New Delhi: Two women MPs in the UK have slammed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for visiting a JCB facility in Gujarat just days after excavators demolished homes and shops in multiple states following communal riots.
MPs also questioned whether Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the problem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While the BJP-led governments and civic authorities claim that the demolitions were carried out to clear encroachment, the opposition and activists accuse them of targeting Muslims in the name of clearing encroachment.
Nadia Whittome, a Labour MP for Nottingham East, questioned whether Prime Minister Johnson’s recent visit to India had helped legitimize the demolitions carried out by BJP-led administrations around the country.
She cited images of Mr Johnson with an excavator seen on a visit to the JCB factory near Vadodara shortly after the BJP-controlled North Delhi Municipal Corporation demolished homes and shops in Jahangirpuri.
“We know that during the Prime Minister’s visit, he was photographed leaning out of a digger in a JCB factory. Just days before the BJP used JCB bulldozers to bulldoze Muslim shops and homes and the gate of a mosque in New Delhi,” Ms Whittome said.
“Did the Prime Minister raise this with (Prime Minister) Modi. If not, why not? And does the Minister accept that the Prime Minister’s visit to India has helped legitimise the actions of Modi’s far-right government?”
Zarah Sultana, MP from Coventry South, also raised the issue in the UK Parliament and said Mr Johnson’s visit to the JCB factory “shows how much he really cares about human rights”.
“Boris Johnson failed to challenge Modi on the BJP whipping-up anti-Muslim violence during his trip to India. Instead he visited a JCB factory the day after the company’s bulldozers demolished Muslim homes in Delhi,” she said in a Twitter post, sharing a clip of her speech in the House.
The government benches responded to both MPs by saying they reject prejudice and discuss such concerns when necessary.
Mr Johnson’s April 21 visit to the JCB facility had been panned as “tone-deaf” and “ironic.”
After conflicts between two communities during a Hanuman Jayanti parade in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, the demolition was carried out. On Ram Navami, there were multiple episodes of communal unrest in various regions of the country.
JCB is among the largest manufactures of earth movers and excavators and over the years, the term bulldozers has come to be synonymous with JCB in India.
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