Slashdot Mirror
Concern Over India PM's Silicon Valley Visit
New submitter SAsiaFaculty writes: India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will visit Silicon Valley on September 27, 2015 to promote his vision of "Digital India." Mr. Modi was denied the right to visit the United States from 2005 -2014 because of his role as the chief minister of Gujarat in the violence that rocked the state in 2002 when 1,000 people died. The visit, his second to the United States since becoming Prime Minister, has generated enthusiasm in India and in the Indian community in the United States. It has also elicited a cautionary statement with more than 135 signatures from faculty who teach and do research about South Asia at U.S. universities.
The letter urges Silicon Valley leaders to be mindful of their corporate responsibility and ensure that Mr. Modi's Digital India project promotes transparency, protection of human rights and civil liberties and intellectual freedom. Aspects of the "Digital India" program have raised questions in India about the lack of privacy safeguards and the possibility of enhanced surveillance and the repression of Indian citizens' constitutionally protected rights. A response to comments critical of the statement has been posted on the AAUP site.
The letter urges Silicon Valley leaders to be mindful of their corporate responsibility and ensure that Mr. Modi's Digital India project promotes transparency, protection of human rights and civil liberties and intellectual freedom. Aspects of the "Digital India" program have raised questions in India about the lack of privacy safeguards and the possibility of enhanced surveillance and the repression of Indian citizens' constitutionally protected rights. A response to comments critical of the statement has been posted on the AAUP site.
Look through that list of "concerned" professors of gender and ethnic studies, and you'll get the idea.
> we should just ignore the fact that he was complicit in the violent deaths of thousands of people
India had a history of riots, clashes between the Hindu and Muslim communities in certain regions that come with a society with still weak institutions (government was always weak in India's history). Note that these were riots and clashes, not pogroms from the top. Both communities indulged in violence, although expectedly, the majority community ends up inflicting more damage in the end. India seems to have gotten the riot problem under control since the Gujarat riots.
India's supreme court is a trusted institution. It examined the case for several years and had not found Mr. Modi complicit in the matter. Finding him complicit is akin to finding US presidents *personally* complicit in LA riots, Abu Gharib, Iraq death toll etc.
> heads a hate mongering political party that is the moral equivalent of the KKK
Consider that the person who coined the term Hindutva (the party's alleged ideology) was an atheist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and that the party's spokesperson is a muslim intellectual... and that this "KKK" celebrates the recently passed muslim president as the people's president and one of its own... and honored him as no president before him. Indian politics should not be seen through such extreme and simplistic lenses.
BJP is more like the republican party. There may be a few KKK elements here and there, but it is not defined by it. Mr. Modi is like Reagan, in terms of his politics and his popularity.