Barry Gardiner faces Wembley protest over Modi invitation

Guest blog from South Asia Solidarity Group

Stop mass murderer Narendra Modi from visiting the UK!

Barry Gardiner: Withdraw your invitation to the 'butcher of Gujarat'! 

Protest:­­­  Monday 9 September 2013, 11:30 AM - 1 PM, at Barry Gardiner’s MP’s surgery, Brent Civic Centre, Engineers Way, Wembley HA9 0FJ

Nearest Tube Station: Wembley Park (see map)

·         Narendra Modi is the Chief Minister of Gujarat, the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and an avowed admirer of Hitler and his policies.

·         In 2002, Modi presided over the genocidal attacks in which over 2,000 men, women and children from Gujarat’s Muslim minority community were systematically killed.

·         This is the man whom Labour MP for Brent North Barry Gardiner has invited to come and address the House of Commons on the subject of 'The Future of Modern India'.

What happened in Gujarat in 2002 has been amply documented and there is clear evidence (1)(2)(3) that the violence was orchestrated and sponsored by the state. The police had been instructed not to intervene while Hindu supremacist mobs linked to the BJP murdered and raped, selectively  targeting the addresses occupied by Muslim families . According to a leaked report by the British High Commission in India the violence 'had all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and that reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims is impossible while the chief minister [Narendra Modi] remains in power’ and that 'far from being spontaneous' it was 'planned, possibly months in advance, carried out by an extremist Hindu organisation with the support of the state government.'(4) 

Modi is currently making a bid to become India's next Prime Minister and has launched a campaign using openly fascistic and anti-minority rhetoric. At the same time he is claiming that he has been absolved of wrong doing in connection with the massacres of 2002 by the Supreme Court of India. This is untrue, see for example (6). 

While in the wake of the 2002 genocide and the clear evidence and documentation of  Modi’s role in coordinating and sponsoring it, the UK, EU and US were compelled to distance themselves from Modi, more recently the British government is  rehabilitating him. At a recent meeting with Modi in Ahmedabad,  the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hugo Swire made it clear that this was in 'the UK's national interests', meaning the interests of British big business (7) (8).

Now Barry Gardiner on behalf of the 'Labour Friends of India' has invited Modi to come and address the House of Commons on the subject of 'The Future of Modern India'. The Conservative Friends of India have supported this invitation. This is purely an attempt to help British corporates sell their products and services in Gujarat in the interests of larger profits.  It makes a mockery of human rights  and ignores the three British citizens who were murdered  during the genocide and whose families are yet to receive justice.

Modi's past visits to the UK have been used to raise extensive funds and support for communal violence. A visit at this time is particularly dangerous and must be stopped. 

We condemn this collusion in Modi’s attempts to deny his role as a mass murderer.

We demand that the invitation to Modi is withdrawn.

Notes

(1) See Human Rights Watch: ' “We Have No Orders To Save You”

State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat’,  April 30, 2002

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/04/30/we-have-no-orders-save-you

(2) Amnesty International: ‘India: Justice -- the victim in Gujarat’ [Full Report] 27 January 2005 http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/reports/2005/ai.27jan2005.gujarat.pdf

(3)‘Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat’ Report by the International Initiative for Justice (IIJ) December 2003

http://www.gujaratfiles.net/files/iij.dec2003.report.pdf

(4)bbc.co.uk: UK report censures Gujarat rulers (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1951471.stm

(5)Amnesty International: ‘A decade on from the Gujarat riots, an overwhelming majority of victims await justice in India’ 29 February 2012

http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/reports/2012/Amnesty-International-A-decade-on-from-the-Gujarat%20riots.pdf

(6) Sahmat – Citizens for Justice and Peace: ‘Press Release- Supreme Court clean chit to Narendra Modi ?’  http://www.kractivist.org/press-release-supreme-court-clean-chit-to-narendra-modi/ which explains in detail how the Supreme Court has NOT in fact absolved Modi of responsibility for the 2002 genocide as he has falsely claimed.

(7) See The Hindu ‘Embracing the Darkness’ October 23, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/embracing-the-darkness/article4023194.ece

(8) bbc.co.uk: UK India envoy to visit Gujarat for first time since riots http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19907453

Organised by South Asia Solidarity Group.

Supported by:

Council of Indian Muslims

Foil Vedanta

Islamic Human Rights Commission

Southall Black Sisters

IWA, Birmingham

South Asian Alliance

Asian Rationalist Society

Freedom Without Fear Platform

https://www.facebook.com/events/627193123981006/627481417285510/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Barry Gardiner caught in August storm over Modi visit

Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner has upped his profile in India considerably as can be seen on the many versions of the above interview on the internet and the highly partisan comments it has attracted.

Reaction to the invitation he submitted in his role as Chair of Labour Friends of India to Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP, is also building in the UK. Modi is a controversial figure because of his role in the 2002 communal riots in the Gujerat and he is only just becoming rehabilitated with Barry Gardiner, who counts himself a friend, leading the process. Indeed the India Times called him Modi's 'biggest fan'. LINK

The Conservative Friends of India have joined Gardiner in issuing the  invitation for Modi to speak on the 'Future of India' but the Labour Party is divided on the issue.

John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, told The Hindu that he was “deeply shocked that Mr. Modi has been invited to meet British Parliamentarians, given the continuing concerns in India and across the world at his record on human rights and the sectarian politics of his party.”

He said the invitation

....should certainly not be seen as an endorsement of Modi by the British Labour Party or the British Parliament. I do not believe Modi should be associated with by any true friend of democracy or India.

He added that he “along with others” would “boycott any meetings or events with Modi present.”

Kamaljeet Jandu of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Labour has written to Ed Miliband slamming the invitation LINK :

....So, to my dismay I have learnt that Narendra Modi, who is still the Chief Minister of Gujarat, was invited by Barry Gardiner, Chair of Labour Friends of India, to speak at the House of Commons.

Mr Gardiner believes that since Britain does more business with Gujarat than with the rest of India put together, and he could possibly be India’s next Prime Minister, this is enough to whitewash Mr Modi’s past

Kalpana Wilson, of the South Asian Solidarity Group, strongly disagrees with the invitation.

[They] have invited somebody to address the House of Commons who has been responsible for what can only be called genocidal attacks in which more than two thousand members of the Muslim minority community in Gujarat were targeted for the most horrendous forms of violence and were murdered,

Women and children were particularly targeted, and this is something which South Asian communities in Britain simply are not able to forget.

We're not prepared to see Modi being rehabilitated as a respectable leading politician, which is what this invitation seems to suggest.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission Bookshop, based in Preston Road Wembley, has tweeted a link to the IHRC Report on the riots  in which more than 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died LINK

A Change.Org petition LINK which has only been up for a day or so has already attracted more than 2,000 signatures calling for the invitation to be withdrawn. It reads:

Stop the Visit of Narendra Modi to the UK! Remember the Gujarat genocide of 2002

We the undersigned write to express our concern at the invitation to address the House of Commons issued to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the Labour Friends of India and the Conservative Friends of India. We strongly believe that Narendra Modi, who is responsible for the 2002 genocidal attacks in which over 2,000 men, women and children from Gujarat’s Muslim minority community were systematically killed, must not be allowed to visit the UK. Modi’s past visits to the UK have been used to raise extensive funds and support for communal violence, and a visit at this time when Modi is launching a campaign to become India’s next Prime Minister, and continues to try to gain votes using openly fascistic and anti-minority rhetoric, would be particularly dangerous.

In the wake of the 2002 genocide and the extensive documentation of Modi’s role in co-ordinating and sponsoring it. the UK, other EU, and US governments were compelled to distance themselves from Modi and the Gujarat government. However recently we have seen the British government take steps to rehabilitate Modi, as evidenced by meetings between the British High Commissioner and Modi in Ahmedabad. This puts the interests of British corporates wishing to invest in Gujarat ahead of any concerns for human rights and justice, and makes a mockery of the rights of the three British citizens who were murdered during the genocide and whose families are yet to receive justice. We condemn this collusion in Modi’s attempts to deny his role as a mass murderer. We demand that the invitation to Modi is withdrawn and he is refused a visa to the UK.