Democracy Now! (11/28/19)

Human rights groups are condemning the Indian government for carrying out widespread torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and other crimes in Kashmir after the region’s special status was revoked in August. We speak to the acclaimed Indian author Arundhati Roy about the crackdown in Kashmir, rising authoritarianism in India and other issues.

Link To Transcrpt And 40-Minute Video

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Tulsi Gabbard Gives Glowing Welcome To India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi To Trump Event 

 

By Mark L. Taylor
The Commoner Call (1/2/19)

On September 16th of this year, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HA) went out of her way to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Donald Trump’s ‘Howdy Modi’ event in Texas. In her welcome she apologized for not beng able to make it to the Trump rally and spoke glowingly of the close alliance between the US and India and wove a guazy tableaux of international peace and acceptance of all people; calling for a world where there was “No place for hate.”

Not once did she even acknowledge — much less condemn — the human rights tragedy that has been unfolding in Kashmir, in which the Indian government  — led by Modi — has been carrying out a vicious genocide against the native Muslim population. Be clear, Modi is a far right religious extremist — a true fascist — yet Gabbard, who many on the American left breathlessly declare a peace and love reformer — has said absolutely nothing about Modi’s crimes.

If you have the chance, see if you can get a diehard Gabbard supporter to even acknowledge their hero’s cowardly complicity in Modi’s crimes. Gabbard supporters need to confront the reality that when it comes to human rights tragedies like the one in Kashmir: Silence Is Consent and Gabbard, through her blissed out serene silence, is an active accomplice. The same can — and should — be said for her adoring fans who don’t challenge her on her disgraceful silence on Kashmir.

Link to Gabbard Statement Welcoming Modi: 1+-Minute Video

• Gabbard’s Strong Ties To American-Indian Supporters Of Narendra Modi: LONG BEFORE THE Indian strongman Narendra Modi became prime minister of the world’s largest democracy, he was a prominent leader of the Hindu right. He rose as a public figure through the nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, whose ideology includes a desire to carve out a Hindu nation in which Muslims and Christians are considered second-class citizens. It was a well-known activist who once had links to the RSS who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, accusing him of appeasing Muslims during the bloody partition of the Indian subcontinent. That anti-Muslim sentiment has been a major driving force of Modi’s political career in the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. In 2002, when Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he oversaw an outbreak of violence by Hindu nationalists against the minority Muslim population that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people. … Read The Rest

(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link toe www.thecommonercall.org)