India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, head of the Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party)
began an important 3-day formal visit to Britain yesterday. However his visit has been dogged by concerns on at least two fronts regarding the rights of religious minorities in India. According to
The Guardian:
In the last few months, mobs of fanatics, some linked to his party, the BJP, have lynched Muslims for eating, carrying or possessing beef, or on mere suspicion of having done so.... Most of all, however, critics say it was Modi himself who spawned the narrative of beef as a critical issue during elections last year by warning of a “pink revolution” (a widespread slaughter of cows) if his party didn’t win.
Meanwhile, Sikhs have a different concern, and have enlisted Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in their cause. According to an
NSO Press Release"
The office for the leader of the Labour Party has said Jeremy Corbyn will be taking up the issue of the 1984 Sikh genocide with the Indian premier during his visit to Britain this week.... [P]rior to Mr Modi’s landslide victory, he and his party had placed the blame for the killings of Sikhs on the then Congress government. Furthermore, following appointment to office Mr Modi’s Home Minister described the killings as “genocide”.... [However, according to a Sikh leader in the UK] ... "Mr Modi has done nothing to bring identified Congress leaders who urged gangs of hooligans, to kill, murder and burn Sikh men, women and children, to justice. They now freely roam the streets gloating of their achievements to the bewilderment of relatives of those murdered, as well as the wider Sikh community."
