TIME’s cover story on Narendra Modi a distortion of truth, says Indian American group
Monday March 19, 2012
Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC – http://www.iamc.com) an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, has condemned TIME magazine’s cover story on Mr. Narendra Modi as a dismal PR exercise intended to whitewash Mr. Modi’s complicity in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002.
IAMC has also questioned the timing of the story, coming on the heels of a blog article by the Managing Director of the Brookings Institution that appears to be along the same lines, projecting Mr. Modi as India’s “most admired and most feared politician,” and even eulogizing his apparent concern for the environment, while glossing over the details of Mr. Modi’s role in the murderous carnage of 2002.
“Although TIME’s cover story is not an endorsement, it contains inaccuracies, half-truths and glaring omission of pertinent details on Mr. Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister. These betray its real objective – an attempt by APCO Worldwide, Modi’s PR firm in Washington DC – to combat negative coverage of their client’s documented connivance in gross human rights violations, in order to project him as a Prime Ministerial candidate,” said Mr. Shaheen Khateeb, President of IAMC. “Mr. Narendra Modi as the potential Prime Minister of India is a diplomatic and moral conundrum for the United States and other countries of common human values,” added Mr. Khateeb.
While the Indian courts are censuring Mr. Modi for contempt of court and assessing the evidence collected by human rights organizations and investigative journalists, the TIME story and the Brookings article are examples of irresponsible journalism that cares little for facts. Under Mr. Modi’s watch, murderous mobs engaged in the killing of over 2,000 people, in brutal sexual crimes against 800 women, and in the displacement of over 150,000 people, many of whom are still living in refugee camps that lack basic amenities. For the thousands of cases registered during and after the carnage, barely a handful of arrests have been made. In 2005, the US State Department, in an unprecedented move, placed a ban on Mr. Modi from entering the US on the grounds of egregious religious freedom violations under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
IAMC has called upon TIME to run a second story on Narendra Modi and Gujarat, with detailed perspectives added by human rights defenders and whistleblowers in India, the findings of international human rights organizations as well as excerpts from the House Resolution 569 introduced this month in the House by Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN).
IAMC has also called upon the Brookings Institution to salvage its credibility as a think-tank by conducting an official study into the situation in Gujarat both on the human rights and the economic front, instead of merely repeating Mr. Modi’s fallacious claims.
Indian American Muslim Council is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States with 10 chapters across the nation.
For more information please visit our new website at www.iamc.com.
RELATED LINKS:
REFERENCES TO TIME & BROOKINGS ARTICLES
India’s Most Admired and Most Feared Politician: Narendra Modi
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0316_modi_antholis.aspx
Why Narendra Modi is India’s Most Loved and Loathed Politician
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109164,00.html
MODI’S PR FIRM HAS HISTORY OF WORKING FOR DICTATORS
Modi gets PR firm Apco Worldwide to hardsell Vibrant Gujarat
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/modi-gets-apco-to-hardsell-vibrant-gujarat-2011/373266/
APCO Worldwide: Modi’s image builders have dictators on client list
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2600140.cms
What lies on the other side of US’ praise of Modi
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws190911Politics.asp
THE MYTH OF VIBRANT GUJARAT
Marketing a Myth (of Gujarat’s Economic Prosperity) by Lyla Bavadam, Frontline Magazine, May. 07-20, 2011
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2810/stories/20110520281001800.htm
Relative Development of Gujarat and Socio-Economic Differentials By Dr. Abusaleh Shariff
http://www.cjponline.org/GujaratReview070311.pdf
High income, yet high hunger levels in Gujarat
By VIDYA SUBRAHMANIAM, THE HINDU, February 13, 2011
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1448215.ece
Myth of Vibrant Gujarat
http://www.anhadin.net/IMG/pdf/Myth_of_Vibrant_Gujarat_EDigest.pdf
GUJARAT MASSACRES
A Decade of Shame
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20120309290400400.htm
Muslims are Gujarat’s new outcastes: Survey – DNA, March 2, 2012
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_muslims-are-gujarats-new-outcastes-survey_1657290
2002 riots not spontaneous: Study
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-29/ahmedabad/31110513_1_anti-muslim-bjp-mla-scs
No entry for Modi into US: visa denied – Times of India, March 18, 2005
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-03-18/india/27866126_1_business-visa-gujarat-riots-immigration-and-nationality-act
Congressional Resolution H.RES 569: Recognizing the tenth anniversary of the tragic communal violence in Gujarat, India
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.RES.569:
India: A Decade on, Gujarat Justice Incomplete – Human RIghts Watch, Feb 24, 2012
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/24/india-decade-gujarat-justice-incomplete
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