Narendra Modi: Should This Merchant of Death Be Allowed into Civilized Countries?
Mahatma Gandhi, India's apostle of non-violence and Hindu-Muslim unity, hailed from the western state of Gujarat.
It's the same province whose current chief minister (premier) presided over a 2002 pogrom against the minority Muslims that left 1,100 dead and 100,000 homeless.
Narendra Modi, dubbed "a merchant of death," is still under investigation for his role. Since 2005, the state department has barred his entry into the United States. The EU has denied him diplomatic status.
Yet some of his supporters in Toronto want him to visit Canada.
Modi is reviled as a Hindu ideologue and an authoritarian demagogue who bans books and films. But he's admired for spurring economic growth.
He made his career in the militant Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ("RSS"), which believes that India is a Hindu nation. Non-Hindus - especially Christians, Sikhs and Muslims, followers of "foreign" or other religions - must "adopt Hindu culture, hold in reverence the Hindu religion, entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture."
A follower of the creed assassinated Gandhi in 1948, believing the mahatma was soft on Muslims. The RSS is the parent organization of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in Gujarat and, in 2002, at the federal level.
The BJP has long been trying to turn a 16th century mosque into a temple, claiming it as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. In 1992, its militants demolished the mosque. Still, no temple could be built on the disputed site. So the BJP sent agitators from across India to the site. One such riled-up group returning from there triggered the 2002 tragedy.
When their train pulled into a station, they ordered a Muslim vendor to say "Hail Ram." He refused. They yanked his beard and beat him.
As the train pulled out, Muslims pelted stones. Soon, one carriage was on fire, killing 59 Hindus. Muslims were blamed but a later railway inquiry concluded that the fire had, in fact, started inside the carriage - an accident.
The BJP and associates called for a strike the next day. Modi, who had just become chief minister, ordered that police "should not come down harshly on the Hindus tomorrow," a police officer confessed later.
A mob of 10,000 went on a rampage. Mothers were skewered on swords in front of their kids. Women were raped in broad daylight, doused with kerosene and set on fire. Fetuses were ripped from the bellies of pregnant women and tossed into the flames. About 20,000 Muslim homes and businesses were torched.
"The vandals had voter lists, identifying which homes were Muslim," Ramachandra Guha wrote in India After Gandhi, an authoritative history. "Ministers of the state government were camped in police control rooms, directing operations."
I reached Guha in India. He said Modi has ensured that "no perpetrators of the violence are brought to justice. Intimidation of the judiciary and manipulation of the police continues. Muslims in Gujarat are resigned to being treated as second-class citizens, somewhat akin to that of Hindus and Christians in Pakistan."
Modi was indicted by the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court, whose special police panel grilled him last year.
Recent WikiLeaks documents quote a powerful Indian politician that Hindu militants posed a greater danger than Muslim terrorists. The speaker was Rahul Gandhi (no relation of the mahatma). A potential future prime minister, he belongs to the federal ruling Congress Party, whose president is his mother, Sonia Gandhi. She's the one who called Modi "a merchant of death."
But Modi has been unrepentant, justifying the riots as an understandable response to the train tragedy.
For that he has reaped ample electoral rewards at home, sweeping elections. Seen as a prime ministerial candidate, he has rebranded himself by drawing investment and industries, including Nano, the world's cheapest car. Gujarat is the fastest growing part of India.
That's what the Canada India Foundation cites in lobbying Stephen Harper to welcome Modi here. Others warn that doing so would offend New Delhi.
But more than tactics, the issue is whether Canada should embrace this symbol of Hindu jihadism that secular Indians themselves, including Hindu followers of Mahatma Gandhi, have been battling.
