“Narendra Modi & The Trains Are On-Time Again!”

Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

This morning’s Wall Street Journal has a long feature on the Indian State of Gujarat, which is essentially a PR piece for Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the State, who has been identified by a series of groups, inquiries and reports to have actively encouraged the killing of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, after the mysterious death of 58 Hindu pilgrims in a train fire that year.

The article (by Gita Anand and Amol Sharma) takes up the by now well-worn argument that Modi has helped to open Gujarat for large corporate interests from India and abroad. The article quotes several sources (including my friend Mira Kamdar) who cast doubt on Gujarat’s development “miracle” under Modi’s leadership. India’s Supreme Court is still (all too slowly) investigating his culpability in the 2002 genocide.

My question is: When will we cease to use “economic miracles” to justify the actions of tyrants, hard men and demagogues? General Pinochet was alleged to have done a lot for Chile, Shah Reza Pahlavi for Iran before the Islamic Revolution, and Lee Kwan Yu for Singapore. There is a still lively debate going on about the pros and cons of Hitler’s bizarre form of Keynesian interventionism in Germany. China has obviously done brilliantly over the last decade. Do Mr. Modi’s supporters support the Chinese state?

Genocide against Muslims, inviting global corporations to push through high-profit projects in minimally-regulated special investment regions and making all those who speak for secularism in Gujarat fear for the jobs and their livelihoods, is not a developmental model to be endorsed for India or for any other humane democracy.

Indians do not mind their trains running slow some of the time. But they do not want to be forced passengers on the Tyranny Express.

-Arjun Appadurai is an expert in Globalization, Cultural Anthropology, Media, Cities, and Violence.