ASJA raises concern over India PM Modi’s T&T visit

The An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) has con­firmed it will send a for­mal let­ter of con­cern to both the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion op­pos­ing the state vis­it of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di.

In a re­sponse to ques­tions sent to AS­JA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Rahi­mool Ho­sein by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion said it has a “deep and prin­ci­pled con­cern” over the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to of­fi­cial­ly wel­come a leader with what it called a “wide­ly crit­i­cised hu­man rights record.”

AS­JA said it had no ob­jec­tion to diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment in prin­ci­ple, but strong­ly ob­ject­ed to what it views as the le­git­imi­sa­tion of a po­lit­i­cal fig­ure whose gov­ern­ment has “em­bold­ened re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance and tar­get­ed the Mus­lim mi­nor­i­ty” in In­dia.

AS­JA said, “We can­not ig­nore Mr Mo­di’s po­lit­i­cal lega­cy and its ram­i­fi­ca­tions for Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties glob­al­ly.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion ref­er­enced mul­ti­ple al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against Mo­di’s ad­min­is­tra­tion over the years, in­clud­ing the 2019 Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act (CAA), which it de­scribed as dis­crim­i­na­to­ry to Mus­lims, and the re­vo­ca­tion of Kash­mir’s spe­cial sta­tus, which was fol­lowed by what it called a mil­i­tary lock­down of a Mus­lim-ma­jor­i­ty re­gion.

AS­JA al­so cit­ed Mo­di’s role in the 2002 Gu­jarat ri­ots, dur­ing which time more than 1,000 most­ly Mus­lim cit­i­zens were killed while he served as Chief Min­is­ter. “His ad­min­is­tra­tion was ac­cused of com­plic­i­ty and de­lib­er­ate in­ac­tion by both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers,” AS­JA said, not­ing that de­spite In­dia’s Supreme Court clear­ing Mo­di of wrong­do­ing in 2022, “hu­man rights watch­dogs and po­lit­i­cal fig­ures glob­al­ly, in­clud­ing British MPs such as Im­ran Hus­sain and Naz Shah, have con­tin­ued to raise alarm over the lack of jus­tice.”

Asked whether the as­so­ci­a­tion saw the vis­it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for en­gage­ment or in­ter­faith di­a­logue, AS­JA replied, “While we wel­come en­gage­ment ground­ed in hon­esty and hu­man dig­ni­ty, Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di’s track record does not re­flect a com­mit­ment to in­ter­faith har­mo­ny, but rather the prop­a­ga­tion of Hin­dut­va ide­ol­o­gy, a po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy which has of­ten re­gard­ed In­di­an Mus­lims as out­siders.”

AS­JA said in­ter­nal con­sul­ta­tions are on­go­ing and it in­tends to en­gage civ­il so­ci­ety dur­ing a pub­lic fo­rum on Is­lam­o­pho­bia and re­li­gious free­dom.

To the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, AS­JA said, “This vis­it should not weak­en our faith or sense of iden­ti­ty, it should strength­en our com­mit­ment to jus­tice.”

Mo­di will be award­ed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT), the na­tion’s high­est ho­n­our, dur­ing his vis­it, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, all schools have been ad­vised to close by 11.30 am to­mor­row to fa­cil­i­tate Mo­di’s vis­it to T&T. The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said the ear­ly dis­missal will as­sist in re­duc­ing traf­fic.