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| An Indian artist celebrating Sunita Williams' return |
Prime Minister Modi has extended a cordial invitation
to Sunita Williams. In a Letter dated 1 Mar 2025, Modi expressed India’s pride
in her achievements and extended the invitation. “After your return, we are
looking forward to seeing you in India. It will be a pleasure for India to host
one of its most illustrious daughters.”
Will Ms Williams accept the
invitation? I have serious reservations. She won’t, in all probability. Her cousin
was allegedly murdered by Modi’s men during the investigation of the 2002
Gujarat riots.
The young generation in India are
probably not aware of the 2002 riots in Gujarat orchestrated by Modi and his
party for political mileage. In the last few years, whenever I raised the question
in my classes, hardly one or two students out of the 200-odd ones were faintly
aware of the riots.
Inhuman violence was unleashed in
Gujarat against the Muslim community after some Hindu pilgrims were attacked on
a train allegedly by Muslims. Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat then.
He is reported to have encouraged the inhuman assaults on Muslims in order to
gain certain political advantages, especially since he was going to lose the
chief minister’s chair. PM Vajpayee was utterly saddened by the violence and also
aware of the state administration’s complicity in it. Eventually, however,
Vajpayee gave in to BJP’s Islamophobia as well as the party’s admiration of a
macho leader like Modi.
Haren Pandya was one of the ministers
who provided testimony to a citizen’s tribunal against Modi’s handling of the riots.
There was incontrovertible evidence against Modi as Manoj Mitta’s book, The Fiction
of Fact-finding, revealed clearly. Pandya was murdered in 2003 for
standing against Modi. Many others like Sanjiv Bhatt IPS, Teesta Setalvad, and R
B Sreekumar IPS (Additional DGP then) were arrested later with unconcealed malice
by the state police.
Sunita Williams is a first cousin of
Haren Pandya. If Modi had a modicum of sensibility, he wouldn’t have invited Ms
Williams to his India.
Ms Williams had declined an earlier
invitation of Modi. During one of his countless visits to the USA, Modi met with
Williams and her father, Deepak Pandya, at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial
in Arlington. He extended an invitation at that time too which was politely
(perhaps with concealed contempt too) declined by Ms Williams.
Public memory is short. Modi knows
that. But he doesn’t seem to know that individual memories are long, very long.
Some Indians whose memories aren’t all that short are proud of Modi’s thick
skin, it seems.
For me, and a lot of others whom I
know, this invitation by Modi to Ms Williams smacks of utter insensitivity. Worse,
it is also a reminder of unresolved justice.
Ms Williams, reportedly, has shown her
sensitivity. She is reported to have felt “touched by the gesture.” Let’s hope that
Mr Modi understands the meaning of that ‘touch.’
He is amoral, shameless and a congenital liar.
ReplyDeleteYet a hero to many millions!
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteI had not known of this close connection between SW and the recent history of Gujarat, although I was, of course aware of the events. For her and her colleague, I am relieved for their safe return. YAM xx
Their return was long overdue and many of us were getting worried too... Relieved now.
DeleteLet's hope her memory is long, too. Shameful that he would act like this was just a gesture and not a way to try to erase the bad things he's done.
ReplyDeleteHe has roo many sins to atone for.
Delete