by LEELA JACINTO
French President Emmanuel Macron rolls out the red carpet for Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Indian leader picked as guest of honour at this year’s July 14 Bastille Day military parade. But critics warn that by overlooking rights violations and democratic backsliding under Modi’s reign, France is sending the wrong message.
Aakashi Bhatt was just 11 years old when the riots that would turn her father into one of India’s most high-profile conscientious objectors and haunt Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political career erupted in the western state of Gujarat.
Bhatt was at home with her mother and brother in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s commercial hub, when her father called home shortly after midnight on March 1, 2002. Anti-Muslim riots were at their peak, and from a window, the young girl could see angry, chanting mobs, armed with sticks and swords, walking down the main street. The carnage would claim more than 1,000, mostly Muslim lives.
Her father, a senior Indian police officer, had been working flat out and had not returned home since the riots broke out on February 27.
“The landlines were not working, my dad called my mother on her mobile and told her to take the kids, go to the master bedroom, and stay inside. ‘I’m withdrawing our personal security to send them from pocket to pocket [of the city] to help quell the riots,’ he told my mother. Our house was left unattended and the security team was sent away,” recalled Bhatt in a phone interview more than two decades after the incident.
Back in 2002, her father, Sanjiv Bhatt, was a senior police officer in the Gujarat intelligence bureau. Modi was then chief minister of the western Indian state.
The 2002 Gujarat riots, one of the worst atrocities in India’s bloody communal history, would change the course of the two men’s lives.
Sanjiv Bhatt – also known as the “whistleblower cop” – has since been suspended from the police force and is currently serving a life sentence in an Indian jail.
Modi has risen to the apex of political power in India. On the international stage, he’s a sought-after guest in Western capitals as India is increasingly viewed as a counterweight to China.
The art of dining in the Louvre
Last month, US President Joe Biden hosted Modi on a state visit – only the third state visit of the Biden presidency – in what a US-based commentator called “Operation seduce Narendra Modi”. The visit included an address to a joint session of Congress, a state dinner and the inking of major defence deals.
Barely three weeks later, France follows suit with President Emmanuel Macron picking Modi as the guest of honour at this year’s July 14 Bastille Day military parade.
La fête nationale, as it’s known in France, is a major event on the national calendar, marking the triumph of liberty and the democratic will of the people. A Bastille Day chief guest invitation is an honour replete with symbolism in a country that fought for equal rights for all citizens more than 200 years ago.
This year, Macron is pulling out all the stops for Modi’s two-day visit. The July 14 military parade will be followed by a special dinner, with more than 200 guests, at the magnificent Louvre, the world’s most visited museum. The Indian prime minister will be treated to a special viewing of iconic art pieces, according to the French presidential office. Indian media are speculating about a photo-op of the two leaders with Leonardo da Vinci’s La Gioconda, better known as the Mona Lisa.
France 24 for more