[The following article is the third instalment in a series.]
3. India’s ‘human rights’ and the western powers
It is a year now since the broadcast of the BBC documentary, ‘India: The Modi Question’ (the first part was released on January 17, 2023, and the second part a week later). The documentary’s main ‘revelation’ was the report of a confidential UK government inquiry at the time of the Gujarat riots (2002). The inquiry concluded that Narendra Modi (then chief minister of Gujarat) was directly responsible for the riots, and referred to the events as a “systematic campaign of violence” with “all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing”. Jack Straw, foreign secretary of the UK at the time, is interviewed in the documentary. He reveals that he ordered the confidential inquiry into the events in Gujarat because he was “very worried” about the developments there. The magazine Caravan has carried the text of the report on its website.
However, the documentary in fact contains no revelations as such. The events in question were reported extensively by Indian organisations and individuals two decades ago.
The 206-page report of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Gujarat 2002: An Inquiry into the Carnage in Gujarat, headed by former Supreme Court judges V. R. Krishna Iyer and P.B. Sawant, and former High Court judge Hosbet Suresh, was published in October 2002. The Tribunal based its findings on 2,094 statements from victims, First Information Reports, eyewitness accounts, and findings of forensic investigations. It also went through more than a dozen fact-finding reports and inquiries that had already been carried out by various Indian organisations. Significantly, the Gujarat cabinet minister Haren Pandya deposed before the Tribunal on May 13, 2002, directly incriminating Narendra Modi.[1]
The November 7, 2007 issue of the magazine Tehelka, titled “The Truth: Gujarat 2002”, contained the results of a six-month investigation, including sting operations. Video footage obtained in the course of the investigation was authenticated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Leaders of the BJP and the Bajrang Dal boasted about their offences in the course of secretly filmed interviews. The exposé argued that the violence had official sanction and support.
Among the books written on the Gujarat riots are Gujarat: Making of a Tragedy, edited by Siddharth Varadarajan, Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-up, by Rana Ayyub, Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat, by Dionne Bunsha, Under Cover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindustan, by Ashish Khetan, and Modi and Godhra: The Fiction of Fact-Finding, by Manoj Mitta. Among the documentaries on the riots are Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution(2004) and Shubhradeep Chakravorty’s Godhra Tak: The Terror Trail (2003). Several individuals who helped bring these facts to light, publicly protested the violence, and/or fought for redressal in the courts themselves faced, and continue to face, threats, harassment or arrests: prominent examples include Bilkis Bano, Teesta Setalvad, R.B. Sreekumar, Sanjiv Bhatt, Trupti Shah, Rohit Prajapati, Digant Oza, Father Cedric Prakash, Mallika Sarabhai, and Rana Ayyub. Among them, Sreekumar and Bhatt had given evidence directly linking Modi with the riots.
In comparison with the material mentioned above, the revelations of the BBC’s documentary are meagre. Even the fact of Straw’s confidential inquiry, and its main finding, had been reported by the BBC more than a decade ago.[2] Moreover, the fact that Jack Straw (himself guilty of grave war crimes by invading Iraq in 2003) ordered a confidential inquiry on the riots in 2002 is hardly newsworthy. The real news of the BBC documentary was that the findings were being highlighted now, i.e., that the BBC had chosen the present moment to produce a documentary on the subject of the 2002 riots.
In 2002, at the time of the riots, the BBC did carry several reports critical of the state government (led by Modi). In the wake of the riots, British officials were banned from meeting Modi; Modi decided to cancel his planned visit to the UK in 2005. The US denied him a diplomatic visa, and withdrew his personal visa. As late as 2011, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government body, asked the US government urge the Indian government to ensure that efforts to prosecute Modi for his complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots “are allowed to proceed in accordance with the law”.
Western investors’ view of Modi
However, by 2011, as the Economic Times reported, US businessmen had a very different, entirely positive, view of Modi:
… [W]hile Modi remains persona non grata in the US since 2005, a phalanx of businessmen from America has been descending on his home state. Gujarat has turned into an investment magnet for US businesses, much like their counterparts in India, which view him with rose-tinted glasses. “Of US-India Business Council’s 400 member-companies, as many as 200 of them are present in some shape or form in Gujarat,” says Ron Somers, president of the influential American trade group.[3]
US firms also dominated the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors in January 2011, sending 26 delegations made up of 156 representatives. There they signed MoUs for investments worth Rs 13,574 crore, in sectors ranging from pharmaceuticals to tourism.
Modi deserves the credit, say US entrepreneurs, because he has almost single-handedly made it easy to do business in Gujarat. “A CEO-style of management seems to have energised the bureaucracy. Once the green-light is given on a project, officers are fully empowered to implement the project,” says Somers…. American CEOs say Gujarat is the place to be for businesses.
The wave of changes that Modi is credited with hasn’t gone unnoticed by companies. Tata Motors relocated its Nano factory to Sanand in Gujarat from Singur in West Bengal. Energy powerhouses Royal Dutch Shell and Total have opened a LNG terminal in Hazira. Canada’s Bombardier built a manufacturing plant in Savli while Gujarat-based Torrent Power has a power plant in Surat. DuPont, General Motors, Hitachi and a raft of other foreign and Indian companies have invested in the state.[4]
Modi took special measures to build ties with the US:
For his part, the BJP leader has been careful to tend to a business-friendly image in the US. He hired a Washington public relations firm APCO Worldwide to woo businesses in 2009, a year after there were unconfirmed reports that he applied for a US visa.
“APCO’s role is to assist the government of Gujarat in its investment outreach globally. The United States is a key target and several APCO staff in the US work on the account,” says APCO India managing director Sukanti Ghosh.[5]
Gujarat consciously modeled itself as a destination for international investment. An article on Modi’s official website (www.narendramodi.in) dated November 27, 2013 tells us:
Shri Narendra Modi firmly believes that no progress is complete without engaging and learning from the outside world. Growth is not possible by remaining in a close shell, oblivious to the rapidly changing world around us. Over the last many years, especially in the recent past, numerous European nations have increased their engagement with Gujarat. Being one of India’s most economically vibrant state with a people and investor friendly government, European nations are looking at Gujarat as an attractive destination for opportunities in every sector, be it economic, social or even cultural. In Shri Narendra Modi, they have found a visionary leader who is determined to fulfill the aspirations of the people.
Change in official attitude, and in BBC coverage
The official attitude of western powers towards Modi changed radically by 2012. That was the year powerful foreign investors decided to join Indian big business in supporting Modi’s bid for prime ministership. The first to meet Modi was British High Commissioner James Bevan, in October 2012. The BBC reported the reasons for Bevan’s visit:
“Ten years later our national interests are better served by engaging, not continuing isolation,” an official said…. Gujarat is one of India’s most economically advanced states and many British companies are already investing in it, while others are waiting to.[6]
“I welcome UK government’s step for active engagement and strengthening relations with Gujarat. God is Great,” Modi tweeted.[7] Bevan defended the UK’s about-turn, claiming: “We have not forgotten 2002 riots in which many people, including three British nationals, were killed”; but “we would like to work in association with the Gujarat government to give justice to them.”[8] Bevan was followed a procession of ambassadors from Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and finally the US.
Strikingly, the BBC coverage of the 2014 elections hardly mentioned the riots. The headlines of its 2014 coverage read: “India’s BJP scores a historic win”, “Why India’s Narendra Modi faces daunting task”, “Narendra Modi: India’s economic saviour?”, “Has India election shattered old orthodoxies?”, “In pictures: Narendra Modi’s early life”, and so on.[9] One article, titled “Narendra Modi win a mandate for good governance”, argues that
The 2014 elections, however, exploded the myth that democracy in India was in terminal decline…. But more importantly, the election was not a compendium of local, caste-driven contests, it contained an important national narrative: throwing out a government widely seen as both corrupt and inept, and voting in a man who promised clean, decisive leadership, good governance and development…. Indian electors have delivered a clear message to their politicians: that they want governance instead of corruption, opportunity instead of charity.[10]
Thus by 2014 the BBC painted a broadly positive picture of Modi, and feigned amnesia about the 2002 riots. It is indeed naïve to imagine that the BBC acts independently of UK foreign policy. Evidently, it was the shifts in official policy which determined the shifts in the BBC’s stance regarding Modi.
Similarly, the US, which denied Modi a visa in 2005, now embraced and fêted him. In September 2014 Modi visited the White House for a private dinner; in January 2015 Obama visited India; in June 2016 Modi met Obama in Washington and addressed a joint session of the two houses of the US Congress; in June 2017 Modi visited the US and had a bilateral meeting with Trump; in September 2019 he attended a ‘Howdy Modi’ with Trump; in February 2020 Trump visited India for a reciprocal ‘Namaste Trump’ tour; in September 2021 Modi visited the White House for a meeting of the leaders of the ‘QUAD’ (a strategic formation comprising the US, Japan, Australia and India).
The policies of the Modi government, and the changes in the communal situation in India over the last nine years, are well known. Formal steps such as the scrapping of Article 370 and reduction of Kashmir to Union Territory status, the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the construction of a temple at Ayodhya were only the outward markers of a much more sweeping change at the ground level. According to one commentator, “Structurally, we have already arrived [at a Hindu Rashtra]”[11] – a view shared by the U.P. chief minister.[12]
Tight strategic embrace
When US political circles suggested that India should join a ‘NATO Plus’ arrangement,[13] which would tie India closer to the western alliance led by the US, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar spurned these suggestions. “‘A lot of Americans still have that NATO treaty construct in their heads’, Jaishankar said in a press conference on 9 June. ‘It seems almost like that is the only template or viewpoint with which they look at the world… That is not a template that applies to India’. India, he said, is not interested in being part of NATO Plus, wishing to maintain a greater degree of geopolitical flexibility. ‘One of the challenges of a changing world’, Jaishankar said, ‘is how do you get people to accept and adjust to those changes’.”[14]
Even as it has not formally joined a ‘NATO Plus’ arrangement, India has signed a series of ‘foundational’ agreements with the US in the sphere of defence: in 2016, Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA); in 2018 the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA); in 2019 the Industrial Security Annex to the General Security of Military Information (GSOMIA), which had been signed in 2002; and in 2020 the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence (BECA).
COMCASA is intended to help make the US and Indian forces inter-operable: it ensures secure military communication between the two. BECA is meant to provide India access to US geo-spatial information to hit enemy targets. LEMOA allows the two countries to draw on each other for supplies – including food, water, billeting, transportation, petroleum, oil, lubricants, clothing, medical services, spare parts and components, repair and maintenance services, training services, and other logistical items and services. Further, in November 2023, India became a full member of the Combined Maritime Force, a US-led coalition of navies operating from the US naval base in Bahrain. This appears to be the first time India has joined a multinational force not under United Nations command.
The US military has been quick to advertise the benefits of these agreements. According to the US News & World Report,
India was able to repel a Chinese military incursion in contested border territory in the high Himalayas late last year [2022] due to unprecedented intelligence-sharing with the U.S. military…. The U.S. government for the first time provided real-time details to its Indian counterparts of the Chinese positions and force strength in advance of a PLA incursion…. unlike the previous encounters, the Indian forces identified the Chinese positions using the intelligence provided by the U.S. and maneuvered to intercept them…. The basis for the new intelligence-sharing arrangement stems from an agreement the Indian and U.S. governments signed in 2020 known as the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Cooperation, or BECA.[15]
It is important to realise, however, that tensions between India and China have increased in recent years in step with India’s strategic embrace with the US. The US National Security Strategy explicitly targets China, and talks of supporting “partners” in the “Indo-Pacific” region defending themselves against China.
The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it…. Many of our allies and partners, especially in the Indo-Pacific, stand on the frontlines of the PRC’s coercion and are rightly determined to seek to ensure their own autonomy, security, and prosperity…. We will continue prioritizing investments in a combat credible military that deters aggression against our allies and partners in the region, and can help those allies and partners defend themselves.[16]
As India gets further drawn into the US National Security Strategy, it enters a vicious circle of tensions, border clashes and neighbourhood rivalry with China, and deeper dependence on the US for military and other assistance in this rivalry. Far from serving India’s national interests, this serves the US’s hegemonic drive.
Since 2017, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, between Australia, Japan, the US and India, has been revived and given greater importance. The US Congress designated India a “Major Defense Partner” in 2016, and India since 2008 has contracted in all for more than $20 billion worth of US-origin military equipment.
India now conducts more exercises and personnel exchanges with the United States than with any other country. Among its major joint exercises are Yudh Abhyas (ground forces), Vajra Prahar (special forces), Cope India (air force), Tiger Triumph (tri-service), Tarkash (counter-terrorism), and Sangam (naval special forces); important among its multilateral exercises is Malabar, which has now become a Quad exercise.[17] In 2022, the Yudh Abhyas exercise was held 100 km from the Line of Actual Control between India and China, in the face of objections by China.[18]
A number of strategic commentators describe the India-US relationship as a “tight strategic embrace”,[19] irrespective of India’s formal non-alignment.
The US State Department produces, every year, a Human Rights Report, as well as an International Religious Freedom Report. Each has a chapter on abuses of human rights and religious freedoms in India in the preceding calendar year; as diaries of such incidents they are among the most compendious and detailed. However, they have little operational relevance, as long as strategic relations between the US and India remain close.
What then accounted for the US State Department’s recent concern regarding India’s human rights abuses, and the BBC’s rediscovery of the Gujarat riots? Clearly, it was the Indian government’s refusal to support the US-UK position on the Ukraine war that acted as a trigger.
Before and after the outbreak of the Ukraine war
In 2021, before the Ukraine war, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken shrugged off questions about human rights abuses in India, declaring blandly that democracy in both India and the US was a “work in progress”:
Shared values – freedom and equality – are key and none of us have done enough. We need to strengthen our democratic institutions. This is at the core of our relationship, beyond strategic and economic ties…. One of the elements Americans admire most is fundamental freedom and human rights. That’s how we define India. India’s democracy is powered by free-thinking citizens. Both of our democracies are works in progress… As I said before, sometimes that process is painful. Sometimes it’s ugly. But the strength of democracy is to embrace it.[20]
Then, on March 2, 2022, India abstained on an early United Nations (UN) resolution condemning the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine. It maintained this position over several other votes on the question of Ukraine. Biden singled out India as the only ‘Quad’ member whose position on Ukraine was “somewhat shaky”.[21]
The US promptly raised the question of human rights in India. On April 11, 2022, when the Indian defence and external affairs ministers were in Washington for the “2+2” Ministerial Dialogue, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a public criticism of India’s human rights record in their presence. On June 2, 2022, Blinken noted that “in India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we have seen rising attacks on people and places of worship.”[22] In January 2023 the BBC documentary on Modi appeared, the same month as the Hindenburg report on Adani. This reflected the peak of western concerns over human rights in India.
While the Indian government issued angry retorts to some of these US expressions of concern, and the Income Tax authorities raided the BBC office in India, a quiet shift in both Indian and western stances took place thereafter. By March 2023, the US online journal Politico reported that “No matter how many opportunities the Biden administration gets, officials just can’t get themselves to criticize India.”[23]
The June 2023 visit to Washington
Indeed, the Indian government began distancing itself carefully from the Russian position in UN votes and public comments during 2022 itself. In December 2022 Modi cancelled a planned trip to meet Putin in Moscow for the 22ndannual India-Russia summit. It should be remembered that, while Russia is still the largest supplier of arms to India, its share of total Indian arms imports fell from 64 per cent to 45 per cent between 2013-17 and 2018-22, with France’s share rising steeply and the US trailing in third place. The value of Russian arms exports to India decreased 37 per cent between the two periods.[24]
The US welcomed Narendra Modi for a state visit in June 2023. Biden declared that the US-India relationship had never been stronger, and was “more dynamic than at any time in history”. The two countries announced a number of major agreements, including one for General Electric to produce jet engines for Indian fighter aircraft in India, and another for India’s purchase of US-made armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones. Biden also announced plans to support India in the acquisition of critical and emerging technologies “to ensure these technologies promote and protect our values, remain open, accessible, trusted and secure.” Further, in a far-reaching agreement which has attracted little comment, US Navy ships will be able to stop in Indian shipywards for repairs. The June 2023 visit is widely seen as a key event in India-US relations.
Even after this, the US left the question of human rights dangling over the heads of the Indian rulers. A reporter at a joint Biden-Modi press conference pointedly asked both leaders about India’s record. In response, Modi flatly denied that discrimination existed in India. Biden responded vaguely that “The prime minister and I had a good discussion about democratic values – that’s the nature of our relationship, we’re straightforward with each other.” In his address to the US Congress, Modi claimed that “The beauty of democracy is the constant connect with the people, to listen to them and feel their pulse…. We are home to all faiths in the world, and we celebrate all of them.”
At the same time, during Modi’s visit, former US president Obama told the television channel CNN that Biden should raise the issue of the protection of the Muslim minority in a Hindu-majority India. Such carefully choreographed steps make clear that the US retains both options – the carrot and the prod.
[To be continued.]
[1] Pandya was mysteriously murdered seven months later. See A.G. Noorani, “Modi is accountable”, Frontline, July 9, 2014.
[2] “An internal British report at the time described the violence as pre-planned with the support of the state government.” — “UK India envoy to visit Gujarat for first time since riots,” BBC, October 11, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-19907453
[3] Binoy Prabhakar, “Narendra Modi: Big hit with America Inc; persona non grata in US”, Economic Times, June 5, 2011.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “UK India envoy to visit Gujarat for first time since riots,” BBC, October 11, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-19907453
[7] “UK normalises ties with Narendra Modi”, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/10/2012102282453689217.html
[8] Indian Express, January 11, 2013.
[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26869578
[10] Simon Denyer, “Narendra Modi win a mandate for good governance”, May 24, 2014 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27534581
[11] Ziya us Salam, “Aakar Patel: ‘Structurally, we have already arrived at a Hindu Rashtra’”, Hindu, March 19, 2021.
[12] Mayank Kumar, “India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, ‘Akhand Bharat’ will come true, says Yogi Adityanath”, Hindu, February 16, 2023.
[13] NATO Plus is a security arrangement between NATO and US treaty allies Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel and South Korea.
[14] Vijay Prashad, “The Emergence of a New Non-Alignment: The Twenty-Fourth Newsletter”, Tricontinental, June 15, 2023.
[15] Paul D. Shinkman, “U.S. Intel Helped India Rout China in 2022 Border Clash: Sources”, US News & World Report, March 20, 2023.
[16] White House, National Security Strategy 2022, pp. 23-24.
[17] US Congressional Research Service, “India-U.S.: Major Arms Transfers and Military Exercises”, December 14, 2023.
[18] According to the US News & World Report, the 2022 China troop movements, which led to clashes with Indian troops, may have been deliberately provoked by the US: “the Chinese paid particular attention to several U.S. military activities in another region in the weeks before – all part of unprecedented training exercises the Indian military hosted with the 11th Airborne Division…. Aside from the exercises themselves, which China considers provocative, the visiting Americans also conducted a promotion ceremony for four of the unit’s officers at a staging area in the shadow of Nanda Devi, the second-tallest peak in India…. They also performed a spontaneous, open-air rock concert at one of the bases with their local counterparts. Public affairs officials publicized both events – which took place in late November and early December, days before the Arunachal Pradesh clash – a move the intelligence assessment says enraged Beijing. Several current and former [US] officials say that appeared to be by design. “It certainly looked like it was designed to annoy the Chinese, which I completely appreciate,” says Singh. “That was certainly the kind of thing the Chinese would view as a signal, as a message, and that they would potentially want to respond to.”
[19] Nearly identical terms are used by Atul Bhardwaj, “India in Quasi Alignment with the United States”, Economic and Political Weekly, July 15, 2023; Pravin Sawhney, “Modi’s Visit Has Increased India’s Vulnerabilities”, The Wire, June 26, 2023; Shubhajit Roy, “Democracy, China, Technology, and more: What underlies the India-US embrace”, Indian Express, June 25, 2023; and “Strategic high: On India-U.S. ties and strategic cooperation”, editorial, Hindu, June 28, 2023.
[20] “‘Every Democracy Is Work In Progress’: US’ Blinken After Talks With India”, July 28, 2021, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/freedom-equality-at-core-of-our-ties-us-secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-to-india-2496901
[21] Krishna N. Das, “Biden says India ‘shaky’ in acting against old Cold War ally Russia”, March 22, 2022 https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-india-somewhat-shaky-russia-over-ukraine-2022-03-22/
[22] “After Blinken’s Remarks on India’s Religious Freedom, MEA Slams US’ ‘Votebank Politics’”, The Wire, June 3, 2022.
[23] Nahal Toosi, Alexander Ward, Matt Berg and Lawrence Ukenye, “On India, say nothing”, Politico, March 2, 2023, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/03/02/on-india-say-nothing-00085164 The journal cited the US Secretary’s latest waffle in response to a specific question on human rights in India: “‘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.”
[24] Trends in International Arms Transfers 2022, SIPRI Fact Sheet March 2023, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, https://www.sipri.org/publications/2023/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-international-arms-transfers-2022
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