HArendra Modi and the Hindu Right are turning the world’s biggest democracy into the world’s ugliest democracy. Muslims denied security of full citizenship. Independence of Indian courts, civil service, electoral system and media was horribly compromised as Bharatiya Janata party creates if not one-party state, then at least a state in which only one party Can win.
Far from criticizing Modi or maintaining diplomatic distance UK Conservative government supports Modi’s policies and prejudices.
Indian opposition politicians were in United Kingdom for conferences organized by the Indian diaspora and meetings with politicians and scientists. Not one representative of our board party was among the hundreds they met. Conservative ministers and supporters of taking the collective decision not to engage with Any opponent of modi mode.
May 16 was a reception in parliament for Salman Kurshid, former Indian cabinet minister Pradyot Manikya, chair of Progressive Regional Indigenous Alliance of India and other opposition figures anyone concerned about India would be nice to interview. Conservative MPs said they would take part. But they never showed up. Labor politicians said Priti Patel ordered boycott. I charged the Conservative MPs concerned, but they didn’t reply to my emails.
She calls Modi “our dear friend” and praises his “dynamic leadership”. But, perhaps, the order came from the operator below her pay rate. British-Indian activists said that boycott not need be provoked anyone as grand how home secretary. British BJP activists need just tell the Conservative MP with strong Indian vote in his or her constituency to govern clear and they will obey.
Characteristically, not one of British opponents of Modi I interviewed would go on in record. Even in UK crossing the BJP brings trolling from its activists and, in one bad case, requires the critic parents be expelled from their temple.
Kursid and Manikya are little known in UK but Rahul Gandhi has glamour. of royalty. How son of Rajiv and Sonya, grandson of Indira and great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, British politicians should want to meet him for sheer celebrity worth. One time again no one conservative minister or the deputy was in parliament last a week to welcome one of Modi is the most eloquent opponents.
When Gandhi came to London in 2018, Conservative Friends of India has stated that it will event for his in parliament. In those days, the Tories wanted good connections with India but wouldn’t take sides in his political struggle. Or so they said. Shortly before Gandhi was due to speak, they canceled the reception. Indian journalists reported that the BJP made his misfortune is known. As well as in Tory says BJP wants it, gets it.
For conservatives who criticize personality politics of in the left it must be the moment they see the leftx face looking for back on them in mirror. Like the “anti-imperialists” and Islamism, or the pro-Israeli right and Zionism, conservatives party it’s so aligned now with BJP that he allows the most repressive versions of religion and ethnicity determine everything of religion or ethnicity. Hinduism is no longer a spiritual but a national creed.
Indians are no longer the 1.4 billion inhabitants of the country, but Hindus and recognized minorities whose place guaranteed, but not Muslims, who face religious tests for migrants before they are sure of citizenship.
Secular ideals of 20th-century India is too easy to dismiss as a Western obsession. They had the same reaction against west as western: precisely the reaction against attempts by the British Empire to divide and rule subcontinent on the foundation of ethnicity. Now split and rule is back with demonic energy, with most of of serve as a scapegoat on in side.
Cancellation culture of followed by sectarianism. British Conservative politicians now tacitly agree with BJP that Hindu nationalism opponents not “true Indians or Hindus, but there are, in awesome phrase of Allies of Boris Johnson at the time of Brexit, enemy within”.
There are worthy democratic reasons for The Tories appealed to Indian voters. Refugees from persecution by African nationalists in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania were model meritocrats. Idi Amin and his contemporaries undress them of all in 1970s, but they fled to the UK and worked hard to ensure them children could flourish.
Naturally, conservative party may appeal for them support. It is just as natural that conservatism appeals to more recent inflow of Indian professionals from the highest caste. The notion that minorities have duty to vote for leftist parties are themselves a kind of of racism. In happy societies, your ethnic or religious identity is not your destiny, and that does you credit. of conservatives that Indian voters do not consider him racist party of leftist nightmare.
If pleasing Indian voters means not to be over- the desire to resist the supporters of the BJP in their environment, i.e. democratic politics for you. Hardly an anti-Hindu feeling on in left not already pushing them into the hands of conservatives. Desperate Labor MP Navendu Mishra wrote in 2021 of “hierarchy of racism” in Work party and some groups, primarily Hindus of Indian heritage, being “fair game”.
And then there is Brexit. Brexit is always there. Desperate for a trade to deal with with India in show she did not push her country into ruthless economic and strategic failure, the Johnson administration will bite its tongue if it stays silent help it provides trade to deal with with India.
Be silent out of necessity or choice is an open question. During his tour, Gandhi spoke well of how BJP “strangled” independence of every potential center of opposition. “There is not a single institution that would not be under attack and this is done systematically. The judiciary, the press, the bureaucracy, the electoral commission… every single institution is systematically filled people who have a certain ideology.
With some modifications to reflect local circumstances, this description also applies to Boris Johnson’s Britain. Tori not in union of electoral or diplomatic convenience. They are in love.
