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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Double standard of India-America relations

By Prof Khursheed Ahmad
July 10, 2017

The American attitude towards Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is a clear example of contradiction. America had banned the admission of Modi to America in 2005 due to allegations of his support for massacre of 2,000 innocent Muslim men, women and children in Gujarat. Modi tried again and again to get the American visa during these nine years, but all in vain. He was not allowed to visit America because of the accusations of his support for terrorism. But when he was elected as a prime minister in 2014, he was allowed to visit America. Now he is visiting America every year with great confidence. He is being welcomed in White House. He is addressing American Parliament. Now in June 2017 he has been given another gift. America has declared Kashmiri leader Syed Salahuddin an international terrorist. Modi and the Indian political leadership are very happy with this achievement and congratulating each other. It is reported that President Trump didn’t give any importance to Modi during his election campaign. He blamed India for getting $1 billion because of the Paris Agreement and the ‘Issue of the environmental protection’. India has purchased weapons worth $15 billion from America. Modi has signed an agreement for purchasing 22 American drones at a cost of $2 billion before his visit to America. In this way, Trump and Modi have become one.

An Indian scholar, Vijay Prashad, who is the chief editor of Left World Book, has discussed the unfair American attitude in his article “Modi and Trump: When the Titans of Hate Meet.” It was published in Aljazeera.com on 27 June 2017. He says, “For nine years, Modi was banned from entering the United States… From the US perspective, Modi has to be engaged, so the allegations of his complicity in Gujarat riots are irrelevant. Pragmatism means the morality can be set aside.

Not only Modi and Trump lead movements anchored in hate, but they also appeal to an old-fashioned fore of materialism. But what Modi can do for Trump is to buy more US weapons. India is the world’s largest importer of weapons, while the US is the world’s largest seller of weapons.”

America has declared Syed Salahuddin an international terrorist. In fact, he is a Mujahid of the freedom movement of Kashmir. America is not paying attention to the Indian atrocities being committed against the innocent people of occupied Kashmir. I want to remind American people and the president of their stance on human rights and the right of self-determination of a helpless nation in the past. What is being done today should be compared with the report of 1st June 1993 of the Sub-Committee of American Congress for Asia and Pacific. What was the decision of the Committee on this freedom movement? In which way it is being presented? The reality is that the movement of 2017 is the continuation and climax of the same movement, no matter you remember it or not.

“The question of Kashmir has become considerably more pressing over the past few years -- as a human rights concern, as a potential cause of another war between India and Pakistan, and as an issue troubling Indo-American relations.”

“India faces a full-blown, largely indigenous insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and few signs suggest that either the militants in J&K or the Govt of India are tiring of the struggle. It seems extremely unlikely that either side will be able to impose a military solution on the other, or continued blood-shed appears the most likely scenario for the foreseeable future.

“The Sub-Committee urged both the Govt of India and Kashmiri militants to pursue a just and durable political solution, but is forced to concede that the prospects for a genuine political dialogue between Delhi and Kashmiris appears bleak. Publicly, Delhi appears to believe that insurgency is first and foremost a problem caused by Pakistani meddling. Although the evidence does not support this thesis. The sub-committee is unaware of any comprehensive govt strategy for responding to the legitimate political grievances of the Kashmiri people.

“There is a growing consensus that some Indian security forces have engaged in widespread human rights abuses in Kashmir against the insurgents and civilians, summary execution, torture of detainees, systematic arson and attacks on medical personnel and human rights monitors -- have increased dramatically in recent months. The Sub-Committee calls upon the Govt of India to impose civil and criminal sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses and to make available lists of security forces members who have been punished for these lawless actions.

“Members also strongly urge senior Indian politicians have had a hand in fomenting the violence and that there were police officers who stood aside rather than to protect innocent victims of mob actions, the majority of whom were Muslims. Should violence of the sort that rocked the country in December and January persist; the very foundations of Indian secularism could be called into question. Sub-Committee members cannot overstate their conviction that religious and political tolerance is absolutely essential to the preservation of democracy in India”.

The real question is that who is the terrorist? The Indian govt and armed forces who are involve in heinous crimes in occupied Kashmir or the wretched and unarmed resistant? According to the Indian govt, armed people are no more than hundreds in number and never been more than thousands. While army and paramilitary forces are 700,000 in number and police force consists of 500,000 persons. The order of American Foreign Ministry includes only one event of the 27th years struggle of Syed Salahuddin in which 27 persons were injured only. In comparison to it, what is the view of Mr Trump and American Foreign Ministry about the Indian cruelties and terrorism that has been admitted by the American Parliamentary Committee in its report. These atrocities have risen to the highest level. The UN institutions of human rights have also admitted it.