MP Michael Chong’s Praise of Modi is a Learning Opportunity for Canadian MPs
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October 24th, 2021
Justice For All Canada urges Canadian leadership to begin condemning India’s BJP government for its obscene record of violence, discrimination and racist abuse against minorities. This week, Conservative MP Michael Chong commended Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s administration of 1 billion COVID-19 vaccination doses.
Despite this accomplishment, several million Indians are losing their citizenship due to the government weaponizing citizenship policies against minorities. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) was implemented by the Indian government in the north-eastern state of Assam (bordering Bangladesh). According to the UN’s World Migration Report, this region is one of the most vulnerable corridors in Asia. The border is ethnically diverse with a frequent flow of legal migration.
However in 2018, India’s government screened 32.9 million people in this region as “illegal residents”. As a result, 2 million people or 6% of Assam’s population, were effectively left stateless. India is also home to disturbing patterns of hate crimes against minorities, highlighting the country’s dangerous shift to majoritarianism under Modi’s administration. According to reports, hate crimes against Indian Muslims soared after Modi’s re-election. An alarming 90% of religious hate crimes in the last decade have occurred since Modi came to power.
“India’s citizenship policies, not just the NRC but the CAA, are repressive tools that deserve more scrutiny from Canada. Especially as our foreign policy increases its reliance on Indo-Pacific regions, we can’t admire Modi without calling out his state-sponsored hate campaign against Muslims and other minorities. Rohingya were first villainized before being massacred, we can’t allow another slow genocide to unfold,” said Taha Ghayyur, Executive Director.
This month, thousands of Muslim landowner families in Assam were forcefully evicted through a violent “encroachment” drive. An army of police swarmed into the village, beating up people and burning their homes and possessions. These Muslim citizens even carried documents to prove their citizenship, but were violently evicted nonetheless. During the attack, a viral video showed a government photographer stomping on the lifeless body of protester Moinul Haque. A 12-year-old boy was also fatally shot by the police. After the merciless ordeal that displaced hundreds of families, an investigation by India’s CPI-M party revealed that over 1,000 Muslim families evicted in Assam were, in fact, Indian citizens.
As a former Parliamentary Member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and former Vice-Chair of Foreign Affairs and International Development, we ask MP Michael Chong to reassess his praise for Modi, a leader criticized by the United Nations for his language and actions around human rights defenders in India.
Justice For All Canada also requests MP Michael Chong to advocate for millions of Muslims facing statelessness and persecution in India’s northeastern state Assam, and facilitate important asks to the Canadian government on behalf of targeted Muslim, Dalit and Christian minorities, in India:
Justice For All Canada urges Canadian leadership to begin condemning India’s BJP government for its obscene record of violence, discrimination and racist abuse against minorities. This week, Conservative MP Michael Chong commended Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s administration of 1 billion COVID-19 vaccination doses.
Despite this accomplishment, several million Indians are losing their citizenship due to the government weaponizing citizenship policies against minorities. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) was implemented by the Indian government in the north-eastern state of Assam (bordering Bangladesh). According to the UN’s World Migration Report, this region is one of the most vulnerable corridors in Asia. The border is ethnically diverse with a frequent flow of legal migration.
However in 2018, India’s government screened 32.9 million people in this region as “illegal residents”. As a result, 2 million people or 6% of Assam’s population, were effectively left stateless. India is also home to disturbing patterns of hate crimes against minorities, highlighting the country’s dangerous shift to majoritarianism under Modi’s administration. According to reports, hate crimes against Indian Muslims soared after Modi’s re-election. An alarming 90% of religious hate crimes in the last decade have occurred since Modi came to power.
“India’s citizenship policies, not just the NRC but the CAA, are repressive tools that deserve more scrutiny from Canada. Especially as our foreign policy increases its reliance on Indo-Pacific regions, we can’t admire Modi without calling out his state-sponsored hate campaign against Muslims and other minorities. Rohingya were first villainized before being massacred, we can’t allow another slow genocide to unfold,” said Taha Ghayyur, Executive Director.
This month, thousands of Muslim landowner families in Assam were forcefully evicted through a violent “encroachment” drive. An army of police swarmed into the village, beating up people and burning their homes and possessions. These Muslim citizens even carried documents to prove their citizenship, but were violently evicted nonetheless. During the attack, a viral video showed a government photographer stomping on the lifeless body of protester Moinul Haque. A 12-year-old boy was also fatally shot by the police. After the merciless ordeal that displaced hundreds of families, an investigation by India’s CPI-M party revealed that over 1,000 Muslim families evicted in Assam were, in fact, Indian citizens.
As a former Parliamentary Member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and former Vice-Chair of Foreign Affairs and International Development, we ask MP Michael Chong to reassess his praise for Modi, a leader criticized by the United Nations for his language and actions around human rights defenders in India.
Justice For All Canada also requests MP Michael Chong to advocate for millions of Muslims facing statelessness and persecution in India’s northeastern state Assam, and facilitate important asks to the Canadian government on behalf of targeted Muslim, Dalit and Christian minorities, in India:
- Canada should mobilize an International response to the disenfranchisement of millions of Muslims in Assam, who live under the consequences of the re-verification of the National Register of Citizens.
- Canada should invoke the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) against Indian officials guilty of virulent hate speech, and inciting pogroms and violence against Indian Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities.
- Canada must raise concerns about the humanitarian crisis caused by the Assam government's eviction drives that strip thousands of Muslims of their lands, subjecting a vast majority of women, children, and the elderly to inhumane conditions.