami “Islamic charm offensive”. In the context of India, it has translated to helping out the UPA government to ward off challenges from within for being pro-American. Within south Asia, it has provided a respite from criticism of the US policy in Iraq, Nepal, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka etc. The people's movements have been served with a diversion, and the right-of-the-centre- forces have been provided with a cause to reorganize. What more can the people expect from the US which is bent on imposing its dictate on the entire world?Now is the time to build lasting links amongst the people's movements to defend and advance their common interests.

That the official organs of power in India are incapable or unwilling to mete out punishment to those committing crimes against the people or to block the path to future state organized violence is clear as clear can be. Now is the time to create organizations that will ensure justice is meted out for all the past crimes and no state organized violence succeeds in future. The US visa action is, in the final analysis, directed against this people's agenda being taken up and realized. Rejection of the US action as being hostile to the interests of the people of India is integral part of taking up the people's agenda.

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Nato's Eastward March to Include a "Political Role"

According to Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary-General, NATO should become a more “political body” and take up roles such as shaping policy in Afghanistan, Kosova, Iraq and even Gaza,. “should the Israelis and Palestinians reach an agreement on Israeli withdrawal and request help from NATO”! He even added that NATO should debate on Iran’s nuclear program and any possible NATO mission!What is striking is that after the expansion of NATO to its current strength of 26, the military alliance is setting its sights on Asia and in the process steadily expanding the scope of its reach to the political domain. According to Mr. Scheffer, “a more political role for NATO may improve the relationship between the US and Europe”, strained since the Iraq war. Already there is discussion that NATO may not leave Afghanistan after the parliamentary elections are held next April, contary to the current agreement. This could be justified in the name of fighting the narcotics trade. NATO plans to set up a military academy in Iraq by the end of 2005 and is eager to send NATO troops to safeguard the school from Iraqi insurgents. Although not yet openely articulated by any official, a role in the Indo-Pak border to “oversee” a solution to the Kashmir problem is not far off in the list of political missions Mr. Scheffer is articulating.

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Jobless Growth in India

The average rate of growth of India’s national income in the past two decades works out to an annual rate of 6% - high by world standards. However, this has not been accompanied by expansion of employment. Agriculture contributes 22% of India’s GDP and accounts for 60% of employment.

The average annual rate of growth in agriculture is currently at 2% and this is mostly due to higher productivity rather than higher employment. The service sector accounts for 51% of the GDP. This has been growing at a rate of 8% per year but employment in this sector has been growing a rate of less than 1% per year. Industry accounts for 27% of India’s GDP and has been growing at an annual rate of 6% in the past decade. But employment has been declining in the organized manufacturing sector in the past decade and the total employment in unorganized and organized sector has grown at a rate of just 1% per year only.

The labour force of India continues to grow at a rate of 2% per year and the rate will remain so for next 25 years. This amounts about 8 million new workers looking for jobs every year. By 2010, there will be 40 million more workers added to the current 410 million strong labour force. Contrary to what many may think, information technology sector can’t solve India’s unemployment problem. IT-related output of India is currently 1% of GDP. This sector employs less than 1 million people and most optimistic scenario puts the employment to grow to 2 million by 2010. This sector needs a high-skill work force. Since only 5% of India’s relevant age group children receive college education, the rate of growth of IT sector may even be constrained by a shortage of a skilled labour force.

India has invested heavily in the past 40 years in industry, especially in capital-intensive heavy industry. In this period, industry’s share of India’s GDP has grown from 20% to only 27%. With a very low level of productivity in agriculture and with heavy industry not giving rise to a proliferation of light industry, new investment has been directed towards the service sector where profitability has been high. The experience of other economies suggests that 51% of the economy in a service sector can’t be sustained with 49% of the economy in the productive sector, especially because the level of productivity is so low. What is not produced cannot be serviced after all! World Bank economists are arguing that in view of the rising labour costs in China and other Asian economies, India could expand its employment base if it embarked on a path of export-oriented growth of light industry and agro-industries through an infusion of foreign investment to these sectors.

These would have to be accompanied by changes to labour laws to remove any employment protection provisions and also doing away with small-scale industry reservations. In the coming months, it is expected that the new economic policies will be presented by the left-of-center New Delhi government in the guise of being “good for the workers” and for employment. Broad sections of workers will be affected by these policies and the scope for broadening movement against liberalization and privatization program will be very high.

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"Amu" Stares Down at Justice Nanavati

DELHI DIARY
A. S.
It is late January and the foggy morning has given way to a sunny but cool Delhi street where Shonali Bose's feature film "Amu" is playing in a theatre to full capacity for the past two weeks. .Tickets for the A-rated film (no one under 18 allowed) cost 150 rupees, but are still hard to get. Finally my host manages five seats for a show on the day after my scheduled departure.

Others in my travel group will be able to see it, but I have to wait for another opportunity.My host, a 21 year IIT Delhi grad student who has seen the film and been around during its filming a year ago, gets emotional in response to leaked media reports that the soon-to-be- released Nanavati Commission findings will exonerate some of the culprits of the riots because of lack of evidence. He asks innocently: how can a former judge of the highest court of India cover up the reality of the 1984 riots to a public that was an eye witness? Like the main character of the film, Kaju (played by Konkana Sensharma), my host was a baby in 1984 and is now coming to grips with his own being. Even though he has grown up in Delhi in an activist family, his peers' circle has a bare minimum impression of how the lives of Delhites are shaped by the infamous massacres of 1984.

For him and his peers, the film provides a view of their own life from a close range.The story line in the film unfolds with an adopted Indo-American girl Kaju, who has grown up in Los Angeles, going back to India to find out what happened to her birth parents. She uncovers and confronts the cold-blooded massacre of innocent Sikhs in 1984 that engulfed both her birth parents and adoptive parents, shaping her own life.

The cinematography, acting and sensibility are blended and balanced masterfully by the director to take the audience in a captivating journey with Kaju to discover Amu, the birth name of the baby whose adoption was predisposed by the riots. My host, along with his friends who have seen the film tell me that beyond the storyline, the cinematic rendering of the psyche of the contemporary Indian youth makes this film linger well after one leaves the theater. Whether one has lived in Los Angeles or Delhi, every young Indian has to come to terms with his or her identity and mission - the contradictions of modern India juxtaposed against the past and the future.

The same India that makes one proud also makes one easily depressed unless one discovers the space where the incongruities can be challenged and changed. Amu helps the viewer to place him or herself in the context of the present. Justice Nanavati's callous judicial rendering of an event that stole life away from so many can only make the search for ones identity and dignity as an Indian more urgent, assures my host as I leave.

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Gujarat Three Years Later

On the third anniversary of the Gujarat riots, two commissions are still probing various aspects of the events, the former President has accused the former Prime Minister of culpability, many of the court prosecutions set up over the last two years are collapsing, and Narendra Modi is planning to tour the US. Meanwhile, the plight of the victims has scarcely got any better.

Early in March, the former President of India, K.R.Narayanan raised a furore by breaking his silence over the Gujarat riots. He described what has been widely known for three years now – that the state apparatus he headed was deeply implicated in the horrors that took place. He blamed the tragic course of events on a conspiracy hatched between the central government and state government of Gujarat, and has directly blamed the former Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee for his inaction.

As for the judicial proceedings, one of the high profile cases transferred to Maharashtra is proceeding, while another has spectacularly collapsed. Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped while pregnant, and who’s her three year old child, mother and two sisters, and ten other family members were killed, publicly identified 12 people by name in late-February. But overall, the judicial process is once again limping along in slow motion, and frequently collapsing. Virtually nobody has been convicted or held responsible in any way for thousands of incidents of murder, rape, violent assault, arson or the destruction of property. Emblematic of this is the tragedy turned farce of Zahira Shaikh, of the infamous Best Bakery case. Twelve members of Zahira’s family were burnt alive in the Best Bakery in one of the most gruesome cases reported during the March 2002 riots. When it first came to court in mid-2003, a total 39 of a total 73 witnesses mysteriously turned “hostile” and recanted their earlier statements.

Following the ensuing public outcry, Zahira spoke out to say that she and her family had recanted because they were under heavy intimidation, and hinted at the role of a BJP legislator. As a result, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial, and relocated the proceedings from Gujarat to Mazagaon in Maharashtra, together with the Bilkis Bano case. When, after numerous suspicious delays, the retrial finally began in October 2004, there was another shock in store. Zahira Shaikh and her family recanted again, and once again, mysteriously claimed that her earlier statements and accusations were all false. A month later in December, it emerged that she had been under serious financial stress since the riots, and that a relative of the same BJP legislator had paid her Rs 18 lakhs to change her story.

Meanwhile, Gujarat’s notorious Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, whose political fortunes were rescued from the abyss by the massacres, is visiting the US in late March, and is special guest in at least two speaking engagements in Florida and New York. The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) has invited him as chief guest and keynote speaker in their annual convention in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on March 16-18, 2005. Later, Modi is scheduled to speak at New York’s Madison Square Garden by the Association of Indian Americans for North America.

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