On Thursday (June 22), Narendra Modi became the only Indian Prime Minister to address the joint session of the USA Congress twice. He received 15 standing ovations and 79 applauses during his hour-long speech.
The Indian Prime Minister was also greeted with chants of ‘Modi Modi’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram.’ Following his speech, US lawmakers were seen lining up to interact with Narendra Modi.
During this time, he signed autographs and clicked selfies with members of the US Congress. PM Modi also autographed the joint session address booklet, presented to him by US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.
The State Visit by the Prime Minister of India has been hugely successful. With the condemnation of Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism by Joe Biden and PM Modi in their joint statement, to an over $3 billion investment and historic, unprecedented deepening of ties by the foray of meetings between PM Modi and thought leaders in the West, India has walked away with massive gains. Of course, the USA is a transactional state and can never be a dependable ally, a fact of which the power corridors are deeply aware, but the diplomatic realm is certainly not made up of absolute and in the grey-coloured world of diplomacy, India walked away with net positive results.
Even before the State Visit took off, however, American liberals and Islamists, along with the open and blatant support by the Indian political class led by Rahul Gandhi, launched a campaign to discredit PM Modi and by extension, India, united by their hunger for power, hate for Hindus and disdain for India.
17 organisations and 75 Senators and Members of Congress wrote 2 letters to President Biden asking him either not to host the State Dinner or to raise some specific issues.
On June 7 (local time), Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), which has links to Islamic terrorist organisations, announced to have written a letter to the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, to rescind the invitation of State Dinner extended to Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Seventeen organisations, including IAMC, signed the letter.
The organisations claimed that India is facing sharp democratic backsliding. The claim was based on April 20, 2023, Financial Times report titled ‘India’s Democratic Backsliding’. In the report, FT claimed the democratic values of India were on backtrack because a Gujarat court denied disqualified Congress MP Rahul Gandhi‘s plea against a 2-year sentence in a defamation case. FT called it bad news not only for India but for the whole world. In the letter, they cited four reports linked to CAA and NRC. They included a fact sheet by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from February 2020. However, the report clearly mentioned that CAA was only meant for minorities in neighbouring Islamic countries. The report does point out Assam NRC controversies, but assuming NRC, whenever it comes, will have the same regulations and guidelines is far-fetched. OpIndia did a detailed analysis of the baseless claims made by IAMC and other organisations in the letter sent to President Biden that can be checked here.
On June 20, 75 US Senators and Members of Congress wrote a letter to President Biden to take up issues including “shrinking of political space, the rise of religious intolerance, and more.
In the letter, the lawmakers asked Biden to raise “areas of concern” directly with PM Modi in addition to the many areas of shared interests between India and the US. They reminded President Biden of his statement where he said that America Must lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.”
Apart from a State Department report, they cited unnamed reports claiming to be “independent, credible reports” that reflect “troubling signs in India toward the shrinking of political space, the rise of religious intolerance, the targeting of civil society organizations and journalists, and growing restrictions on press freedoms and internet access.”
They claimed that religious freedom in India is showing worrisome signs as there has been an “increase of religious intolerance toward minorities and religiously motived violence by both private and state actors.” They also cited the dubious Reporters Without Borders ranking on Press Freedom that OpIndia has categorically debunked.
Both letters were publicised by the Congress party in India.
Excerpts from a letter addressed to President Biden by 75 US Senators & Members of Congress urging him to take up these issues with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) June 20, 2023
The Indian media will not show you this. But read the content to know why we as Indians should be worried.… pic.twitter.com/ES4k5vtD8n
OpIndia did a report where we analysed 16 organisations and 24 lawmakers who undersigned the two letters and the findings were shocking (though not surprising) – the organisations and lawmakers have links with Islamic terror organisations, Khalistanis, anti-India and anti-Hindu elements.
What was far more interesting, is the threads of connect between Congress and the anti-Hindu, anti-India elements which aimed to sabotage the State Visit.
Rahul Gandhi is on a 10-day USA tour, where he spoke at the National Press Club, Stanford University and also, to ‘think tanks’, allegedly discussing relations between India and USA. The Hudson Institute tweeted images of Rahul Gandhi in deep conversation with these “think tanks”. Sunita Vishwanath was seated alongside Rahul Gandhi at this event at Hudson Institute. Sunita Vishwanath is the co-founder of HrHR, which has also signed this letter against Narendra Modi alongside IAMC.
Investigating Info-warfare and Psy-war OSINT Disinfo Lab had conducted an investigation revealing that the ‘Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR)’ had been promoting the misleading narrative of ‘Hindu Vs Hindutva’. The same organisation was also seen endorsing the ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ event.
As per Disinfo Lab, HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups named Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI). Interestingly, the three organisations had formed another outfit called the Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA).
As per an article in The Hindu, the Alliance for Justice and Accountability had been at the forefront of leading demonstrations against the visit of PM Modi to Houston on September 22, 2019. According to Disinfo Lab, the co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, Sunita Vishwanath, also runs an organisation named ‘Women for Afghan Women’, which is funded by the Soros Open Society Foundation. Earlier, OpIndia reported in detail how George Soros had been fuelling a dangerous anti-India narrative through media and ‘civil society.’
HfHR’s founding member Raju also heads EKTA. It is an associate organization of IAMC. The sole purpose was to have Hindus on the panel to project that the Hindus, in general, were against Hindutva. Interestingly, HfHR ran Facebook ads to promote previous USCIRF reports.
Interestingly, Sunita Vishwanath, the co-founder of HfHR, is also closely connected to George Soros and Islamist-linked IAMC. The in-depth analysis of the web can be read here.
Recently, HfHR released a toolkit against PM Modi’s US visit. OpIndia’s detailed report on it can be seen here.
Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), a radical Islamist group that has alleged links with banned terror organisations such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and has a long history of lobbying against India.
The IAMC is a Jamat-e-Islami-backed lobbyist organisation claiming to be a rights advocacy group. In the past, it had reportedly collaborated with and even paid money to various groups in the USA to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom). A detailed report by Disinfo Lab has exposed its links with the terror outfit Jamat-e-Islami.
IAMC founder Shaik Ubaid and member Abdul Malik Mujahid have headed the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the US front for Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan. According to DisInfo Lab, ICNA has established links with Pakistan-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Rasheed Ahmed, who heads the IAMC currently, was the former executive director of the Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA). IMANA’s Director of Operations is Zahid Mahmood, an ex-Pak Navy official.
Similar reports covered by OpIndia on HfHR and Hamas-linked Islamist group CAIR can be read here and here.
IAMC has, in fact, come out in support of Rahul Gandhi several times and George Soros, with links to HfHR and by extension, IAMC, had not only dedicated money to combat nationalists including PM Modi but waded into the Adani fiasco, supporting Rahul Gandhi’s premise that Modi will have to be held accountable for a mythical ‘scam’.
The sinister agenda to sabotage the State Visit of an Indian Prime minister became even more apparent when Rahul Gandhi planned his visit right before that of PM Modi. During his visit, along with his alliance with HfHR and IAMC, he maligned India while hailing anti-Hindu and Islamist organisations like the Muslim League, calling them secular. Rahul Gandhi in the US had several speaking engagements where he certainly stirred the pot, probably to the detriment of his own party and political career. His speech revolved around the usual themes – Hindus bad, Muslims god, Congress peaceful, ‘Hindu BJP’ communal, Muslim League secular, Rahul Gandhi victim, Modi bad.
Interestingly, in an article in the Economic Times written by one Seema Sirohi, it was claimed that Rahul Gandhi during his visit made a trip to the White House, which both parties involved – the Biden administration and Rahul Gandhi (Congress) chose to keep under the wraps.
For an opposition leader to visit the White House in ‘secret’, without disclosing it to the government of India and the MEA, is a serious breach of protocol and could potentially undermine India’s interests.
Speculations were rife that Rahul Gandhi, in alliance with the Left and Islamists in the West, was attempting a regime change operation because democratically, Congress had been wiped out at the national level with no sign of revival.
With the deep connections to rabid communists, Islamists and secret visits that have not been disclosed yet, it becomes evident that Congress seemed to have worked in tandem with anti-India and anti-Hindu elements to sabotage a State Visit by the Indian Prime Minister to a friendly nation. Who that Prime Minister is immaterial. In a country that values democracy above all else, ideally, the alliances being formed by Congress should be considered treacherous. Demanding foreign interference, as Rahul Gandhi has several times, along with allying with anti-India elements to undermine democracy in the nation, regardless of which party is in power, is an act of internal aggression against the State that must be considered seriously and deliberated upon by a nation that stands at the cusp of civilisational revival.
