The World's Largest Democracy

Narendra Modi's (Chief Minister, Gujarat, India) denial of a diplomatic visa to the US on the grounds that he mis-managed the state during the terrible riots in 2002 between the Hindus and the Muslims has sparked enormous debate and controversy. Here is my humble take on it -

I watched this documentary called Final Solution sometime back - it was a collection of interviews with the survivors of the riots. The filmmaker made a very strong point in the first hour and then beat his point over and over again for the next hour - by then the point was definitely taken! :) I liked the saying they ended the documentary with - "An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world will be blind", by Mahatma Gandhi. This documentary paints a very negative image of Narendra Modi, which I guess is the opinion shared by the majority. His whole Gaurav Yatra thing was utter crap! In my opinion, he was responsible for instigating, encouraging, and turning a blind eye on the violence against the Muslims by the Hindus.

That said, he is still the leader of a state, a democratically elected leader of India, the world's largest democracy. India, to me, represents, democracy-in-progress - I don’t think we have it all sorted out yet and it may be a while before we have it down, but we're heading in the right direction. One must understand that its extremely challenging to uphold the true virtues of democracy in a country like India, with a billion people. But we're doing a fairly decent job of it right now and I only see things getting better hereon (am a very optimistic Congress supporter).

So, was it right for the US to deny him a visa when he was only suspected, and not accused of any wrong-doings? On paper, clearly no. But from a moral standpoint, I am going to go ahead and say, yes! He would have come here, held rallies in NJ, spoken utter trash, and instigated the Hindu gujaratis here also. That man exacerbates his position with his oratory "skills" - shit like, "the last time a gujarati was thrown out a train, it led to the freedom struggle and India's independence (the gujarati in question being Mahatma Gandhi), this time wonder what the Americans shunning a gujarati is going to do" - the audaucity to even put himself on the same sentence as Gandhi..

Enough said - good call on putting that man in place, someone had to, and our governments' hands were tied by "democracy".