SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
U.S. President Donald Trump with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two will meet in India on Monday. (Photo: White House/Flickr)
'Meant to Hide the Poor': Trump Gets His Wall--In India--Ahead of Monday Visit
The newly-erected barrier will allow Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to offer a carefully-curated view for the U.S. president.
Feb 20, 2020
When President Donald Trump arrives in Ahmedabad, India on Monday, he's expected to be greeted by roughly 100,000 cheering Indians along a sparkling clean route to the world's largest cricket stadium where another crowd of 110,000 will attend a rally with the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It's pure spectacle.
Modi and his government have built walls along the president's route to hide the slums lining the route, a sign of India's high levels of inequality, from Trump and his retinue.
"Trump promised to build a wall, India did it, just before his arrival," tweeted journalist Rana Ayyub.
The cheering crowds on the street and at the Sardar Patel Stadium will be made up of loyalists and party members.
As the New York Times reported:
Just to stand along the road that Mr. Trump's motorcade will travel for a few minutes on Monday requires a special pass, given to carefully vetted party members, their allies and special groups handpicked by the government. This is a level of control Mr. Modi can deliver in India that is very different from Britain, for example, where Mr. Trump treaded carefully to avoid the optics of hostile crowds.
Ahmedabad is located in the state of Gujarat, where Modi was once governor. Riots in 2002 in the state that killed nearly 800 Muslims and have been described as a pogrom by scholars spurred accusations that the violence was implicitly encouraged by Modi, leading to a travel ban to the U.S. until his election as prime minister in 2014.
At a rally in Colorado on Thursday, Trump claimed that 6-10 million people would come out to see him during his visit to Ahmedabad, a grossly inflated number.
Trump and Modi are expected to talk trade and arms deals during the two-day visit, which will be punctuated with visits to a number of cities and the Taj Mahal.
The Washington Post visited the slums along Trump's route being hidden by the wall and talked to residents.
Reshma Saraniya, 29, has lived in the slum, a broken-down collection of homes with corrugated tin roofs, her whole life. Earlier this month, she was at her job at a nearby hotel when neighbors called her to say the city authorities had arrived to demolish about 20 huts, including the one where she had lived with her 11-year-old son for the past two years. Saraniya knew a demolition could happen, she said, her voice vibrating with emotion, but she received no warning it was imminent. Now there is ragged earth and a cement wall where she used to live.
Indian activist Aswathy Jwala protested the building of the wall, standing near the slum's entrance with a handwritten sign.
"This is our India, our real India," the sign read. "Don't hide our India. Expose our India and work to make it better."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
When President Donald Trump arrives in Ahmedabad, India on Monday, he's expected to be greeted by roughly 100,000 cheering Indians along a sparkling clean route to the world's largest cricket stadium where another crowd of 110,000 will attend a rally with the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It's pure spectacle.
Modi and his government have built walls along the president's route to hide the slums lining the route, a sign of India's high levels of inequality, from Trump and his retinue.
"Trump promised to build a wall, India did it, just before his arrival," tweeted journalist Rana Ayyub.
The cheering crowds on the street and at the Sardar Patel Stadium will be made up of loyalists and party members.
As the New York Times reported:
Just to stand along the road that Mr. Trump's motorcade will travel for a few minutes on Monday requires a special pass, given to carefully vetted party members, their allies and special groups handpicked by the government. This is a level of control Mr. Modi can deliver in India that is very different from Britain, for example, where Mr. Trump treaded carefully to avoid the optics of hostile crowds.
Ahmedabad is located in the state of Gujarat, where Modi was once governor. Riots in 2002 in the state that killed nearly 800 Muslims and have been described as a pogrom by scholars spurred accusations that the violence was implicitly encouraged by Modi, leading to a travel ban to the U.S. until his election as prime minister in 2014.
At a rally in Colorado on Thursday, Trump claimed that 6-10 million people would come out to see him during his visit to Ahmedabad, a grossly inflated number.
Trump and Modi are expected to talk trade and arms deals during the two-day visit, which will be punctuated with visits to a number of cities and the Taj Mahal.
The Washington Post visited the slums along Trump's route being hidden by the wall and talked to residents.
Reshma Saraniya, 29, has lived in the slum, a broken-down collection of homes with corrugated tin roofs, her whole life. Earlier this month, she was at her job at a nearby hotel when neighbors called her to say the city authorities had arrived to demolish about 20 huts, including the one where she had lived with her 11-year-old son for the past two years. Saraniya knew a demolition could happen, she said, her voice vibrating with emotion, but she received no warning it was imminent. Now there is ragged earth and a cement wall where she used to live.
Indian activist Aswathy Jwala protested the building of the wall, standing near the slum's entrance with a handwritten sign.
"This is our India, our real India," the sign read. "Don't hide our India. Expose our India and work to make it better."
When President Donald Trump arrives in Ahmedabad, India on Monday, he's expected to be greeted by roughly 100,000 cheering Indians along a sparkling clean route to the world's largest cricket stadium where another crowd of 110,000 will attend a rally with the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It's pure spectacle.
Modi and his government have built walls along the president's route to hide the slums lining the route, a sign of India's high levels of inequality, from Trump and his retinue.
"Trump promised to build a wall, India did it, just before his arrival," tweeted journalist Rana Ayyub.
The cheering crowds on the street and at the Sardar Patel Stadium will be made up of loyalists and party members.
As the New York Times reported:
Just to stand along the road that Mr. Trump's motorcade will travel for a few minutes on Monday requires a special pass, given to carefully vetted party members, their allies and special groups handpicked by the government. This is a level of control Mr. Modi can deliver in India that is very different from Britain, for example, where Mr. Trump treaded carefully to avoid the optics of hostile crowds.
Ahmedabad is located in the state of Gujarat, where Modi was once governor. Riots in 2002 in the state that killed nearly 800 Muslims and have been described as a pogrom by scholars spurred accusations that the violence was implicitly encouraged by Modi, leading to a travel ban to the U.S. until his election as prime minister in 2014.
At a rally in Colorado on Thursday, Trump claimed that 6-10 million people would come out to see him during his visit to Ahmedabad, a grossly inflated number.
Trump and Modi are expected to talk trade and arms deals during the two-day visit, which will be punctuated with visits to a number of cities and the Taj Mahal.
The Washington Post visited the slums along Trump's route being hidden by the wall and talked to residents.
Reshma Saraniya, 29, has lived in the slum, a broken-down collection of homes with corrugated tin roofs, her whole life. Earlier this month, she was at her job at a nearby hotel when neighbors called her to say the city authorities had arrived to demolish about 20 huts, including the one where she had lived with her 11-year-old son for the past two years. Saraniya knew a demolition could happen, she said, her voice vibrating with emotion, but she received no warning it was imminent. Now there is ragged earth and a cement wall where she used to live.
Indian activist Aswathy Jwala protested the building of the wall, standing near the slum's entrance with a handwritten sign.
"This is our India, our real India," the sign read. "Don't hide our India. Expose our India and work to make it better."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.