A US Congressional committee held an extended, if somewhat impromptu, debate on the denial of US visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, with a Republican lawmaker questioning Washington’s tough line when no court in India has held him guilty of any wrongdoing with regard to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Congresswoman Cynthia lummis from Wyoming brought up the issue during a hearing on Capitol Hill after Katrina lantos Swett, chairperson of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said the commission had last year reiterated its continued concerns about giving a visa to Modi if he were to apply afresh. Modi was first denied the US visa back in 2005.
lummis, who had visited Gujarat in March as part of a delegation of lawmakers and business people, stressed that nothing has been proven against Modi and went on to add that he could be his party’s candidate for the Prime Minister’s post in the next elections.
But Swett and another specialist on religious freedom from Georgetown University, Thomas Farr, defended the US Government’s tough line against him, though they conceded that the issue would have to be revisited if Modi were to become the Prime Minister of India.
In her remarks, lumis said she had “some concerns” about the US Government’s continued visa denial. “Here is someone whose province is growing dramatically in its hiring of people, in the welfare of their families. We have a gigantic Ford Motor Company manufacturing facility going in in Gujarat,” she said.
lummis said while a disproportionate number of Muslims had been killed in the 2002 riots, it had somehow been “converted into an egregious violations of religious freedom for which he is directly responsible for”.