Trump's India Visit: Activists Detained, Hindu-Muslim Riots Turn Deadly
Audience members displaying a U.S. flag listen to President Donald J. Trump addresses his remarks at the Namaste Trump Rally Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, India. Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.
DELHI — American President Donald Trump was on his way to Gujarat, India, to attend a mega "Namaste Trump" rally when the state police started detaining human rights activists in the middle of the night.
It was past midnight when Dev Desai, a young activist from Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, returned home with his wife and two daughters after attending a wedding event. While Desai was putting his one and three-year-old daughters to sleep, five men knocked on his door. The men identified themselves as members of Gujarat Police and asked Desai to come with them – although none of them were wearing a police uniform, Desai said.
"I asked them if they had an arrest warrant against me," said Desai, 32, "but they grabbed me and asked me to follow their instructions. My family was scared, and my daughters started crying."
Police detained Desai at 1:40 a.m. Monday, without telling his family where they were taking him. He was among five activists in Ahmedabad who were picked up by the police Monday hours before U.S. President Trump landed in Ahmedabad to avoid any protest on the streets. These activists have led several protests in the city in recent months against the new controversial citizenship law and a proposed citizens' register, which many in India believe is anti-Muslim.
The Modi government’s new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) gives expedited citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to any major south Asian religion except Islam. Critics also see a proposed citizens' register as an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government to identify and marginalize Muslim families, potentially stripping citizenship of Indian Muslims who cannot provide adequate documentation, a common problem in India.
Dev Desai, photo courtesy of Desai.
“This is an assault on our freedom of expression,” said Desai. “We knew we wouldn’t be allowed to enter the stadium, but we wanted to stage a small protest with posters and banners against CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register for Citizens) and also against Trump for his racial and Islamophobic comments."
In other democracies, he said, people are allowed to protest when a foreign leader comes, so why not in India? India’s government prides itself as the largest democracy in the world.
By Tuesday, at least 16 people had died and more than 100 were injured in riots in the northeast of the capital as Trump held diplomatic meetings and went sightseeing. Videos circulated on social media of Muslim men beaten by crowds supporting the citizenship law. One man was hit in the head with a sharp object as he huddled on the ground.
The violence appears to be on religious lines, as some supporting the citizenship law shouted Hindu chants to Lord Ram while throwing stones at Muslims protesting CAA, according to Reuters. A crowd of around 200 saffron-clad men wielding sticks and with the Hindu mark or tilak on their foreheads had blocked traffic in the neighborhood late Monday night, shouting praises to the Hindu god Ram that have become associated with the Hindu nationalist right, according to India’s news magazine the Caravan.
In another viral video, a mosque is seen burning while a Hindu mob marches around it and hoists a flag to the Hindu god Hanuman.
Upon his arrival in Ahmedabad, Trump, who is on a two-day visit to India, received a massive welcome with tens of thousands of people cheering for him as his convoy drove past the streets of the city. More than 100,000 people gathered in the Motera Stadium, which India calls the largest cricket stadium in the world, to attend the "Namaste Trump" event. However, the crowd was not even close to 10 million people, which Trump tweeted that Modi had promised.
"Namaste Trump" is a return of phrase by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Trump for “Howdy Modi!" – the event held in September 2019 in Houston, Texas, where more than 50,000 people of Indian origin from across the U.S. came to greet the Indian prime minister.
Expressing his gratitude, Trump thanked Modi and the audience in Motera Stadium for a warm welcome.
“America loves India. America respects India,” he said. “And America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people.” He also praised Modi for his efforts in removing poverty and providing electricity, toilets and cooking gas in Indian villages.
After the "Namaste Trump" event was over and Trump left Ahmedabad to visit the Taj Mahal, a historic Muslim tomb and monument in north India, the police released the activists in the evening.
“After Trump left, one of the police officers said that we could go,” said Utpal Anis, a research scholar from Gujarat Vidyapith University, who was one of the five activists detained. “The police threatened us with slapping sedition charges if we continue to protest against CAA and NRC.”
Anis was sleeping in his university hostel at 3 a.m. when a group of policemen, in civilian clothes, came to his room and asked him to come with them. “I asked them on what charges they were detaining me, but they didn’t give any answer,” he said.
"I want to ask the university administration if the students are safe on the campus," Anis said. "Can any policemen come and detain any student at their will?"
Desai had received a call from the police on Sunday evening asking if he was planning any protest during Trump’s event against CAA, NRC, or the event itself – to which he denied, to avoid any preventive action by the police.
The Modi government defends the new citizenship law saying it offers expedited citizenship to “persecuted minorities” in the neighboring Islamic countries and has nothing to do with Indian Muslims. Under the Modi government, violence against minorities, especially Muslims, has seen a meteoric rise. In August 2019, the Hindu nationalist government stripped India’s only Muslim-majority state of its autonomy and statehood.
Modi government's new law has caused panic among Muslims, who are over 200 million in the country. Since the passing of the act, protests have continued across the country, with people of different faiths uniting for a pluralist or secular India.
In his around 30-minute speech on Monday, Trump praised India’s unity in diversity. He also referred to the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, which both the countries face. However, he refrained from making any remark on CAA, NRC, Kashmir, or the growing resentment among people against the Modi government's Hindu nationalist policies.
“[Prime Minister Modi] told me that in India they have worked very hard to have great and open religious freedom." - President Trump
On Tuesday, Trump said he did not discuss the citizenship law with Modi and it’s up to India to resolve the conflict.
"We did talk about religious freedom,” Trump said. “I will say that the Prime Minister was incredible and he told me that he wants people to have religious freedom. He told me that in India they have worked very hard to have great and open religious freedom."
"I don't want to say anything on CAA. It is up to India. I hope it will take the right decision for its people."
He offered mediation on the Kashmir crisis.
Last week, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity, said in its India factsheet that CAA and NRC would cause Muslims to face exclusion.
Days before Trump's visit, more than 100 people in Ahmedabad, including rights activists, research scholars and professors wrote a letter condemning his visit to India, calling it "a fascist alliance" between Modi and Trump.
"Both India and the U.S. have seen the rise of authoritarian politics in recent years, with Modi and Trump at the helm,” read the letter. “While Trump enacted a ban against refugees and migrants from several Muslim-majority countries, India has enacted the CAA, a law barring Muslims from neighboring Muslim-majority countries from receiving expedited citizenship offered to other minority groups.”
Desai and Anis were among the signatories to the letter.
"The so-called powerful leaders were meeting in the city,” Anis said. “Why were they scared of a student or a few activists? What could we have done?"
Such detentions, he added, are a form of “mental harassment” to intimidate those who question the government. “But we are not sacred,” he said.
Avinash Giri is a Poynter-Koch fellow reporting for Religion Unplugged based in Delhi. He is a founding member of Stories Asia and a graduate of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.