Indian diaspora unfurls ‘Resign Modi’ banner in London on August 15

Image Courtesy:freshheadline.com

For the first time ever on India’s Independence Day, the hashtag #ResignModi trended on Twitter on Sunday. This started soon after images of a massive ‘Resign Modi’ banner being unfurled from London’s iconic Westminster Bridge emerged on social media on August 15. The Westminster Bridge, like the Big Ben, is one of the most iconic landmarks of London and is recognised the world over. Images of the banner went viral as soon as they were posted on social media.

The unique public action was organised by “members of the diaspora and friends of India” who later released a media statement as well. According to the statement the group also held a candlelight vigil outside the Indian High Commission to “remember all the victims of the Modi regime”.

Mukti Shah from South Asia Solidarity Group, who was one of the organisers, explained the reasons for the action saying, “As India’s 75th Independence Day dawns, the country’s secular Constitution lies in tatters. Communal and caste violence stalk the land. Thousands of political prisoners languish in Covid-infected prisons, and hundreds of thousands of people are grieving the loss of their loved ones as a result of the callous negligence and mismanagement of the Coronavirus crisis. We, a group of diaspora members and friends standing in solidarity with the people of India, are demanding the resignation of Narendra Modi, the chief architect of this violence, injustice and criminal negligence”.

Diaspora in London marked the dawning of India’s #IndependenceDay2021 with a huge #ResignModi banner dropped from Westminster Bridge – after their midnight vigil at the Indian High Commission. https://t.co/E1heUccp0Y
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) August 15, 2021

In May this year as well, #resignmodi was trending on social media for days, as citizens felt abandoned by the government when the Covid-19 crisis was at its worst. Soon enough that week over four lakh citizens signed a Change.org petition demanding that Prime Minister Modi must resign, taking responsibility for what many citizens, and the world media, are calling a gross mismanagement of the Covid-19 emergency.

This year it was the international community of indian origin and others who have demanded the same citing various reasons inclusng the regimes silence over calls for “genocide of Muslims and normalization of mob lynching and pogroms”, agrigultual policies, Kashmir crisis and crimes against Dalit women and girls.

The August 15 statement issued by the diaspora in London also highlighted ten specific reasons why the groups had called for Prime Minister Modi’s resignation. The list they released may be read here:

1. Calls for genocide of Muslims and normalisation of mob lynching and pogroms
Calls for the genocide of Muslims are being made openly at rallies in the national capital and elsewhere in the country, by people who belong to Hindu(tva) supremacist terror groups. Far from investigating these groups and dismantling them, these incidents are being brushed aside as part of ‘normal life’. This follows on from the gradual normalisation of horrific violence against Muslims since Modi came to power in 2014. Mob lynching, pogroms and police attacks on Muslim neighborhoods are now common occurrences. This normalisation, together with the fact that Modi has never apologised for the Gujarat massacres of 2002, which happened under his watch as Chief Minister, suggest that India is being prepared by Modi for another large-scale genocidal attack on Muslims. It must never be allowed to happen again! MODI MUST RESIGN!

2. Rapes and murders of Dalit women and girls
The ever-present violence against Dalits has increased several-fold under Narendra Modi, with Dalit women and girls being gang-raped and murdered by oppressor-caste men who are shielded by ruling BJP governments at state and central level. The Hathras gang rape and murder is well-known. Similar cases are widespread and every day brings fresh horrors. Most recently a nine year old Dalit girl was raped and murdered by a crematorium priest in Delhi who then tried to burn her body. The Prime Minister has remained silent in the face of such unspeakable violence and Brahmanical misogyny. MODI MUST RESIGN!

3. The corporate takeover of agriculture
The Modi regime has passed three Farm Laws which facilitate a handover of the entire agricultural sector to his corporate cronies Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani. This corporatisation will push India’s already impoverished farmers into destitution and landlessness. The country’s food self-sufficiency will be destroyed, deepening hunger. A massive farmers’ movement has arisen to challenge these laws and has been at the doorstep of the capital since November last year. Modi has consistently ignored the voices of this key section of India’s working people. MODI MUST RESIGN!

4. Incarceration of dissenters and human rights defenders
The Modi regime has imprisoned thousands of people whose only ‘crime’ has been to dissent, to advocate for the most marginalised and oppressed groups, or to take part in non violent protests, under draconian laws like the UAPA. Elderly and vulnerable academics and lawyers, students and young activists, including thousands of Adivasi youth, are locked up in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in the middle of a pandemic. Their lives are at extreme risk. Some have already been infected with the virus and are being denied treatment, or only provided treatment after enormous pressure from their friends and families. Others, like Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, and was denied even some of his most basic needs, have already died – murdered in custody by the Modi regime. MODI MUST RESIGN!

5. Settler colonialism in Kashmir
Kashmiris have suffered decades of intense militarisation, grave human rights abuses and the denial of their right to self-determination. Under Narendra Modi, India’s relationship with Kashmir has entered a new phase of occupation similar to Israel’s settler colonialism. The abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, in violation of both India’s Constitution and International Law, has been followed by two years of brutal lockdowns, curfews, mass imprisonment and the longest ever internet and communication blockade in the history of any democracy. Underlying this are the Modi regime’s plans for demographic changes, corporate plunder, and ecological destruction in Kashmir. MODI MUST RESIGN!

6. Modi’s Nuremberg Laws
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), brought by the Modi regime is an attack on the very basis of Indian citizenship. It allows migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to become Indian citizens provided they are Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, or Christian. By explicitly linking Indian citizenship with religious affiliation, and conspicuously excluding Muslims, the CAA violates India’s secular Constitution and seeks to build a legal foundation for the BJP’s stated dream of creating a fascistic Hindu state. Combined with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and the National Population Register (NPR), the new citizenship rules will result in the potential disenfranchisement of India’s 200 million Muslims. Meanwhile, BJP-ruled states have introduced so-called ‘Love jihad’ laws seeking to outlaw interfaith relationships. All of these laws have a striking similarity to the Nazis’ Nuremberg laws. MODI MUST RESIGN!

7. Modi’s environmental crimes
India is the world’s fourth-worst country in the Environmental Performance Index. While the global climate crisis intensifies, Modi stands guilty of major environmental crimes. He has granted mining and infrastructural projects unprecedented access to forests, land and water and is auctioning off massive coal fields for commercial mining by his capitalist cronies including the notorious Gautam Adani! MODI MUST RESIGN!

8. Violation of the democratic electoral process
No election held since Narendra Modi came to power has been free and fair. Elections have been occasions for scapegoating Muslims, tampering with ballot boxes and EVMs and more recently, for lethal violence. In the West Bengal assembly elections earlier this year, armed police controlled by the Central government sprayed bullets on people queueing to vote – killing four and injuring many others. This is the state of India’s ‘democracy’ under the Modi regime! MODI MUST RESIGN!

9. Criminal mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic
Last, but certainly not least, Modi is responsible for the enormous and preventable death toll from Covid-19. The initial lockdown at four hour’s notice led to acute distress and an unknown number of deaths for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who were left stranded in cities far away from their homes with no means of sustenance and forced to walk home. More recently the second wave of Covid -19 has devastated the country with an estimated four million deaths. This is a result of Modi’s callous negligence and gross incompetence, including the sanctioning of ‘superspreader’ events such as the Kumbh Mela and his own party’s mass roadshows during the West Bengal elections, and the prioritizing of ‘superprofits’ from vaccines by his corporate cronies. Modi has demonstrated that for him, consolidating power is more important than saving lives. These are crimes against humanity! MODI MUST RESIGN!

10. Far-right Hindu supremacists in the UK do not speak for us!

Currently the right-wing UK government ministers Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak and Alok Sharma are all acolytes of Modi, and the HSS (the international wing of the openly fascist RSS, of which Modi is a lifelong member) and other Hindu-supremacist organisations are actively spreading hate in the UK. They claim Modi has the support of the diaspora. But they do not speak in our name. MODI MUST RESIGN!