NEW YORK: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday brushed aside an outcry from human rights activists to receive an award from the Gates Foundation in New York for his efforts to end open defecation.
The decision to honor the Indian leader provoked several withering op-eds and the ire of three Nobel prize winners, citing rising attacks against minorities under Modi’s tenure, while British-Asian actors Jameela Jamil and Riz Ahmed who had been due to attend dropped out.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it respected the critics’ views but defended its decision, saying sanitation is a neglected issue and India’s program can serve as a model for other countries.
“I dedicate this award to all those Indians who transformed the ‘Clean India Mission’ into a people’s movement and started giving cleanliness the highest priority in their daily lives,” Modi said after collecting the award from billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
India’s government says it has built more than 100 million toilets under a $20 billion initiative begun in 2014 to address the issue of open defecation, particularly in rural areas, a major public health issue in the country.
Under Modi’s plan, tribal households get $200 each for building latrines.
But ahead of the ceremony, Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Maguire, Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman and Shirin Ebadi said that under Modi’s leadership, “India has descended into dangerous and deadly chaos that has consistently undermined human rights, democracy.
“This is particularly troubling to us as the stated mission of your foundation is to preserve life and fight inequity,” they wrote, urging the Gates Foundation to change its decision.
In addition to a rise in mob lynchings of Muslims, Christians, and Dalits, they noted the decision by Genocide Watch to issue warnings for the state of Assam and Indian-administered Kashmir.
The disputed territory is under a communications blackout that has lasted 50 days after Modi rescinded its autonomy.
The award was also protested in an online petition that garnered 100,000 signatures as well as a comment piece co-authored by feminist leader Gloria Steinem.
Modi won a second term in a huge election victory in May and drew tens of thousands of diaspora fans on Sunday in an unusual joint rally in Houston with President Donald Trump.
He did not respond to the criticism over the award.
The Gates Foundation told AFP in a statement: “Before the Swachh Bharat mission, over 500 million people in India did not have access to safe sanitation, and now, the majority do.
“The Swachh Bharat Mission can serve as a model for other countries around the world that urgently need to improve access to sanitation for the world’s poorest.”
Toilet controversy: India’s Modi ignores protests to collect Gates award
Toilet controversy: India’s Modi ignores protests to collect Gates award
In southeast Pakistan, Ramadan brings Hindus and Muslims closer
MITHI: Partab Shivani, a Hindu in Muslim-majority Pakistan, has fasted on and off during Ramadan for years, but this time is different as he practices abstinence for the entire holy month.
Every year, he and his friends in the southeastern city of Mithi arrange iftar, when Muslims break their daily fast, to foster peace and solidarity between the two religions.
“I believe we need to promote interfaith harmony. First, we are humans — religions came later,” Shivani, a 48-year-old social activist, told AFP, adding that he also reads the teachings of the Buddha.
“His message is about peace and ending war. Peace can spread through solidarity and by standing with one another. Distance only widens the gap between people,” he added.
Ninety-six percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Muslim. Just two percent are Hindu, most of them living in rural areas of Sindh province where Mithi is located.
In Mithi itself, most of the 60,000 inhabitants are Hindu.
Many of the city’s Hindus also observe Ramadan and iftar has become a social gathering where people from both faiths happily participate.
“This has been a wonderful tradition of ours for a very long time,” said Mir Muhammad Buledi, a 51-year-old Muslim friend who attended Shivani’s iftar gathering.
“It is a beautiful example of harmony between the two communities.”
Like brothers
Discrimination against minorities runs deep in Pakistan.
Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
That triggered widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, freedom of religion or belief is under constant threat, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
State authorities, often using religious unrest for political gain, have failed to address the crisis, the independent non-profit says.
But such tensions are absent in Mithi.
“I am a Hindu but I keep all the fasts during this month,” said Sushil Malani, a local politician. “I feel happy standing with my Muslim brothers.
“We celebrate Eid together as well. This tradition in the region is very old.”
Restaurants and tea stalls are closed across Pakistan during Ramadan.
Ramesh Kumar, a 52-year-old Hindu man who sells sweets and savoury items outside a Muslim shrine, keeps his push cart covered and closed until iftar.
“There is no discrimination among us if someone is Muslim or Hindu. I have been seeing this since my childhood that we all live together like brothers,” he said.
Muslim shrine, Hindu caretaker
Locals say Mithi’s peaceful religious coexistence can be traced to its remote location, emerging from the sand dunes of the Tharparkar desert, which borders the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Cows — considered sacred in Hinduism — roam freely in Mithi city, as they do in neighboring India.
At two Sufi Muslim shrines in the middle of the city, Hindu families arrange meals, bringing fruit, meals and juices for their Muslim neighbors to break their fasts.
“We respect Muslims,” said Mohan Lal Malhi, a Hindu caretaker of one of the shrines.
Mohan said his parents and elders taught him to respect people regardless of religion or color, and the traditions pass from one generation to the next.
Local residents said both communities consider their social relationships more important than their religious identity.
“You will see a (Sikh) gurdwara, a mosque, and a shrine standing side by side here,” Mohan said. “The atmosphere of this area teaches humanity.”
