Theater Of The Absurd

Snubbed by the U.S. state, the visa-less Mr. Modi had tobe beamed into the hall from thousands of miles away to address asmaller-than-expected gathering of supporters who had to run the gauntlet of aloud and raucous crowd of slogan-chanting, sign-waving protestors. Thetime-difference must have caused a disruption in Mr. Modi's sleep cycle. Notthat he could have been sleeping much or too well, given the events of the lastfew days.

And what a strange few days it has been. The unexpected denial of Modi'sdiplomatic visa. The revocation of his existing tourist/business visas under INASection 212(a)(2)(G) which falls under the category "Criminal Grounds ofInadmissability (Exclusion)". The unusual political bedfellows generated bythis issue.

But nothing was more odd than the Orwellian Newspeak cranked out by the Modimachinery. Consider the following statements issued by Mr. Modi and his party:

"Human rights of African-Americans are being violated day in and day outin the U.S."

"Washington sees about 2000 murders a year, which is more than thenumber of murders that take place in the whole of Gujarat".

"In the U.S. hate crimes have risen steadily from 2001 onwards, that is,post 9/11. Should President Bush be held responsible for those crimes?"

"If an American wants to come to India, are we going to question whatAmericans did in Iraq and deny them visa?"

In a saner world, one would have imagined that these protestations werecoming from a champion of human rights. But Mr. Modi speaking on behalf of theminorities in the U.S.?! Mr. Modi talking about hate crimes in the wake of 9/11,a majority of whose victims were Muslims?! Mr. Modi taking the Bushadministration to task for its actions in Iraq?!

As a poet once angrily wrote in response to the cruel colonial Britishempire's demand that India help it in its "just" fight against theevil Nazis during the Second World War:

Forgetting your own oppression, you now sing to the tune of justice;
Why do you cry out now; is your own house on fire?

In a strange way though, this is about as close as Mr. Modi has come toadmitting his culpability in the Gujarat violence. The argument seems to go likethis: if a dictator like Pervez Musharraf can go to the U.S. despite heading acountry where the plight of religious minorities has a long and gruesome historyand if American officials can visit India despite being responsible for morecivilian deaths than the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, then so should Mr.Modi be able to travel to the U.S. despite the killing fields of Gujarat. Equalopportunity for all violators of human rights seems to be the bizarre andimplicit demand.

Leaving aside the dark irony of Mr. Modi chiding President Bush for America'streatment of Muslims, his statistical comparison of the number of murders andcrimes in the U.S. with those in Gujarat is off the mark. What happened inGujarat under his watch was hardly a mere crime. The U.S. murders herefers to were committed by individuals against individuals. Gujarat, on theother hand, witnessed the systematic targetting of a particular community in anshameful act of collective "punishment".Besides, the land of Gandhi's ahimsa did pretty well on the number count, besting Washington's yearlymurder rate in the space of a few short and horrific weeks.

Given this, the ongoing breast-beating and chest-thumping rings a bit hollow,as does the contention that the denial of a U.S. visa to Mr. Modi is an affrontto India's self-esteem. Mr. Modi has not exactly been the repository of Indianpride over the last few years. The charge of sullying India's image in the worldas a secular and tolerant society must be laid at the doorstep of the governmenthe led at a time when the state machinery failed in its duty to protect itscitizens.

Besides, obscured by this rhetoric, lies the fact that the resistanceto Mr. Modi's trip was led by Indians of all faiths and politicalaffiliations living in the U.S. The list of organizations that formed the"Coalition Against Genocide", which spearheaded the opposition to Mr.Modi, looks like a diverse Indian mosaic: Manavi, Hindu Vaishnava Center forEnlightenment, Indian Christian Forum, NRI's for a Secular and Harmonious India,Sikh American Heritage Organization, Indian Muslim Council, Students for Bhopal,Vedanta Society, World Tamil Organization...

And news reports from Indiaindicate that several Gujarati organizations such as the Gujarat MotelAssociation of America, the Gujarat Patida Khedut Mandal, and the GujaratCultural Activity of America were opposed to Mr. Modi's presence in the U.S.There also appears to have been a split in the ranks of the Asian American HotelOwners' Association, the organization that had invited Mr. Modi in the firstplace, as indicated by the statement issued by Mike Patel, the founder chairmanof the association, and its subsequent rebuttal by the current treasurer, DannyPatel.

Defending himself against the U.S. charge that he was "responsiblefor...particularly severe violations of religious freedom", Mr. Modi says:"No court has given any decision against my government or me on the Gujaratriots issue." He is, of course, not referring to the court of publicopinion, which in large measure has indicted Mr. Modi, at the very leastfor gross negligence and dereliction of duty, as have numerous reports of humanrights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,Institute of Religion and Public Policy, the International Initiative forJustice in Gujarat, Concerned Citizens Tribunal, and Citizens' Initiative, tomention a few.

Besides, the BJP's defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections andthe poorer-than-expected performance of his party in Gujarat itself areindicators of the public's disenchantment with the fallout of the violence. Butone of the real tragedies of Gujarat is that Mr. Modi is right. Three yearsafter one of the most violent chapters of India's recent history was writtenwith the blood of thousands, there have been no noteworthy arrests, no genuinerecompense for those whose homes, bodies and lives were brutally violated, noapology tendered, no justice served.

That, and not the denial of a U.S. visa, isIndia's real shame.

Kamayani Swami and Ali Mir are Indians living in the U.S. who know which side of the communal-secular divide they fall on.