Gates Foundation urged not to award Modi

NEW YORK: Two prominent lawyers and activists of Indian origin have strongly urged the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation not to honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an award for his sanitation and toilet access project across India, citing his past month's "repressive" actions in Held Kashmir and the northeastern state of Assam.

"While public health is undoubtedly a priority in India and around the world, such an honour would come as his Hindu nationalist party has incited violence against minorities, silenced dissent and curtailed freedom of expression," Suchitra Vijayan, a lawyer and executive director of the Polis Project, and Arjun Singh Sethi, a human rights lawyer and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center wrote in an article published in The Washington Post on Saturday.

"In light of Modi’s record, including promoting repressive policies in the past month in Kashmir and the northeastern state of Assam, he should not be given the award," they said in the joint article. "If the Gates Foundation really wants to amplify sanitation efforts in India, it should give the award to community workers instead of a far-right nationalist," the article said.

Indian Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Jitendra Singh, announced earlier this week that Modi will receive an award from the foundation for his 2014 "Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan" (Clean India Mission) from during his visit to the United States later this month. In their opinion piece, Ms. Vijayan and Mr. Sethi, wrote: "Since August 5, India has imposed an unprecedented communication blockade on Kashmir. Landlines, mobile phones and the Internet have been suspended. Many Kashmiris remain cut off from their families, and a strict curfew is still in place in many areas.

In the days leading up to the blockade, 38,000 troops were moved into the Kashmir Valley, putting the total troop count at more than 500,000 in what was already one of the world’s most militarized regions. "The reports that have emerged from Kashmir since the blackout are frightening. Thousands of Kashmiris, including human rights advocates, elected officials and even young students, have reportedly been arrested in raids.

The local prisons are full, according to a local magistrate, and many detainees have been flown out of the region. Family members wait in anguish, fearing that their loved ones may be forcibly disappeared, as an estimated 8,000 Kashmiris were before them. There have been reports of torture and police violence. Compounding this is a humanitarian crisis, as patients in Kashmir can’t access medicine and life-saving treatment.

"At the same time, Modi is also pursuing an exclusionary strategy in Assam. On August 31, the government published a list that excluded about 1.9 million people who it claims do not have the appropriate documents to prove their citizenship. Many are Muslims, women and children from low-income and impoverished backgrounds.

Those excluded from the list have 120 days to appeal and prove their citizenship, and if they fail, could be detained or deported. "The human tragedies in Kashmir and Assam are consistent with Modi’s human rights record dating back to his time as the chief minister of Gujarat, when Hindu mobs across the state slaughtered 2,000 Muslims, destroyed and looted their homes and property and displaced tens of thousands.

Modi failed to protect those who were attacked and reports suggest that he might have even been complicit. This year, Nishrin Jafri Hussain the daughter of Ehsan Jafri, who was burned alive during riots tellingly wrote that ''fighting for justice and human rights in India is a long and lonely battle,'' a sentiment echoed by other survivors.

As a result of the violence, the US government denied Modi a visa in 2005, a ban that remained in place until 2014. As of 2014, Modi was the only person ever to be banned from the United States under the International Religious Freedom Act. "When Modi was elected, many chose to overlook his murky past but India’s vulnerable could not. He has used both state power and the bully pulpit to further his ethno-nationalist agenda.

Under his leadership the country has witnessed a spike in hate crimes and mob violence, particularly against Muslims and Dalits. Rarely are the perpetrators held accountable.

Last summer, a minister in Modi’s cabinet even celebrated eight men who had been convicted of lynching a Muslim. Modi himself rarely publicly mentions the hate and violence surging across India. "Since his reelection, Modi has also implemented laws and amendments that erode human rights protections. This summer, his government passed a bill that would enable the state to unilaterally declare an individual a terrorist without due process and crippled the citizens’ right to free information.

Activists, scholars and human rights defenders remain in prison without bail under a variety of far-fetched charges and overreaching laws, including most recently for allegedly conspiring to ''attack the Prime Minister''. "This is the leader the Gates Foundation has apparently chosen to honour. "Civil society, including philanthropy, should help build communities rooted in the interconnected values of dignity, decency and equality.

Modi’s sanitation campaign has no doubt benefited people, but how can access to a clean toilet outweigh the violence and persecution they may face in the rest of their lives? Giving Modi this award would legitimize his policies and embolden the ethno-nationalist forces he has championed.

If the Gates Foundation really wants to amplify sanitation efforts in India, it should give the award to community workers instead of a far-right nationalist. "From President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to President (Donald) Trump in the United States to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism and fascism are on the rise worldwide.

Civil society groups, including philanthropic foundations with global platforms, are integral to defeating these forces. The Gates Foundation claims on its homepage that all lives have equal value. "Giving the award to Modi would betray that promise and everyone who has suffered under his rule."