Sobers defends Modi visit: T&T committed to inclusion

Akash Sama­roo

In re­sponse to con­cerns raised by Mus­lim groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­gard­ing the of­fi­cial vis­it of In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di, the Gov­ern­ment has re­it­er­at­ed its stead­fast com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty, re­spect, and in­clu­sion for all cit­i­zens. 

The vis­it, part of on­go­ing diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and In­dia, has sparked ap­pre­hen­sion from seg­ments of the lo­cal Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, who have pub­licly ex­pressed dis­com­fort over Mo­di’s pres­ence due to his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s treat­ment of Mus­lim mi­nori­ties in In­dia. 

The An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) has ex­pressed pro­found reser­va­tions which it says are root­ed in ex­ten­sive and cred­i­ble in­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns over the Mo­di ad­min­is­tra­tion’s treat­ment of Mus­lims in In­dia. 

Mean­while the Is­lam­ic Da’wah Move­ment called on Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to raise the is­sue of Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion in In­dia when she meets with Mo­di. 

Asked for the gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to these con­cerns, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers said, “The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty, re­spect, and in­clu­sion for all in­di­vid­u­als, re­gard­less of race, eth­nic ori­gin, colour, creed, or so­cial class.” 

Sobers added, “We deeply val­ue the rich di­ver­si­ty that de­fines our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and up­hold the free­dom of every cit­i­zen to ex­press their con­cerns in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.” 

The min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia that this coun­try con­tin­ues to main­tain on­go­ing di­a­logue with all com­mu­ni­ties to en­sure their voic­es are heard and re­spect­ed. 

But with re­spect to this coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy and bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships, Sobers said, “Con­cur­rent­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to fos­ter con­struc­tive re­la­tion­ships with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing through high-lev­el vis­its. This ap­proach is fun­da­men­tal to our com­mit­ment to diplo­ma­cy, mu­tu­al re­spect, and the ad­vance­ment of shared val­ues re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly.” 

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked for a com­ment how­ev­er she did not re­spond to ques­tions sent to her mo­bile phone. 

Mo­di’s crit­ics have ar­gued that the ac­tions, rhetoric and poli­cies of his Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty (BJP) lead to the be­lief that he holds an­ti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ments. 

They of­ten point to the 2002 Gu­jarat Ri­ots dur­ing which 1,044 peo­ple were killed in­clud­ing al­most 800 Mus­lims. Mo­di, who was the Chief Min­is­ter of Gu­jarat at the time, faced strong crit­i­cism for his ad­min­is­tra­tion, al­leged­ly fail­ing to pre­vent and con­trol the vi­o­lence. 

There has al­so been crit­i­cism for cer­tain poli­cies in In­dia which are deemed un­fair to Mus­lims such as the Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act (CAA) and the re­vo­ca­tion of Kash­mir’s spe­cial sta­tus. 

And con­dem­na­tion for his par­ty’s use of what can be seen as in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage against Mus­lims by re­fer­ring to them as “in­fil­tra­tors.” And the BJP's Hin­dut­va ide­ol­o­gy, which crit­ics ar­gue pro­motes Hin­du su­prema­cy and mar­gin­al­izes mi­nori­ties 

PM Mo­di and his gov­ern­ment have con­sis­tent­ly de­nied ac­cu­sa­tions of be­ing an­ti-Mus­lim. To em­pha­sis his com­ment to the de­vel­op­ment and well-be­ing of all cit­i­zens re­gard­less of re­li­gion Mo­di would of­ten use the slo­gan “Sab­ka Saath, Sab­ka Vikas, Sa­ba Vish­was” which means “Col­lec­tive ef­forts, in­clu­sive growth, with every­one’s trust.” 

They al­so of­ten claim that the an­ti-Mus­lim crit­i­cisms are po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed by Op­po­si­tion par­ties.