By TCN News,
New York City: A broad coalition of organizations and individuals under the umbrella Alliance for Justice and Accountability have announced a rally, demonstration and press conference outside the Madison Square Garden to register their protest against India’s PM Narendra Modi, as well to protest against India’s descent into intolerance, religious repression and economic exploitation of the poor.
The Alliance for Justice and Accountability will address the press conference ahead of its protest outside the Madison Square Garden.
Narendra Modi (file photo)
WHAT: Press Conference and Mass Demonstration
WHERE: 32ND STREET AND 7TH AVE
WHEN: Sunday, September 28, 2014
Press Conference: 9:00 AM EST
Protest: 10:30 AM EST
Protesters are chartering buses to arrive in New York City from New Jersey, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Philadelphia.
The Alliance for Justice and Accountability is a tri-State area coalition of a diverse range of Indian/South Asian organizations and individuals. “Modi won the Indian election with a paltry 30% of the popular vote. We are the 70%!” said Robindra Deb, a key AJA organizer of protest on September 28.
“Let’s ensure the world knows that the people celebrating Modi do not represent the Indian American diaspora. We cannot let hateful ideologies be our values,” said Sonia Joseph, an organizer with SASI in NYC.
Modi’s previously planned visit to New York City in 2005 had to be cancelled when his entry was banned by the State Department under the International Religious Freedom Act for his “egregious violations of religious freedom.” Beyond the pogroms of Gujarat in 2002, Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister was marked by a state policy of extra-judicial killings and illegal detention of hundreds of youth, mainly from the minorities.
While Modi was elected on a pro-development platform, protesters’ motivation is to unmask the “NaMo-Shining Gujarat” brand. The Ghadar Alliance (another umbrella organization based in the West Coast) recently released a report evaluating Modi’s first 100 days in office. With meticulous research, the data-driven report details the ways in which the new government has increased repression of minorities through brazen violations of human rights and religious freedom, dismantled democratic protections, while increasing corporate giveaways. The full report can be found at: http://www.modifacts.org/
According to the Sept.28th demonstration organizers, their approach to this goal is twofold: First, by refusing to allow the thousands killed, raped and displaced by the Gujarat massacres be forgotten; they are calling for him, along with other government and police officials implicated in the events of 2002, to be made accountable for crimes against humanity. Secondly, they seek to highlight widespread concerns about the neoliberal development program itself as a flawed model with a poor track record for India.
“The so-called Gujarat model is based on increased privatization that enriches tiny elite while relying on the disenfranchisement of the poor and the marginalized, including a large cross-section of Dalit, tribal, farmers and the urban poor,” says Kaleem Kawaja, one of the organizers. Organizers also emphasize that their objections are not personal or limited to Modi as an individual, but rather to the ideology associated with the BJP and the Hindutva organizations collectively known as the Sangh Parivar.
Click here for the Facebook page for the event.