Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Sikhs. Show all posts

Saturday, October 19, 2024

India: A Rogue State Ruled By Gangsters?

The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soils. Their investigations paint a shocking picture of how recklessly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government operates.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Home Minister Amit Shah

The criminal charges announced by Washington and Ottawa are backed by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the remaining three countries that make up the 5-nation intelligence sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes. Revelations made by the US Justice Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) indicate that the authorization for Sikh assassinations came directly from the top Indian government officials, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man Amit Shah. International criminal gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi is listed among the people tasked with carrying out the murders. These allegations are based on intelligence gathered from multiple communication intercepts among Indian government officials in New Delhi and Indian diplomats posted in Canada.

Sikh Leaders Targeted in Assassinations Campaign by Modi Government

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme has warned of widespread violence, homicides and a public security threat linked to agents of the Indian government. Duheme said the RCMP has charged “a significant number” of people with direct involvement in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence over the past few years and is aware of more than a dozen threats to members of the south Asian community and the pro-Khalistan movement, according to the Canadian news media.

Meanwhile, the United States Justice Department (US DOJ) has charged a former Indian intelligence agent Vikash Yadav for allegedly orchestrating a foiled plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen living in New York City. Last year, the DOJ first announced charges in the case, indicting an Indian national and alleged drug and weapons trafficker, Nikhil Gupta. That indictment also referred to an unnamed Indian government official whom prosecutors said directed the scheme.

New Delhi is responding very differently to almost identical allegations made by the US and Canadian governments. While the Canadians are treated with total disdain, the Americans are being taken very seriously. The behavior of the Modi officials toward Canada is just as hostile as it has been toward Pakistan which has also documented a campaign of assassinations of Sikhs and Kashmiris orchestrated by Indian agents on its soil.

Reacting to the report of Canadian allegations against the Indian government, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi said: “We are aware of the nature of our eastern neighbor, we know what they are capable of … so it is not a surprise for us. “We caught [one of their] serving naval intelligence officers on our soil. He (Kulbhushan Jadhav) is in our custody and admitted that he came here to create instability and spread evil,” he added.

Last year, Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said her country remained a “target of a series of targeted killings and espionage by (Indian Intelligence Agency) RAW". “In December last year, Pakistan released a comprehensive dossier providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of India’s involvement in the Lahore attack of June 2021. The attack was planned and executed by Indian intelligence,” she said, adding that in 2016, a high-ranking Indian military officer Kulbhushan Jadhav confessed to his involvement in directing, financing and executing terror and sabotage in Pakistan.

The US government has openly bracketed Mr. Modi with several murderous dictators. Speaking about the US decision to grant immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in 2022, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that it was “not the first time” that the US government has designated immunity to foreign leaders and listed four cases. “Some examples: President Aristide in Haiti in 1993; President Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001; Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014; and President Kabila in the DRC in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers,” he said.

Modi has a long history of murdering minorities in his country. After the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, Narendra Modi made the cover of India Today magazine with the caption "Hero of Hatred". Modi was denied a visa to visit the United States. The US visa ban on Modi was lifted in 2014 after he became prime minister. Since then, Narendra Modi's image has been rehabilitated by the West as the US and Western Europe seek allies in Asia to counter the rise of China. However, Modi's actions on the ground in India confirm that he remains "Hero of Hatred" and "Divider In Chief" at his core. A two-part BBC documentary explains this reality in significant detail. The first part focuses on the 2002 events in Gujarat when Modi as the state chief minister ordered the police to not stop the Hindu mobs murdering Muslims and burning their homes and businesses. The second part looks at Modi government's anti-Muslim policies, including the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy (article 370) and a new citizenship law (CAA 2019) that discriminates against Muslims. It shows the violent response by security forces to peaceful protests against the new laws, and interviews the family members of people who were killed in the 2020 Delhi riots orchestrated by Modi's allies.

Here's Indian National Security Advisor on how to use Taliban to attack Pakistan:

https://youtu.be/eYRuk8H5M9E?si=ZB1c7Dd8ntQdKeFi

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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Has Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna Abandoned His Principled Stand Against Hindutva?

Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna has been instrumental in inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the joint session of US Congress on June 22, 2023. This came as a surprise to many of his constituents who voted for him after he declared in 2019: “It’s the duty of every American politician of Hindu faith to stand for pluralism, reject Hindutva, and speak for equal rights for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhist & Christians.”

L to R: Narendra Modi, JOe Biden, Ro Khanna

What caused this change of heart? Is it the donation of $110,000 to his campaign by Hindu Nationalist donors in the United States, as reported by The Nation? Fellow Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has also supported Modi's invitation. She will be among members of Congress who will escort Modi to the podium. Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal are both supposedly "liberal" Democrats.

While Khanna says that he “strongly opposes any form of caste discrimination”, he has not endorsed California SB 403, a bill sponsored by Senator Aisha Wahab and supported by Dalit activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan, that outlaws caste discrimination in the state.

Modi’s US visit comes at a time of rising state persecution of religious minorities, including Muslims and Christians. Modi's BJP-affiliated politicians have called for genocide against Indian Muslims, attacked mosques and churches, and demolished homes, according to The Nation. The Biden administration has been silent on these issues, choosing instead to try and strengthen the US-India relationship and deepen the ties between the countries’ military and technology sectors. For the last four years, the Biden Administration has ignored the USCIRF (US Commission on International Religious Freedom) recommendation to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” and impose strategic sanctions on Indian government officials and agencies involved in religious freedom violations.

On the eve of Prime Minister Modi's visit to Washington, the USCIRF has urged President Biden to discuss with him its concerns about the lack of religious freedom in India. “With India’s upcoming state visit, the Biden administration has a unique opportunity to explicitly incorporate religious freedom concerns into the two countries’ bilateral relationship,” said USCIRF Commissioner David Curry. “It is vital the U.S. government acknowledge the Indian government’s perpetration and toleration of particularly severe violations of religious freedom against its own population and urge the government to uphold its human rights obligations.”

Instead of condemning India for allowing the oppression of minorities and denying media freedom, US officials have applauded the Modi government. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Modi as “unbelievable, visionary” and “the most popular world leader.” Donald Lu, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, has praised press freedom in India: “You have India as a democracy in part because you have a free press that really works.” This is in sharp contrast with the findings of the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders 2023 World Press Freedom Index, which has ranked India 161, out of 180 countries due to its crackdown on the press. India's neighbor Pakistan ranks 150, 11 places above India, on this Index.

Khanna's recent about-face is seen as a betrayal by many of his constituents who supported him because of his rejection of Hindutva. South Asian social justice activists Anu Mandavilli, Deepa Iyer, Karthikeyan Shanmughan and others have strongly criticized Khanna.

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Record Number of Indians Seeking Asylum in US at Mexico Border

In the current fiscal year that started last October, a record 16,290 Indian citizens have been taken into custody by US Border Patrol at the Mexican border. A substantial number of them are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Dalits who are escaping persecution in the country ruled by the Hindu Nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Genocide Watch has issued "India Genocide Warning" stating as follows: "Islamophobia is no longer a fringe sentiment in India. It has become a state-manufactured ideology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made Islamophobia central to its program for harassing India's 192 million Muslims and depriving them of their rights as Indian citizens".

Indian Asylum Seekers at US-Mexico Border. Source: BBC

Experts attribute the record increase in asylum seekers to a a number of factors, including rising discrimination in India, an end to pandemic-era restrictions, a perception that the current US administration is welcoming to asylum seekers and the ramping-up of previously established smuggling networks, according to the BBC.

Of the roughly 3.5 million undocumented immigrants who entered the country between 2010 and 2017, 65 percent arrived with full permission stamped into their passports, according to new figures compiled by the Center for Migration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank. During that period, more overstayers arrived from India than from any other country, according to the New York Times.

It's a similar story in the UK where Home Secretary Suella Braverman was recently quoted by the BBC as saying: "I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don't think that's what people voted for with Brexit… The largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants. We even reached an agreement with the Indian government last year to encourage and facilitate better cooperation in this regard. It has not necessarily worked very well."

India has also become the biggest source of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States. In 2014 about 136,000 people came to the U.S. from India, about 128,000 from China and about 123,000 from Mexico, census figures show. As recently as 2005, Mexico sent more than 10 times as many people to the U.S. as China, and more than six times as many as India, according to the WSJ story.

United States Department of Homeland Security estimates that there were 12.1 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States as of 2014. The top countries of origin are:

Mexico = 6.6 million

El Salvador = 700,000

Guatemala = 640,000

India = 430,000

Honduras = 400,000

Philippines = 360,000

The rise of Hindutva forces is tearing India apart along caste and religious lines. Hindu mobs are lynching Muslims and Dalits. A recent Pew Research report confirms that the level of hostility against religious minorities in India is "very high", giving India a score of 9.5 on a scale from 0 to 10. Pakistan's score on this scale is 7 while Bangladesh's is 7.5.

Chart Courtesy of Bloomberg

Rising hostility against minorities is driving record numbers of asylum seekers to the United States. India has earned a score of 9.5 on a scale of 0-10 assessed by Pew Research. Genocide Watch attributes it the rise of Narendra Modi in India: "Modi rose to power by inciting Hindus with his time-tested politics of communal polarization. Beginning in 2014, Modi spent his first term as Prime Minister dehumanizing Muslims by passing laws preventing cow slaughter, restricting Muslim immigration, and purportedly countering Islamist terrorism. Modi's second term, beginning in 2019, has seen more brazen attempts by the BJP to turn India into a “Hindu Rashtra"."