The Indian government’s response to Trump’s tariff war has been, at best, muted. A recent meeting between the U.S. President and the Indian Prime Minister epitomised this submissiveness. Even as the U.S. government was forcibly deporting Indian nationals; shackled, blindfolded, and transported in military aircraft in a manner starkly violative of human dignity. The Indian government chose denial over protest, publicly insisting that the deportees had not been ill-treated. Further, when Ananda Vikatan, a Tamil-language magazine, published a satirical cartoon critiquing the government’s silence on these humiliations, it was summarily censored under India’s draconian information technology legislation.

Such episodes highlight a broader incapacity to mount even a symbolic defence of Indian sovereignty when affronts originate from hegemonic global powers like the United States. This inability to respond meaningfully to external provocations, whether on trade, diplomacy, or the treatment of Indian citizens, raises important questions about the ideological and structural orientation of the Indian state.

Two interrelated factors underlie this posture of passivity. First, India’s ruling classes and their political apparatus remain deeply beholden to international finance capital, which is largely centred in the United States. Second, this dependency is compounded by a fundamental misreading of contemporary global political economy. These material realities are expressed ideologically through two distinct, yet convergent, wings of India’s neoliberal project: the neo-fascists and the cosmopolitan neoliberals. While the former deploy a pseudo-nationalist rhetoric and the latter a pseudo-internationalist one, both ultimately converge in their reluctance to challenge U.S. imperialist hegemony. Their divergence lies only in the rhetorical justifications they offer for this subservience. These arguments merit closer scrutiny.

One strand of cosmopolitan neoliberal thought argues, somewhat brazenly, that Trump’s tariff war offers India an opportunity to unilaterally reduce its own tariffs. They claim that such a reduction would boost domestic competition and thereby improve economic efficiency. However, this argument is logically inconsistent: if lowering tariffs unconditionally leads to better outcomes, why does the U.S., the world’s most powerful economy, choose to increase them?

Other cosmopolitan neoliberals argue that India is a small open economy while the US is a large open economy, implying that world prices are given as far as the Indian economy is concerned while the US is capable of at least partially influencing world prices. Therefore, it would be unwise for India to engage in retaliation vis-à-vis the the imposition of tariffs by the US. On the face of it, this argument seems somewhat logical and therefore let us examine this further. While it is true that the Indian economy is smaller than the U.S. economy in terms of share of world income, for a number of commodities that India does import and export, the respective share of India’s imports and exports in the total world trade is non-negligible. Therefore, the ability of India to partially determine the pricing of its imports and exports can be an element in its trade policy including tariff retaliation.

Moreover, the very structure of Trump’s tariff war, which involves differential tariffs on different countries, is a tactic designed to try and prevent coordinated opposition to Trump’s trade policy. Therefore, it would be relevant for India to work in multilateral forums such as the BRICS to prepare strong and coordinated responses to Trump’s tariff war. However, whenever there emerges a debate around working in multilateral forums such as BRICS to counter Trump’s tariff force, both cosmopolitan neoliberals as well as the neo-fascists might immediately argue that BRICS is dominated by China and that the interests of China and India diverge. Therefore, joint action against US hegemonic actions such as Trump’s trade war is not possible. However, this is a self-defeating argument and actually amounts to creating non-tariff barriers in the trade between China and India which weakens India’s bargaining power with respect to US imperialist hegemony.

For example, cosmopolitan neoliberals as well as neo-fascists often claim that software semiconductor chips made in China could be hacked by the Chinese government and therefore would be inappropriate for use in the Indian economy.  Let us assume for the sake of argument that this claim is true. Is there any reason to claim, on the contrary, that semiconductor chips that are designed or produced using US technology cannot be or will not be hacked by the US government? After Edward Snowden’s revelations even those working outside governments know the facts about global surveillance by the US government. Under these circumstances, a prudent option available to India would to diversify its chip demand between two or more sources so that no one foreign government can exercise undue leverage in matters of security vis-à-vis India. While this would be the short-run course that would be appropriate in the case of countries like India, over the long run, efforts should be made to develop an indigenous semiconductor industry.

Another common claim by both ideological segments of the Indian neoliberal project is that U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods provide Indian industry with a relative advantage, potentially encouraging multinational corporations to shift production from China to India. However, this argument too is completely disconnected from the concrete situation concerning global production networks. China exercises a leading position in almost all reaches of the technological ladder that pertains to global production networks due to its advantages in infrastructure, skilled labour with respect to wages, domestic demand, the role of the public sector, state support to innovation, and industrial policy (which involves among other things a euthanising of finance capital and the political neutering of enterprise capital). Most of these conditions are incompatible with contemporary Indian political economy and therefore cannot be replicated here without relevant political changes. Therefore, multinational corporations are unlikely to significantly relocate production capacity to India due to Trump’s trade war.

Moreover, any process of industrialisation in any country of the world would require for its continuance some Chinese inputs and/or some access to Chinese markets to be sustainable. Under these circumstances, the question before any country, including India, is not whether to engage or disengage from China, but how best to engage with China. The Economic Survey of 2023-2024 had pointed out that India should explore the option of involving itself in global production networks centered in China. However, progress in this respect has been slow and expectedly subject to counter-pressures from cosmopolitan neoliberals as well as sections of the neo-fascist dispensation in India.

Vietnam offers a valuable lesson in strategic diplomacy. Its ability to maintain productive relationships with multiple great powers, without being beholden to any, demonstrates an autonomous balancing strategy. For India, the path to greater sovereignty lies in rejecting the binary of alignment with either the U.S. or China, and instead adopting a policy framework driven by authentic national interests (which is centred around the working people). In order to understand this proposition, let us examine the actual leverage that foreign countries exercise over India.

The fundamental leverage that U.S. monopoly capital exercises over India is through the hegemony of international finance capital that is centered in the U.S. Since India does not have effective capital controls, this allows U.S. monopoly capital to exercise effective power over Indian policymaking. One exception to this trend was when the Biden administration tried to pressure Indian government to cut relations with Russia. The Indian government could not accede to this US demand because the Chinese-Russian strategic concord that would have emerged may have been directed against India. This strategic concord could not have been counterbalanced by the strategic proximity that may have emerged between India and the USA. But in most other matters, the U.S. monopoly capital has been able to influence, to a very significant extent, the contours of policymaking in India. Consider, for instance the examples of India’s relations with Iran, with Venezuela, on the question of the conflict in Palestine, and so on. The contrast with US attempts to exercise similar leverage over China or Russia is readily evident.

In the absence of effective capital controls, international finance capital, primarily centred in the United States, continues to serve as a conduit through which U.S. monopoly capital exercises considerable influence over Indian economic policymaking. This structural dependence finds its ideological expression in the distinct yet convergent narratives of cosmopolitan neoliberals and the neo-fascist dispensation.

On the one hand, neo-fascists have intensified a differential squeeze on the socially oppressed (such as Indian Muslims) under the guise of cultural nationalism and security. This project is part of a broader attempt to erase what remains of India’s anti-imperialist legacy from the freedom struggle. On the other hand, cosmopolitan neoliberals, while cloaked in liberal internationalism, contribute to the same erasure by sanitising colonial history and glorifying imperialist globalisation. Though their methods differ, both ideological strands ultimately function to sustain the hegemony of metropolitan capital.

At the core of any meaningful anti-imperialist position lies the understanding that broad-based economic progress in the Global South is not possible without directly confronting the hegemony of metropolitan capital. The recent efforts of U.S. monopoly capital and its state apparatus to drive a wedge between China and Russia is a tactic aimed at forestalling the emergence of a multipolar economic order indicating the waning strength of U.S. imperialist dominance. Against this backdrop, restoring policy autonomy for India must begin with the imposition of robust capital controls on international finance. Once this critical step is taken, several policy options become viable to counter the effects of Trump’s tariff war:

One, India must reduce its excessive reliance on the U.S. market for specific commodity exports. While the U.S. may currently offer higher returns for certain export goods, this concentration increases India’s vulnerability to external leverage. A geographically diversified export strategy will enhance India’s bargaining position across all markets. Such a strategic reorientation, especially one that considers long-term national interest is best undertaken through initiatives involving the public sector, which operates with a longer policy horizon than private actors driven by short-term profitability.

Two, India should actively attract greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI), from both the U.S. and China, in carefully selected sectors and regions. These choices must be guided by a coherent industrial policy aimed at enabling India to appropriately ascend the technological ladder of global production networks while not compromising the objective of full employment. Simultaneously, this policy should aim to reduce regional disparities within India by dispersing industrial development beyond existing hubs.

Three, Resist Pressure to Reduce Import Tariffs, Especially in Agriculture and Key Inputs as succumbing to U.S. demands for reducing import tariffs, particularly on agricultural products would further pauperise India’s already vulnerable peasantry and agricultural labour force. A related argument advanced by cosmopolitan neoliberals claims that high-priced inputs supplied by large domestic firms disadvantage micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and that reducing import tariffs would level the playing field and boost MSME exports. However, such logic is deeply flawed. Lowering tariffs on critical inputs may indeed reduce costs for MSMEs in the short run, but it is likely to trigger an import surge that undermines domestic production, employment, profits, and investment in import-competing sectors.

In the current global environment, where export prospects are weakening this would have contractionary effects across the economy. Furthermore, once domestic competitors are displaced, foreign suppliers may increase input prices, thereby nullifying any temporary advantage gained by MSMEs. The structural disadvantage faced by Indian MSMEs in relation to monopoly capital cannot be addressed by import liberalisation. Instead, it demands active policy intervention that redistributes resources away from monopoly capital towards MSMEs. This may include public sector production of essential inputs at regulated prices to mitigate cost pressures faced by MSMEs.

Reviving the Anti-Imperialist Legacy

The ideological currents that dominate Indian policy discourse, be they cosmopolitan neoliberals or neo-fascists, seek to suppress the anti-imperialist ethos that once animated India’s freedom movement. The former sanitise colonial history; the latter attack marginalised communities within the country. Both ultimately serve the interests of metropolitan capital. Genuine anti-imperialism today must recognise that sustainable development in the Global South requires breaking free from the grip of metropolitan capital. The growing strategic anxieties of U.S. monopoly capital, exemplified by attempts to isolate China and Russia signal a waning imperialist order. For India, this moment demands bold and thoughtful policy shifts aimed at recovering national sovereignty, economic justice, and strategic autonomy.

Shirin Akhter is Associate Professor at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi. C Saratchand is Professor, Department of Economics, Satyawati College, University of Delhi. The views are personal.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Rethinking the Indian Response to Trump’s Tariff War appeared first on SabrangIndia.

For American Muslims the choice today is between the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris and the Republican, Donald Trump: both ‘khula dushmans’ of Muslims. There is, of course, a difference between the Indian and American Muslim contexts. The Indian Muslim response has been based on their own bitter experience as citizens of India. On the other hand, uppermost in the mind of many American Muslims today is not so much their personal experience as citizens of USA, but the hypocrisy and the blatant complicity of the Biden administration in the year-long ongoing Israeli genocide of fellow-Muslims in Palestine and now Lebanon too.

The Democratic Presidential aspirant, Harris unreservedly defends the Biden administration’s unstinted support to the immoral, illegal, outrageous massacre of Palestinian men, women and children. She has even asserted that the biggest enemy of the US is not Russia or China but Iran. Several steps ahead of her, Trump is goading mass murderer Netanyahu to “finish the job” in Gaza and Lebanon and even launch a full-scale war against Iran.

 So who should or will American Muslims vote for come November 5? Democrat Harris, Republican Trump, a third candidate with no chance of winning, or simply stay home on V-day?

Several influential voices among American Muslims are urging the community to go for Trump in order to teach Harris and the Democratic Party a lesson. Included among them, is a group of Imams in the US who an open letter quote the Quran while asking Muslims to shun Harris. A non-American analyst, Sami Hamdani has declared it is the “religious duty” of American Muslims to deny Harris their vote even if means victory for Trump.

The most brazen appeal to religion however has been made by the Green Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the coming polls, Buch Ware. Ware, a Muslim, has tweeted this dire warning: “The ‘Muslims’ that have come out in support of Harris, have inscribed their names on the tablets of eternity alongside that of Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar and Yazid. Every soul slain in Gaza has a claim against them on Judgement day. They better dress light – been hearing Hell is hot.”

The ‘Muslims’ in quotes clearly implies that Muslims who support Harris are nothing but fake Muslims who must await their fate come the Day of Judgement. Presumably Allah’s angels are keeping a close watch right now of what American Muslims are thinking and will record their deed on November 5.

Fortunately, there are saner voices too. The most compelling among them is that of the well-known journalist Mehdi Hasan. He ran his weekly ‘Mehdi Hasan Show’ on the American TV channel MSNBC until November 2023 when it was abruptly discontinued for his bosses could not stomach his bold coverage and commentary on the American complicity in the Palestinian genocide. He has since launched his own channel, Zeteo.

In a 9-minute long episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vOzUmqv-s)

, Hasan challenges those who are asking fellow-Muslims to abandon Harris. He clarifies that as a journalist it is neither his job nor intention to canvass support for Harris. He is only asking Muslims not to succumb to pressure from fellow-Muslims, and think clearly of what is at stake in the coming elections before casting their votes. He questions the wisdom behind the three main propositions and assumptions of the no-to-Harris camp.

Proposition One: Weaponising of faith, introducing religion in essentially secular political disputes. “The increasing invocation of the Quran to tell people to vote the right way, (is) emotionally blackmailing them into not voting for the Democrats and the accompanying insinuation that you are not a good Muslim, or not a Muslim at all, if you think of voting the candidate who is the lesser of two evils”. Hasan rightly asks: who can claim knowledge of what is in another person’s heart, who has the right to judge another person’s faith? While he does not mention it, there is also this to consider: Will such weaponisation of Islam hinder or help Islamophobia not only in the US but globally?

Proposition Two: Humbling of Harris will compel the Democrats to introspect and American Muslims will emerge a force to reckon with. Hasan questions the sheer naiveté and ignorance of how American politics works. He points to the 2000 US polls when American Muslims voted en masse for George W Bush. What happened next was the invasion of Iraq and the killing of half-a-million Iraqi Muslims. He next refers to the 2020 elections when having seen four years of Trump, Muslims voted for Biden. This, of course, has not come in the way of Biden’s unstinted support to Netanyahu.

Proposition Three: Underestimating the implications of Trump’s victory. Hasan asks: If Biden is complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Lebanon, what about Trump’s complicity with the Saudis in the genocide of Yemeni Muslims during his first term as president?

In his new book, War, the Watergate reporter Bob Woodward maintains that Trump is far worse than Nixon and, ‘the most reckless and impulsive president in American history.’

American Muslims who have endured four years of Trump earlier will survive one more term of his presidency, argues the non-American Samdani. That begs the question: should American Muslims be thinking only as members of a particular faith community? Should they not also be thinking as American Citizens, ponder over what another four years of the pro-genocide, pro-Netanyahu, racist, anti-Muslim, sexual abuse and felony convict, increasingly unhinged Trump mean would mean for all Americans and the rest of the world?

The post American Muslims’ dilemma: Harris or Trump? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On Friday, Twitter suspended US President Donald Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” The platform had been regularly flagging Trump’s tweets for unverifiable information or possible fake news in the past. It had also blocked Trump’s video address in wake of the Capitol riot on Wednesday.

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021

In a statement, the social media giant said, “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” It added, “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.”

Twitter found Trump’s recent tweets to be in violation of its public interest framework and it policies against glorification of violence. It said, “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.”

The move comes just a day after Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced the suspension of Trump’s account. Zuckerberg said, “The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”

Explaining Facebook’s decision to remove some of Trump’s posts, Zuckerberg said, “His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.”

However, given how Trump has been misusing both social media platforms for years to spread hate and support a violent supremacist agenda, the account suspension appears to have come almost four years too late.

But Twitter appeared to justify the delay by claiming that the severity of Trump’s hate speech had only now intensified to a problematic level. It highlighted two of his tweets from January 8 as the immediate cause for his account’s suspension. The tweets said:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter found these two specific tweets to be particularly problematic and thus warranting a suspension of Trump’s account. “President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate,” said Twitter adding, “The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target, as he will not be attending.” 

Twitter further cited the following reasons:

• The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.

• The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election. 

• Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021. 

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg explained the timing of the Facebook and Instagram accounts suspension saying, “Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.” He added, “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

His entire statement may be read here:

Meanwhile, Google Play suspended an app called Parler from its playstore for its alleged failure to moderate content that incites violence. In a statement released Google said, “In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence. All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months.” It added, “We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US. We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.”

Parler is a popular “free speech” app favoured by Conservatives and it was allegedly used to mobilse and support rioters at the Capitol.

Related:

Trump supporters attempt to take over US Capitol

Guess what Donald Trump and Amit Malviya have in common?

The post Facebook, Twitter suspend Trump’s accounts appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Trump and ‘Trumpism’ remind us with compelling force of the demons (Daityas and Danavas) of Hindu mythology. With his scowling looks, haughty demeanour, reckless conduct and ideas, along with passionate acclamation of milling crowds, he looks like the embodiment of some elemental natural force of insensate destructive power. Somewhat like Hitler and Nazis who had been initially dismissed as a bunch of crazy hoods. 

Of course, there are definite social factors that account for such phenomena, with more than 47 percent of American voters, and most of the Republican party forming a phalanx, rallying to his support. And deep-rooted reactionary prejudices, harkening back to the days of the Civil War and the anti-slavery movement that sought to end horrific social and racial oppression by plantation-owners, have continued to rankle among possessive classes for more than a century and half. 

The menace of Ku Klux Klan that has been terrorising black Americans in the deep South for more than a century in semi-secret operations had been products of such stubborn remnants of the past. Then there is the infamous gun lobby that thrives on rising incidence of crime in a country lately leaning towards gross inequality and deprivation of the masses. The right to carry firearms to defend oneself is a crying anachronism. The War Veterans’ association of soldiers who had taken part in America’s imperialist wars in last few decades have been taken over and run by war-mongers in league with American armaments industry and Big Finance. All these are backed by financial power of corporates who equate social regulation of capital with constriction of liberty. And Trump speaks for them and confers on them liberal tax cuts; and supports scattered militant far-right groups when he intones: “Make America great again!” 

Trump has been projected by his backers as a lone fighter against the crooks in the centre of Big Finance Wall Street, figured in the public imagination as a wily, blood-sucking stinking rich and debauched elite battening on earnings of the honest poor. But the very first man he reportedly officially met upon assuming office had been a top-ranking executive of the biggest bank of the world, Goldman Sachs. And he has among his patrons, giant oil corporations like Exxon Mobil that have amassed astronomical wealth and funded immense fake research challenging the reality of climate change. Yet he has the inexplicable support of the once well-off and now struggling American working-class. Part of his appeal is the carefully nurtured image of ‘the outsider’ taking on the crooks of Wall Street.          

An opinion piece in the Indian Express of November 14, by Anush Kapadia has deplored that Democrats have lost the support of their long-standing base, the white working-class. He has pointed out that they had solidly backed Barak Obama in both his terms in office and argued Democrats should not have neglected this traditional social base. The result, it is argued, has been the continuing hold of Republicans in Southern and mid-Western states. Hence, his call for re-orientation of Democratic Party policy towards States.  

It turns out however that for last three decades or so certain states have been persistently marked as ‘red’ meaning Republican and the rest as ‘blue’ or Democrat. American elections have become such an expensive affair that usually victory depends on patronage by wealthy donors from the corporate world. Trump had such patronage and certain liberal rich donors might have contributed also to Biden’s election funds. But it is significant and heartening that common voters supporting Biden raised 700 million dollars among themselves for that fund. A state like Texas that has become prosperous through oil usually elects Republicans funded by Oil. But this time some stubborn red States turned blue.            

But the mystery of massive working-class votes for Republican party remains. Actually, Barak Obama lost working-class support for Democrats when he gifted 700 billion dollars to Wall Street managers to pull through when the 2008 recession set in, destroying millions of jobs and incomes, yet spent little by way of relief to the working-class who were suffering great distress. The story went among them that the President they had elected rewarded the very crooks that had wasted their hard-earned savings and income out of sheer greed. No amount of reasoning would erase that picture. Obama like most American Presidents regard success and survival of corporate business their first priority. Incidentally, his remarks on Indian political leaders are also in the last analysis conditioned by such loyalties. Both, Obama and Biden, have redeeming qualities which came out in Biden’s

calm self-possession in complying with Covid protocols in his campaign undaunted by swarming crowds wildly cheering Trump.          

Biden is by no means bound to continuing Obama’s policies. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist senator with a huge following has successfully induced him to accept in his primary agenda genuine pro-poor and pro-people policies like universal health-care on public funds, creation of jobs and unemployment insurance as well as free tuition in public schools and colleges. At the same time, he has allayed fears of corporate-backed those Democratic legislators who dreaded drying-up of their election funds from corporates owing to a ‘socialist’ policy make-over.          

Trump has been strenuously trying to deflect attention from such facts by promoting the politics of resentment and revenge. He has dismissed all serious criticism of his dangerous adventurist policies as ‘fake news’ and attributed widespread unemployment as seizure of jobs by hordes of foreign immigrants. He deliberately concealed the fact that Hispanic migrants largely took up the kind of lowly jobs that Americans no longer cared for and Asian migrants mostly acquired highly specialised skilled jobs in IT industries, business finance management and in some cases even science laboratories at generally lower scales of pay than educated Americans would accept. However, there is no question about their high quality. What deprived ‘native’ Americans actually had been a consequence of policy of the backers of Trump. It also appears that American corporate business since the nineties had been skewed heavily towards management skills, to the neglect of technological innovation and expertise, leaving that field open for gifted migrants recruited by management. It was they who began to depend on out-sourcing jobs in a desperate race for cost-cutting and greater profit.          

The working-class has been kept in the dark about such policy trends, and they have since been fed on the potent concoction of the migrant as enemy. Asians are repeatedly threatened with abuse, like “you go back home to your country” or ” Don’t steal our jobs, you do not belong here”. They as well as the Hispanics come under physical assault sometimes. As for Black people aspiring for advancement, they are simply and sharply called to “keep to their place” and of late are increasingly under the shadow of deadly violence. 

All these provide a convenient vent for letting off simmering resentment, frustration and blind vengeful fury among so-called middle-class of white workers and sales agents. It is worthwhile to recall that there is a vibrant current in American society that has met this trend head-on and resolutely been working at several levels to overcome this threat to the American heritage. The Antifa (anti-fascist) groups come out into the streets to stare down fascist far-right groups and in the campuses, there is no lack of liberal opinion to expose the pretensions of Trumpism.          

It should be clear enough that since the dynamics of reactionary movements are baser negative passions and a romanticised utopia of perpetual dominance, their ideological articulation is also irrational and driven by hankering for naked power rather than just rule. The ‘Tea Party’ lobby in the Republican Party is notoriously drunk on adolescent dreams of unbounded ambition and power invoked in Ayn Rand’s massive times. Certain atavistic religious emotions perpetuated through certain strands of American Evangelism are also drawn upon to propel a headlong dive into the abyss of unreason.          

Now one has only to adapt the terms of this discourse and character of its dynamic to Indian context and the resemblance could not be more striking. There is similar virulent propaganda on established as well social media about the ‘enemy within’, the betrayal by a corrupt gang pictured as ‘the Lutyens gang’, and glowing unreal images of past glory traduced by traitors who must pay for their crime with their blood. The Muslims are supposedly the impure migrants who came a thousand years ago as invaders and remained as oppressors and saboteurs. The pure essence of the defiled nation must be redeemed through transformation of institutions, purging of democratic pollutants and re-making of history and culture. And lower castes who are awakening to a sense of feudal bondage and are stirring for freedom are kept in their place by state-supported terror including mass rapes and murder. 

Fortunately, in this mythology of cultural and political re-birth, Indians have on their side a force that has been working underground from 1920s to bring about this resurrection and it has now broken into the surface as a vast and growing disciplined army adept in all kinds of tactics of open and secret warfare and technologically armed to the teeth. The rest of the population is watching the spectacle with a mixture of awe and dread. This army has stolen a march on genuine democratic forces not yet fully aware of the catastrophe and undecided as yet on need for unshakeable unity and clear effective counter-strategy. Besides, they are hag-ridden with divisions and internal squabbles.          

The people who care and might yet care for democracy have plenty of fight in them. Youths in the right frame of mind are not intimidated or won over. What they need is a united leadership with a far-sighted  plan of action.          

Let us revert to the beginning for a moment; certain signature accomplishments of this American president. He had ordered third-degree like detention and interrogation of immigrants, cruel separation of their young children from them for years together, refused to condemn the criminal misdeeds of far-right groups and the outright murders of black youths by racist police on the slightest pretext. With stark facts like two lakh victims of Covid-19 and threat of more staring at his face he had callously denied the calamity and encouraged defiance of Covid protocols.     

And it is this man for whom an enormous and glittering gathering was assembled in Ahmedabad to hail him as a living god with befitting ovation. Before that there had been the extraordinary spectacle of our Prime Minister expressing unconditonal political support for the head of another country before thousands of Indian migrants there. It is a mercy that he has not wasted time in congratulating Biden on his election though Trump has not conceded defeat.    

How can one in his senses fail to see and draw the lessons? The million-dollar question (what an ironically apt phrase!) is if the opposition will do so without dithering more. Bihar also has been a good lesson positive on the whole. 

(End of Part Two)

Part-1 may be read here: Lessons from American Presidential Elections

*The author is a highly respected Assamese intellectual, a literary critic and social-scientist from Assam. Views expressed are the authors own. 

Other pieces by Dr. Hiren Gohain:

Development as Disaster

Reviving the NRC brawl

The post Lessons from the American Presidential Elections appeared first on SabrangIndia.

George Floyd (46), passed away on May 25, 2020, hours after he was arrested by Minneapolis police officers. Video footage of his final moments showed the police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he was pinned on the floor. Even as Floyd cried, “I can’t breathe”, the officer did not let go for at least 8 minutes. Medical reports showed the cause of death being “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression”.

On May 29, American President Donald Trump put out a statement including the words, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, apparently in response to the protests that erupted demanding justice for Floyd’s death. The post was deemed particularly inciting for it made reference to a racist 1960 police chief who was known for ordering patrols of black neighbourhoods with shotguns and dogs, The Guardian reported.

George Floyd’s death brought about violent protests in Minneapolis, demanding that the lawless law enforcement agencies which brutally assaulted George Floyd and other members of the African American minority in the past, be brought to book. The protests led to an emergency being declared in Minnesota and the activation of the National Guard.

In his statement, Trump addressed protestors as “thugs” and said that the military would be sent in to handle the matter. The statement was posted on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and was seen as visibly encouraging violent action against those protesting police brutality.

It must be noted that as protests intensified and protestors clashed with law enforcement near the White House, the lights of the Presidential building were turned off and Trump and his family were taken to a secret bunker in the building, which was said to have last been used during 9/11.

Twitter, in keeping with its guidelines, hid the statement behind a warning which read, “The tweet violated the Twitter rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

However, Facebook refused to delete the post from its platform and even from Instagram which is owned by it. On Facebook, Trump’s post has garnered 206K likes and 34K heart emojis. On Instagram, where the text was overlaid on his photo, the post has garnered 528,098 likes.

In a personal post, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, tried to defend his action of not taking down the post by saying that though the President’s words personally troubled him and that many people were upset that the social media platform didn’t take down the statement, it was left up after a close look at the policies and because their platform encouraged as much expression as possible. A portion of his post read, “Although the post had a troubling historical reference, we decided to leave it up because the National Guard references meant we read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force. Our policy around incitement of violence allows discussion around state use of force, although I think today’s situation raises important questions about what potential limits of that discussion should be. The President later posted again, saying that the original post was warning about the possibility that looting could lead to violence. We decided that this post, which explicitly discouraged violence, also does not violate our policies and is important for people to see.”

Zuckerberg also took a dig at Twitter’s action to the post, understandably to justify his own and said, “Unlike Twitter, we do not have a policy of putting a warning in front of posts that may incite violence because we believe that if a post incites violence, it should be removed regardless of whether it is newsworthy, even if it comes from a politician.”

The Guardian also reported that dissatisfied with Zuckerberg’s response, some Facebook employees held a rebellion by staging a “virtual” walkout in a rare act of dissent. Members of the organization tweeted in opposition of Zuckerberg’s decision, publicly denouncing it.

Andrew Crow, Head of Design, Portal at Facebook tweeted –

Censoring information that might help people see the complete picture *is* wrong. But giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy. I disagree with Mark’s position and will work to make change happen.

— Andrew (@AndrewCrow) June 1, 2020

Ryan Frietas, Director of Product Design for News Feed said –

Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind.

— Ryan Freitas (@ryanchris) June 1, 2020

Today I am participating in a virtual walkout over Facebook’s recent decisions not to moderate posts that we believe violate our platform standards.

— Margo Very Stern (@wordstern) June 1, 2020

Some employees also asked the Facebook’s Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body, making decisions around content moderation to intervene into the matter, The Guardian reported. However, the board said it wouldn’t be able to do so as it was “working hard to set the board up to begin operating later this year”.

Civil Rights leaders Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robinson, heads of Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Color of Change respectively, who met Zuckerberg, issued a statement criticizing him for his decision, The Guardian reported. “We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement.

Whether or not it was in light of these events, Zuckerberg posted that Facebook was committing an additional $10 million to groups working on racial justice. 

Related:

I can’t breathe
In the US, some cops take a knee, march with protesters in solidarity

The post Facebook refuses to take down Trump’s inciting statement, faces backlash from employees and civil rights leaders appeared first on SabrangIndia.

US President Trump’s relentless campaign against WHO and his decision to stop meeting the financial commitment to WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic is a crime against humanity. Yet, the world need not worry, WHO will be a better place if the US eventually quits it. The US has always been looking for opportunities to throttle all the democratic arms of the UN system.

As the US has become the world’s new hotspot for COVID-19 and the failure of the Trump administration as well as the country’s profit-driven health care system become glaringly obvious, Trump is resorting to his practice of finding scapegoats for his unforgivable failures. Trump cannot spell out what was wrong with WHO, in fact he tweeted on 24 January appreciating “China’s efforts and transparency” when US already had two positive cases; the only discernible point he mentioned was the omission of WHO to support his 31 January decision restricting travel from China on account of the virus.

Trump was alluding to a WHO recommendation on international traffic in the context of COVID-19 addressed to the entire community of nations, issued on 27 February. In this temporary recommendation WHO mentioned, “In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.” It added that travel restrictions may be justified at the start of an outbreak as they may allow time for the preparedness measures. This advisory was not US specific, but to the international community, and issued about a month after the US decision to restrict travels from China.

Trump then made the sweeping allegation that WHO is China-centric, again without giving any specifics. WHO’s policy decisions are made by its World Health Assembly comprised of 194 member countries, and its business is conducted based on a set of democratic rules of procedure. It is often the case that the decisions adopted by WHA are fair and balanced due to the majority enjoyed by the developing countries, which is a point of concern for the US, as with most other democratic UN fora. However, if the WHO secretariat, i.e. the bureaucracy, is biased towards any country that is the US. Most of the procurement of supplies of medicines, equipment and services by or through WHO is from the US. Public health policy experts hold the concern that the US multinational pharmaceutical companies lobby with the WHO bureaucracy to sell their products and to influence health policy decisions in favour of their commercial interests. It is actually welcome that Trump has started this debate on bias.

Trump’s personal diatribe against the WHO director general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus is appalling but not surprising given Trump’s racist proclivity. Tedros, an eminent public health expert and former health minister of Ethiopia, was elected by the World Health Assembly in 2017, in an election that was termed ‘more transparent than ever before’ by Lancet. WHO has been playing an invaluable role in managing the COVID-19 crisis globally through increasing understanding of the disease, coordinating with multiple countries, setting protocols, promoting cooperative research, securing supplies to needy countries even beyond its resource limitation and collating and analysing global disease data and issuing common advisories. The world would have been much worse without WHO in a critical time like this.

Whereas what Trump did in the ‘global spirit’ was outright piracy. A shipment of 400,000 protective equipment from China meant for Tamil Nadu was forcefully diverted to the US and this followed such forceful diversions to the US of shipments scheduled for Germany, France and Canada. The political leaderships these countries protested the devious method of the US while the Indian government kept strange but understandable silence. As if the damage caused by Trump in having his fan Modi organise a gathering of 100,000 people in Ahmedabad to please him on 24 February, a week after the WHO advisory against public gatherings was not enough. And Gujarat, as the second most affected state has already lost 214 lives and has 4395 confirmed cases of infection as of writing.

Financial throttling

US decision refusing to pay the mandatory annual dues to WHO reflects the US’ disregard for the multilateral democratic organisations. UN organisations are run on mandatory annual assessed contributions paid by the member states based on an agreed scale of assessment which is relative to the wealth and population of each country. Accordingly, US has to pay 22 percent of the annual budget of the UN agency, China pays 12 percent, Japan 8 percent, EU 30 percent and so on. The US is a regular defaulter to WHO as they are to the UN secretariat. For the year 2019 the US paid only one third of its assessed contribution. When a member country fails to pay dues equivalent to the full contributions for the preceding two years that country loses the voting right in the organisation as the Article 19 of the UN Charter stipulates. The voluntary assessed contributions are not covered by this provision though.

The US efforts to financially hurt the UN system is not new. They have been consistently refusing to pay the dues to the UN secretariat on flimsy grounds. The US payment of dues to the UN is default by $381 million for the year 2018, and for 2019 it is even greater, while most of the low-income countries have been duly paying the statutory contribution. It is not only WHO that the US is targeting; they quit UNESCO in 2018, as they did in 1984 but returned in 2003 when they realised that the boycott could not cause any dent to the organisation.

While US’ assessed contribution is 22 per cent, over 35 percent of the WHO expenditure ends up in the US. About 18 per cent of the WHO staff is from the US, close to 32 percent of the WHO procurements of medicines, equipment and services are from the US, meaning that the US takes back much more than it gives to WHO. And without the intimidating voice of the US the proceedings of the decision-making bodies of WHO will be a smooth and creative affair. In any case the US is outside many of the global democratic multilateral initiatives- the Convention on Biological Diversity and its protocols, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, International Criminal Court, Basel Convention, etc.

Independent investigation warranted: SARS-CoV-2 and HIV

US President and Secretary of State have alleged that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China, and asked for an international investigation. A Chinese diplomat has alleged US to be the source of origin of the virus.

Regardless of these claims, an early research paper on the genomic characterisation of the virus published in  Lancet by a team of Chinese scientists, and a US NIH funded study by a US team published in the Journal of Virology, both on 29 January 2020, found the new virus to be genetically closely related to the SARS coronavirus. Yet another paper by Chinese scientists,  first published on the website www.biorxivorg.org on 23 January and subsequently  in Nature on 3 February found SARS-CoV-2 to be 96 percent identical to bat coronavirus at the genome level. However, one may question these studies and provide fresh scientific data and interpretation, hence it is important to have an international investigation to settle the issue.

Similarly, the US synthesis of HIV was alleged by South African President Thabo Mbeki when he was in office. This allegation was later repeated by the late Kenyan Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, though she had to retract the statement following US protest. In 1990 two German molecular biologists, Dr J Segal and Dr L Segal, published a two part article in the magazine Top Secret in which they argued that the HTLV III ( HIV was also called so then) was developed through genetic manipulation in a P5 secret laboratory  of the Pentagon at Fort Detrick, US in 1977, under the leadership of the eminent molecular biologist Dr RC Gallo, who was director of NIH. The article claims to present evidence from the papers of Dr Gallo, and others and provides the trajectory of the research developments. An anonymous US scientist published a detailed letter in Patriot daily on 17 July 1984 forewarning about an impending spread of AIDS in South Asia, as part of a US design.

This argument has however been written off as a USSR conspiracy. But like the truth about SARS-CoV-2, it is important to clear the air about the origin of HIV. Therefore, an international committee of independent experts, facilitated by WHO, may be established to investigate the truth about these twin issues, so that the conspiracy theories can be laid to rest. (1474 words)

……………….

The author is an ecologist specialising in international policy affairs, and a UN negotiator.

The post On the US threat to WHO appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On May 29, US President Donald Trump made a shocking announcement, terminating the relationship with the World Health Organisation. Addressing the media from the White House lawn Trump said, “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organisation and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, noble public health needs.”

The US President alleged that the WHO had been pressured by China to cover-up the Coronavirus crisis when it first originated in China. Trump said, “Chinese officials ignored their reporting obligations to the World Health Organisation and pressured the World Health Organisation to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered by the Chinese authorities.” He added, “China has total control over the World Health Organisation despite only paying USD 40 million per year, compared to what the United States has been paying which is approximately USD 450 million a year.”

Accusing China for the global crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump said, “The world is now suffering due to the maleficence of the Chinese government. China’s cover-up of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than one hundred thousand American lives and over a million lives worldwide.” Trump said, “The world needs answers from China. We must have transparency. Why is it that China shut off infected people from Wuhan to all other parts of China? It went nowhere else. I didn’t go to Beijing. It went nowhere else, but they allowed them to freely travel throughout the world including Europe and the United States.”

Trump also continued his tirade against China blaming it for the failure of the American economy. Trump said, “China’s pattern of misconduct is well known. For decades they have ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before. Hundreds of billions of dollars were lost dealing with China, especially over the years during the prior administration.” He added, “China raided our factories, offshored our jobs, gutted our industries, stole our intellectual property, and violated their commitments under the World Trade Organisation. To make matters worse, they are considered a developing nation, getting all sorts of benefits that others including the United States are not entitled to.”

But Trump did not stop at merely blaming China for the pandemic or economic collapse. He also accused them of industrial espionage and said, “Today I will issue a proclamation to better secure our universities’ vital research and to suspend the entry of certain foreign nationals from China who we have identified as potential security risks.”

This open targeting of China by a person holding an office as powerful as that of the President of the United States could have implications for not just international relations between US and China, and the economies of both countries, but could also pose a potential threat to Chinese Americans and people of Chinese or East Asian origin, living, working in or vising the United States who could now be accused of being spies!

Racial tensions are already high in the United States in wake of the killing of George Floyd, an African American man, by a Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis policeman, with protests, rioting and looting being reported from across the country. Already media persons including CNN’s reporter Omar Jiminez as well as his crew were arrested live on national television by the police while covering the unrest and protests in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Wave 3 news reporter Kaitlin Rust and her camera person were shot at with rubber bullets, once again live on TV while covering the civil unrest in Louisville.

Meanwhile, officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen in a viral video pressing his knee on the neck of Floyd who was lying helplessly on the ground before he died, has now been arrested. His wife has also reportedly filed for divorce.

The post Trump ends relationship with WHO accusing it of helping China cover up the Coronavirus crisis appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The world’s two biggest and greatest democracies are exhibiting their strength today, in the most undemocratic way. Gun-trotting policemen and security agencies will cover the entire Ahmadabad today, particularly the routes where Donald Trump and Narendra Modi are holding a ‘roadshow‘. Here, people cannot move around freely but can only come and go at the whims of the rulers. Trump is expecting 10 million people on the road. Perhaps, he wish to see and ‘cherish’ India’s millions, as he has mentioned this figure on a number of occasions, on his twitter handle and to the crowd of Republicans in the United States.

Both the leaders are ‘loudspeakers’ and love themselves too much. They speak of their ‘country first’ and nothing else. Just as Modi is a great Hindu, Trump is a great Christian and feels that India must favour America, while Indians feel that they will do more than what they can to please the Americans. Indian right-wingers, even in the heyday of the Cold War, never liked our proximity to Soviet Union and always wanted to be ‘acknowledged’ by the Americans.

Today, when the American President is here, we can see a clear reflection of what Baba Saheb Ambedkar had said about our society long back. He had said that this society cannot treat anyone as equal, because it believes in ‘the ascending order of reverence and the descending order of contempt’. President Trump would get to see ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam’ for which India is known, but here too, we always ’embrace’ the guests, provided they are ‘white skinned’ and have ‘dollors’ in their pocket. Our Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam is never meant for those who are considered to be ‘below’ us. The Wall of Shame and Contempt that has been erected from the airport till the Motera Stadium only shows how we try to cover up our poverty. If the Gujarat government was so anxious that Trump should not watch the poverty, then actually, it exists in the minds of the policy planners.

For the last few days, there have been many stories of shame coming from Gujarat, but neither the media nor the political leadership in Gujarat and at the national level bothered about them. The girls in a college in Bhuj were humiliated, and the hostel warden asked them to remove their cloths so that she could check whether they were menstruating or not. Similar news reports have come from Surat, where the Surat Municipal Corporation-run state government hospital had a fitness test for women probationers after three years. These women were humiliated in public, as an outdated and rejected finger-test was done on them to check their ‘fitness’. The women were standing naked for nearly two hours. Think of the trauma and humiliation they underwent. It is reported that nearly 400 women were made to suffer this utter humiliation.

The question is why has there been not much hue and cry? Why Gujaratis, who are so internationally aware, do not even feel shame over it? Why have they keep quiet? They have been very vocal about Hindutva and its defence.

If reports are to be believed, such a humiliating practice of checking women’s fitness exists, and it only got exposed when some of the women, who felt humiliated, reported to some of their friends and colleagues, while many refused to go for the ‘fitness’ test out of fear of humiliation.

The other day, we found reports of the same kind of humiliation experienced by the girl students in a technical institute of Bhuj, which is being run by the Swaminarayan people. (Actually, it is their duty to explain whether they still feel that women are impure because they menstruate.) We also heard about some of the parents defending it, as they felt that it is better to face some humiliation, rather than their daughter getting into a relationship, and then getting pregnant. It is deeply disturbing to hear such kinds of narratives, but what is more shameful is the silence of the state and the media, virtually not making it an issue at all. Political opposition has become virtually bankrupt in ideas, as it does not raise these issues.

Violence against Dalits is quite high in Gujarat, and there appears to be a pattern to it in the form of economic boycott, so that people cannot raise their heads. For the last many days, young SC-ST-OBC students and aspirants for government jobs have been sitting in protest at Gandhi Nagar, against the failure of the state government to honestly implement the reservation policy, but it has not got any support from the media or the political class.

Now, Gujarat is ‘welcoming’ Donald Trump and we say ‘athithi devo bhav’ but we cannot allow our poor people to come out on the street and welcome the ‘guests’. Gujarat model is basically successful in hiding the dirty realities of the state, its below-standard education system, its highly caste- prejudiced societies and in handing over public land to a few cronies, some of whom may be at the dinner table tonight, rubbing their shoulders with global business and political elite.

We hope that one day, the international media will find time and space to discuss this model of ‘development’, which isolates millions for the happiness and success of a few. Those, who will be travelling in the cavalcade from the Airport to the Motera Stadium, should find time to just cross the wall and meet the people, who have been  declared as ‘unseeable’ by the Gujarat government, and listen to their pains and agonies. The wall, constructed along the entire way, is the wall of not merely shame, but hidden apartheid that exists in our villages everywhere and must be exposed now.

Democracy will only be a hypocrisy as long as such walls exist.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Gujarat: Around 100 women allegedly made to undergo gynecological finger test

Four, including Principal, booked for humiliation of 68 girls in Bhuj hostel

Can’t have rules violating students’ dignity: NCW

The post Democracy is hypocrisy as long as ‘Wall’ of Shame exists in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Citizens voices have spoken out against the Modi Trump Extravaganza! Over two dozen well known, academics of Ahmedabad have written an open letter protesting against the construction of the wall near the Indira Bridge in the city in order to “hide the slums from the eyes of the VVIP visitors to Ahmedabad.” The letter, however makes no mention of the wall that has been constructed in the wake of the proposed visit of US president Donald Trump, allegedly in order to “hide” the sight of poverty during his three-hour visit to the city on February 24.

“If the government is ashamed of the slums, it should improve them, rather than demean them by hiding them from the VVIPs”, the letter, signed, among others, by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) faculty Navdeep Mathur, Sebastian Morris Ankur Sarin and Reetika Khera, veteran economist Prof Indira Hirway, and political scientist Prof Ghanshyam Shah, states. It demands breaking of the wall, and allocating funds from the public exchequer for slum improvement.

“We also take this opportunity to oppose the awfully expensive ‘festivals’ that the government organizes frequently in the state. This is nothing else but utter wastage of public funds for the happiness of a few top leaders in the country. Such expenditure must be avoided”, the letter says.

In another similar voice of protest and dissent, Neeta Mahadev, well-known Gandhian activist, has floated an online petition, called Letter Opposition to Namaste Trump, which, even as condemning the construction of the half-a-kilometre wall and eviction notices to 45 families that have been residing in Motera for the past 20 years, takes strong exception to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation spending Rs 85 crore to facilitate President Trump’s three three-hour visit. The petition seeks signatures by Saturday.

Letter of Opposition to Namaste Trump:

On Monday, United States President Donald Trump is set to address a crowd of 1.5 lakh people in Ahmedabad, surpassing the welcome that Modi received in the US at “Howdy Modi”. In preparation for this event, the AMC has cordoned off large portions of the city, erected a half kilometer long wall along Trump’s route from the airport, and issued eviction notices to 45 families, displacing a community that has resided in Motera for the past 20 years. The AMC has spent Rs. 85 crore to facilitate this three-hour visit, money that could have been spent on its citizens.

For those who have lived in Gujarat for the past decades, this privileging of foreign capital over local needs is sadly familiar. Large infrastructure projects, the most glaring example being the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, have time and again resulted in mass evictions and displacement, in the name of attracting Foreign Direct Investment. “Vibrant Gujarat” was likewise promoted as a mechanism to attract foreign business, thus further enriching the elites of the city.

In all of this “development”, many have been left behind. Alongside evicting vulnerable communities in the name of beautification, Gujarat has witnessed wide-scale violence against its minorities, increasing ghettoisation and the systematic erosion of democratic values, which continues today.

In addition to blatant attempts to create an illusion of a prosperous city, the State has reportedly instructed the police to deny permissions for protest for 15 days prior to Trump’s visit, infringing on the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. While the “Howdy Modi” event in the US allowed thousands of protestors, the Indian state chooses to preempt any expression of dissent before “Namaste Trump”.

Both India and the US have seen the rise of authoritarian politics in recent years, with Modi and Trump at the helm. Trump has been unreservedly racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic and anti-poor since before he entered office. In the past year alone, an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children were separated from their families and held in government custody. The list of detained migrants included 52 Indian nationals, one of whom died in US custody in May of last year. Meanwhile, India is set to enact a National Registry of Citizens, which members of the European Union have warned could precipitate the largest statelessness crisis in the world.

While Trump enacted a ban against refugees and migrants from several Muslim-majority countries, India has enacted the CAA, a law barring Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries from receiving expedited citizenship offered to other minority groups.

With a spectacular rise in global fascism today, this alignment between the largest democracy in the world and the most powerful one is dangerous not only for India, but for the world as a whole.

We cannot in good conscience support this alliance between forces that are attempting to erode democracy and curb freedom of speech and religion. We cannot stand by as families are deprived of their homes in order to make room for those who wish to remove citizens from their countries.

We unequivocally condemn this fascist alliance, and urge the Indian State to prioritise the needs of its citizens over the greed of the global elite.

Signatures have been invited until February 22.

The post Letter of Opposition to Namaste Trump appeared first on SabrangIndia.

US President Donald Trump is coming to India during February and Gujarat is ‘preparing’ to give him a ‘grand’ welcome at the Sardar Patel Stadium where about one lakh fifty thousand ‘deshbhakts’ will be brought to ‘listen’ to the US President. The obsession with Gujarat and Gujaratis is the prime focus of the Narendra Modi government. Even when they wish to claim that they are a pan Indian, national party yet BJP leadership at the moment is unable to look beyond Gujarat whose model Narendra Modi and his followers have advertised world over. Whether it is Chinese Prime Minister or Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe or Donald Trump or making Saradar Patel or Gandhi’s legacy or the big stadium, Modi and Shah are unable to become real citizens of India.

Quintessentially, they remain typical Gujaratis, who dont trust ‘others’ and need everything not merely their meals but their officers too from their states. Anyway, there is nothing wrong for ‘national’ leaders behaving state ‘specific’ and ‘fulfilling’ their ‘promises’ made to their Janata.

Those of us, who have been travelling across Gujarat know the meaning of Gujarat’s Hindu Rashtra is nothing but absolute control of the Savarnas and pure marginalisation of the Dalits, OBCs and ofcourse, Muslims. Look at the protest site in Gandhi nagar where Dalits, Adivasis, Rabaris are seeking complete implementation of the reservation and how Gujarat has denied it.

The city of Ahmedabad is more chaotic than any other metropolitan city in India and is no match to Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Why then is every foreign visiting dignitary taken to Gujarat? What for ? Is this ground being prepared for Trump’s election rally ? There are slums, there is chaos on the road and traffic conditions are bad,  we hear that from Ahmedabad Airport to Motera Stadium, a 600 meter long and 7 ft high wall is being created to ‘cover’ the ‘slums’, so that the global ‘King’ cannor or does not see the ‘dirt’. It is the ‘feel good factor’. But it is not that alone, the government wants that none who visit India during Trump’s trip get disturbed with the ‘grim realities’ of our life.

It reminds me of a old story in Hindi, Purdah, written by Yashpal where the ‘poverty’ of the family is ‘hidden’ in the purdah that hangs in the front door of the house. Can such things really hide the dirty facts of prevailing situation in the state particularly related to the issues of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs. Just yesterday, there was news from Bhuj where girl students were asked to even remove their inner wears just to prove that they were not menstruating but then there is no outcry in the Bhakt media ? Why are teachers and school officials even allowed to touch the girls physically unless it is required for some assistance? Can anyone imagine the hurt and humiliation that these girl students might have gone through? Where is the ‘guide’ who speaks to ‘students’ about ‘how to prepare for exams’? Of course, all the SC-ST-OBC students sitting on a dharna at Gandhi Nagar for fulfilling the constitutional provisions of reservation too are seeking his ‘advice’ and time.

Ahmedabad is the second biggest ‘slum city’ in Gujarat with Surat being number one. According to a report published in the Times of India, 2016, Gujarat has not notified 2.84 lakh households living in slums. It shows how the government is least concerned about their conditions. And since a majority of those living in these slums belong to SC-ST-OBCs the Gujarat model is to keep them vulnerable so that they are unable to stand up and develop their own leadership. The violence on Dalits particularly Dalit women is on rise in Gujarat but that neither become an issue, nor our brahmanical crooked media in Delhi take note of it. The victims of the Una violence are running from puller to post to get justice. Most of the accused in flogging the Dalits openly in public are now out and roaming free.

I wish our Ministers and their advisers use the foreign visit of a dignitary to strengthen the people and not to bring more problems in their lives. The wall that is being erected to give a ‘feel good’ feeling to Donald Trump is nothing but humiliation to those people who suffer and are exploited because the state has abdicated its responsibility and it feel people are a burden. The poor people too have a right to life with dignity. All roads to get justice are being closed just to please one man and make him believe that ‘Ahmedabad’ city is truly ‘global’ one. Yes, it is truly global one where you can only enjoy food when you go to the walled city, the old shops and restaurants near the Purani Masjid and Lal Darwaja area, which are normally deliberately abandoned and kept chaotic by the ‘new operational model’ of Gujarat. It is disturbing but the model is exposed though most of the bhakt media in Delhi will continue to neither chant about ‘prosperity’ of Gujarat but definitely not all five crore Gujaratis have same living standard, nor do they all have same rights.

If all is right with the world of Gujarat and all have equal rights, then why is government making a wall in front of the slums? Is it so worried about Trump’s ‘happiness’? It should instead actually regularized the slums in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar and make them ‘world class’, that would have been the real change and I am sure each one of us would be happy and wait for such a VIP visit if that brings change in the lives of people.

In the past when a chief minister or a minister would visit the rural area, the authorities would clean the place and make things look better and people would pray that such netas come every day so that people get their amenities but this Gujarat model is humiliation of people.

Let us hope that the issues of the marginalised will continue. We know it is an event being managed for Donald Trump’s elections but we hope the international media (at least) will breach the wall and make efforts to reach the slums; to get an opportunity to meet all those who face caste violence in the state. Una’s Dalit are waiting for justice and so are many others, including the girls who have been humiliated in Bhuj by their school teachers. Let the international media meet some of them and report on these issues while Donald Trump visits India.

Related Articles:

Four, including Principal, booked for humiliation of 68 girls in Bhuj hostel

Gujarat’s sleepy Modasa wakes up to women protesting the CAA-NPR-NRC

The post The wall of contempt shields Donald Trump’s eye from Ahmedabad’s reality appeared first on SabrangIndia.