From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   Narendra Modi Is Not Who America Thinks He Is   
   By Maya Jasanoff, June 22, 2023, NY Times   
   As an American of Indian origin, I welcome the economic transformations in   
   India that in my lifetime have slashed the number of people living in extreme   
   poverty, swelled the middle class and modernized infrastructure (though not   
   enough to prevent a    
   devastating train crash this month). I’m glad, too, that the rising profiles   
   of India and the diaspora in the United States have mitigated the ignorance   
   and stereotypes I so often encountered while growing up, when people balked at   
   the spicy food,    
   gasped at the poverty, mixed up the “Hindu” religion and “Hindi”   
   language, and could scarcely place India on a map. Deeper, wider awareness of   
   India in this country is long overdue. The outreach to Modi — the   
   democratically elected leader of    
   the world’s most populous nation, with polling favorability numbers recent   
   American presidents can only dream of — appears, superficially, to make good   
   diplomatic sense.   
      
   But here is what Americans need to know about Modi’s India. Armed with a   
   sharp-edged doctrine of Hindu nationalism, Modi has presided over the   
   nation’s broadest assault on democracy, civil society and minority rights in   
   at least 40 years. He has    
   delivered prosperity and national pride to some, and authoritarianism and   
   repression of many others that should disturb us all.   
      
   Since Modi took power in 2014, India’s once-proud claim to being a free   
   democratic society has collapsed on many fronts. Of the 180 nations surveyed   
   in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index, India sits at 161, a scant three places   
   above Russia. Its    
   position on the Academic Freedom Index has nose-dived since Mr. Modi took   
   office, putting it on a course that sharply resembles those of other electoral   
   autocracies. The Freedom in the World index has tracked a steady erosion of   
   Indian citizens’    
   political rights and civil liberties. On the Economist Intelligence Unit’s   
   Democracy Index, India has tumbled squarely into the ranks of “flawed   
   democracies.”   
      
   A working paper from the Indian government dismisses such metrics as   
   “perception-based.” Sadly, it is no “perception” that the government   
   systematically harasses its critics by raiding the offices of think tanks,   
   NGOs and media organizations,    
   restricting freedom of entry and exit, and pressing nuisance lawsuits — most   
   conspicuously against the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who was recently   
   ejected from Parliament after his conviction on a ludicrous charge of having   
   defamed everybody named    
   “Modi.” It is no “perception” that Muslim history has been torn from   
   national textbooks, cities with Islamic eponyms renamed and India’s only   
   Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, stripped of its autonomy.   
      
   Western commentators enthusing about the “new India” tend to breeze past   
   such outrages as distractions from India’s economic growth and investment   
   potential. But here too are troubling indicators. The share of women in the   
   formal work force stands    
   at around a paltry 20 percent and has shrunk during Modi’s tenure. The share   
   of wealth held by the top 1 percent has grown since he took office and is now   
   40.5 percent, thanks to crony capitalism resembling the Russian oligarchy’s.   
   Unemployment is    
   rising, the cost of basic food is surging, and government investment in health   
   care is stagnating. As for India’s readiness to partner on efforts to combat   
   climate change — one of the Biden administration’s highest hopes — the   
   Indian government    
   has cracked down on climate activists and just removed evolution and the   
   periodic table from the curriculum for under-16-year-olds in its ongoing   
   assault on science.   
      
   The politics of Modi’s India are also affecting American communities,   
   workplaces and campuses as the Indian diaspora in the U.S. grows. In Edison   
   NJ, marchers in the annual India Day parade last August drove a wheel loader,   
   which resembles a bulldozer,    
   bedecked with images of Mr. Modi and a far-right Indian government minister   
   who has ordered the razing of Muslims’ homes and businesses, rendering such   
   vehicles symbols of hate as provocative as a noose or a burning cross at a   
   Klan rally. At Google,    
   upper-caste Hindus tendentiously invoked “Hinduphobia” to rescind a   
   speaking invitation to a Dalit activist, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, accusing her   
   of hate speech. Those involved in a major academic conference criticizing   
   Hindu nationalism were    
   bombarded with rape and death threats. Across America there are now more than   
   200 chapters of the overseas arm of India’s fascist-inspired Hindu   
   nationalist paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or   
   R.S.S., of which Modi is a    
   longtime associate.   
      
   The United States has a long, deplorable history of bolstering violent,   
   authoritarian regimes — including that of India’s archrival Pakistan   
   during a war widely called genocidal in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. It has   
   consistently overlooked human    
   rights abuses and democratic backsliding in strategic allies including Israel   
   and Turkey. The invitation to Mr. Modi, diplomats may say, is not intended to   
   celebrate him or his regime but to strengthen important ties between two   
   nations and their    
   citizens at a critical geopolitical moment.   
      
   But let’s not kid ourselves. Modi — who before he became prime minister   
   was denied a visa to the United States for allegedly condoning a massacre of   
   Muslims in 2002 — has made himself the face of his nation, smiling benignly   
   from billboards at    
   every traffic circle, the sides of bus stops, the home pages of countless   
   websites. We can be sure the photo-ops with Washington dignitaries will figure   
   prominently in his re-election campaign next year. Far less certain is whether   
   Modi will deliver the    
   kind of strategic or economic partnership Washington is seeking.   
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)