TCN News
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in US, renowned human rights activist Martin Macwan from India has written an open letter to US President Donald Trump questioning the state-sponsored selective persecution of minorities in the US.
Recipient of the prestigious Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award, Macwan has appealed for signatures from concerned citizens, urging them to participate in lamp lighting in George Floyd’s memory on June 10 at 7 PM, the day when his mortal remains would be laid to rest.
In his letter, he discussed the government’s handling of President Trump’s visit to India in March. He reflected that such preparations were being done when the country was clueless about its unpreparedness of the overshadowing threat of COVID-19, and other consequential issues like economic fallout and migrant crisis. Addressing the President as “an honoured guest of India,” he reminded that civic authorities of Ahmedabad had built a wall opposite Gandhi Ashram to hide the life of slum dwellers from the guest’s eyes. He recalled that earlier too, during visits of international dignitaries’ similar actions were taken to almost make the weaker sections invisible to common eyes.
Macwan questioned why the expenditure or funding on such grand welcomes was never made public. He implied that all such instances to reduce the marginalized communities to non-existent in society was deliberate and the same as in the US. In just two months from his visit when the lockdown was in place several thousand people lost their jobs, employment and accommodation while these “unpaid wagers undertook a journey to walk hundreds of kilometres on feet or on broken bicycles to reach their homes in other states because there were no buses or trains for them” he stated. When arrangements of transport were made during his visit, the absence of it during the migrant crisis speaks volumes of authorities’ negligence, he noted.
“As Dalits, we can feel suffocation in India that the Blacks and the Colored people do in the US, as expressed in the final words of George Floyd – We can’t breathe,” Macwan said. Further, he cited recent reports on violence against Dalits, Adivasis, highlighting that the arbitrary arrest of Prof Anand Teltumbde amplified the fight against injustice as it is the same everywhere. In India, the recent gags on freedom of speech of rights activists under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the continued suppression of minorities in the US were all examples of authorities supporting the selective boycott of the marginalized. He remarked that Trump himself had constantly been using racist remarks and communal slurs during his campaign, and even afterwards he did not refrain from doing so.
Macwan expressed solidarity “with the protesters who protest the dehumanizing conditions of the fellow citizens and segregation,” and reiterated that there have been thousands of Indians who have been the victims of racial abuse in the US.
Towards the end of the letter, he extended support to minorities while simultaneously urging people to “think” as to why so many innocent people are pushed behind the bars in the US and India.