Meghnad Desai (Letters, 15 April) plays down the crimes committed by Narendra Modi and suggests that others, too, are sinners in the realm of communal violence. The Indian electorate, he says, knows all of this and should be allowed to choose without external critical comment. Desai sits as a Labour peer and in the past has not been so restrained, recording his willingness to go to war against human rights violations. Now he seems not to wish to speak out against them.
Gurminder K Bhambra
University of Warwick
John Holmwood
University of Nottingham
• Meghnad Desai writes a history of riots in post-independence India evacuated of almost all political responsibility. It is regrettable that the failure to hold previous culprits for extremist violence to account is represented only as tragedy, and not as a responsibility to which all politicians must rise.
The principal difference between Narendra Modi and the previous government figures Desai mentions is that Modi is standing for the highest public office with current connections to an openly extremist organisation, and with a history of extremism.
Dr Shamira A Meghani
University of Leeds
Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Glasgow School of Business and Society
Dr Leena Kumarappan
London Metropolitan University
Dr Akhil Katyal
Shiv Nadar University, India
R K Dasgupta
University of the Arts
Dr Murad Banaji
University of Portsmouth
Dr Rahul Rao
School of Oriental and African Studies
• Meghnad Desai responds to Priyamvada Gopal's criticisms of Modi (Britain can't simply shrug off this Hindu extremist, 14 April) by listing atrocities that took place under the watch of the Congress party. But criticism of Modi need not imply support for Congress; that's an old diversionary tactic. Surely the orchestrated killing of more than 700 people deserves more than Desai's defeatist observations that "Hindu/Muslim riots are a tragic part of Indian history" and that the partition is to blame for the problems Indian Muslims face today. Riots don't just happen, and the violence in 2002 was not inevitable. There is also a deep legacy that he ignores of coexistence between Hindu and Muslim forms of music, food, literature and worship in the subcontinent.
Ashwini Tambe
University of Maryland
• The nationwide massacre of Sikhs in 1984 occurred under a Congress government and those responsible should be held to account in a court of law (many of us in the UK have been fighting for exactly that outcome). But that violence and the fact of partition do not excuse the pogroms that occurred in Gujarat in 2002 nor Narendra Modi's role in fomenting them.
Modi's entire political career has been devoted to the cause of the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates. He was centrally involved in the deeply divisive Hindu supremacist campaigns of previous decades, including the infamous chariot "pilgrimage" from Gujarat to Ayodhya in 1990 that aimed to "retake" the 16th-century Babri mosque, claiming it was the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. This campaign led to considerable violence throughout India and the destruction of the mosque by Hindu nationalists in 1992.
In 1991 Modi was a key organiser in the RSS and VHP's Ekta ("Hindu unity") pilgrimage aimed at reclaiming India as "Hindu" and in the process terrorising minorities. In this role, Modi organised the "saffron army" of youth from the RSS and the extremely violent Bajrang Dal. Similarly, Modi was involved in the organisation of another far-right "pilgrimage" campaign in 1997 from Bombay to Delhi which was aimed at making minorities accept a secondary status under Hindu supremacist ideology.
The Gujarat pogroms are not going to be forgotten. Nor is the murder of BJP politician Haren Pandya who accused Modi of involvement in the 2002 carnage, or the brutal murders of Ehsan Jafri MP and many others
Modi cannot escape responsibility for communal violence | @guardianletters | World news | The Guardian
Gurminder K Bhambra
University of Warwick
John Holmwood
University of Nottingham
• Meghnad Desai writes a history of riots in post-independence India evacuated of almost all political responsibility. It is regrettable that the failure to hold previous culprits for extremist violence to account is represented only as tragedy, and not as a responsibility to which all politicians must rise.
The principal difference between Narendra Modi and the previous government figures Desai mentions is that Modi is standing for the highest public office with current connections to an openly extremist organisation, and with a history of extremism.
Dr Shamira A Meghani
University of Leeds
Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Glasgow School of Business and Society
Dr Leena Kumarappan
London Metropolitan University
Dr Akhil Katyal
Shiv Nadar University, India
R K Dasgupta
University of the Arts
Dr Murad Banaji
University of Portsmouth
Dr Rahul Rao
School of Oriental and African Studies
• Meghnad Desai responds to Priyamvada Gopal's criticisms of Modi (Britain can't simply shrug off this Hindu extremist, 14 April) by listing atrocities that took place under the watch of the Congress party. But criticism of Modi need not imply support for Congress; that's an old diversionary tactic. Surely the orchestrated killing of more than 700 people deserves more than Desai's defeatist observations that "Hindu/Muslim riots are a tragic part of Indian history" and that the partition is to blame for the problems Indian Muslims face today. Riots don't just happen, and the violence in 2002 was not inevitable. There is also a deep legacy that he ignores of coexistence between Hindu and Muslim forms of music, food, literature and worship in the subcontinent.
Ashwini Tambe
University of Maryland
• The nationwide massacre of Sikhs in 1984 occurred under a Congress government and those responsible should be held to account in a court of law (many of us in the UK have been fighting for exactly that outcome). But that violence and the fact of partition do not excuse the pogroms that occurred in Gujarat in 2002 nor Narendra Modi's role in fomenting them.
Modi's entire political career has been devoted to the cause of the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates. He was centrally involved in the deeply divisive Hindu supremacist campaigns of previous decades, including the infamous chariot "pilgrimage" from Gujarat to Ayodhya in 1990 that aimed to "retake" the 16th-century Babri mosque, claiming it was the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. This campaign led to considerable violence throughout India and the destruction of the mosque by Hindu nationalists in 1992.
In 1991 Modi was a key organiser in the RSS and VHP's Ekta ("Hindu unity") pilgrimage aimed at reclaiming India as "Hindu" and in the process terrorising minorities. In this role, Modi organised the "saffron army" of youth from the RSS and the extremely violent Bajrang Dal. Similarly, Modi was involved in the organisation of another far-right "pilgrimage" campaign in 1997 from Bombay to Delhi which was aimed at making minorities accept a secondary status under Hindu supremacist ideology.
The Gujarat pogroms are not going to be forgotten. Nor is the murder of BJP politician Haren Pandya who accused Modi of involvement in the 2002 carnage, or the brutal murders of Ehsan Jafri MP and many others
Modi cannot escape responsibility for communal violence | @guardianletters | World news | The Guardian
