Raja Javed Ali Bhatti
The parties these MPs belong to are known for their Islamophobic statements and anti-immigrant stance.These MPS belong to Rassemblement National, Brexit party, Forza Italia, Partito Democratico.Most of the European Union (EU) delegation which is set to visit Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) in a personal capacity and not as an official EU delegation, were affiliated to extreme right-wing parties including France’s Rassemblement National and Brexit party.22-members out of the 28 delegation are right-wing politicians in their home countries. The parties which these politicians are affiliated with are known for their Islamophobic statements and anti-immigrant stance, Telegraph India reported.Six members from the European MPs belong to France’s far-right Rassemblement party, five from the Poland’s far-right Prawo i Sprawiedliwo??, four from the UK’s right-wing Brexit Party. While, two each belong from Italy’s far-right Lega Party and Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland as well as members of the Czech Republic’s centre-Right KDU-?SL, Belgium’s right-wing Vlaams Belang and Spain’s far-Right VOX.There is also one MP from Britain’s Liberal Democrats, a former prime minister is from Italy’s Forza Italia and another from the centre-Left Partito Democratico. All these members will be visitng IoK today to review the situation there following India’s decison to revoke Article 37 from its constitution. They will meet with government officials and residents. The EU delegation arrived in India and also met PM Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Dova. They were briefed about the issue of Kashmir and the situation there following the abrogation of the article.The EU delegation will be the first to visit the valley as New Delhi has so far denied permission to foreign journalists to cover the situation in Kashmir after the August 5.The visit of 23 European Parliamentarians to Kashmir had the Opposition up in arms. Many leaders questioned the ideological leanings of the delegates, with some even accusing them of being Nazi and Hitler supporters, fascists and Islamophobes.Though 27 European Union (EU) delegates were invited to assess the ground situation in Kashmir post abrogation of Article 370, 23 made it. India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) scanned through Twitter profiles of 17 invitees, and found most of them have something in common opposition to radical Islam. Broadly, the delegation that visited Kashmir was nationalist’ and anti-immigration’.The Telegraph had earlier reported that 22 out of the 27 delegates belong to right-wing’ political parties in their countries.Of the 17 Twitter profiles analysed, eight EU delegates have tweets against radical Islam’. Tomá Zdechovský of the KDU-CSL party in Czech Republic said in December 2015 that Christian Democratic Parties’ alliance in Germany wanted to ban niqab and burqa in Germany. He said in Czech, According to German politicians, it does not belong to German culture.NGO inviting MEPs claimed PM wanted to meet them, promised “VIP” visit.The Members of European Parliament (MEPs) coming to India for a visit to Srinagar were promised a “prestigious VIP meeting” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the NGO that organised the visit claimed that he wanted to meet them as “influential decision-makers from the European Union”, invitations accessed by The Hindu show.The invitations that went out to more than 30 MEPs from Brussels-based British PIO Madi Sharma, who accompanied the MEPs delegation, said that she ran a non-governmental organisation (NGO) called WESTT (Women’s Economic and Social Think Tank), although her link to the government and to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) are unclear. The Hindu attempted to email Ms. Sharma, whose Twitter account describes her as an “international business broker”, but the message bounced back and said the page was invalid.”I am organising a prestigious VIP meeting with the Prime Minister of India, His Excellency Narendra Modi and it is my privilege to offer this invitation to you,” Ms. Sharma said. “As you will be aware Prime Minister Modi had a landslide victory in the recent elections in India and is planning to continue on his path of growth and development for India the country and its people. In that respect, he would like to meet influential decision makers from the European Union.” It also explained that the 3-day visit would include meetings with Mr. Modi and senior officials, a visit to Kashmir, and a press conference.BJP leader Sudesh Verma on Tuesday said that the members of the European Parliament who visited Kashmir earlier in the day were tourists who happen to be MPs and their opinion did not matter.Speaking to India Today TV’s Rajdeep Sardesai, BJP’s spokesperson Sudesh Verma said that the delegation was not here in any official capacity.”The delegation is not official, they have come to visit India to see its diversity on an individual level. They expressed an interest to see Kashmir and the government said why not,” he said.The BJP leader refuted claims that the delegation’s visit was a sign that the Modi government was trying to internationalise the Kashmir issue.”Modi government is not internationalising the issue. How can tourists who happen to be MPs need protocol or security? Anybody who goes there needs to be briefed of the situation. Their opinion does not matter,” BJP leader Sudesh Verma said.”Indian MPs go to Kashmir with political agenda”On being asked about why the Indian MPs have not been allowed to visit Kashmir, the BJP leader said they are free to go there on their personal will, but added that “Jammu and Kashmir is a sensitive issue and hence people with political agenda could not be allowed to go there”.”Look at what Rahul Gandhi did, who was invited to visit there. His statements were quoted by Pakistan to malign India. Will you go there and challenge a decision backed by two-third of parliament? When there is a consensus you fall in line,” the BJP leader said.Former Secretary at Ministry of External Affairs KC Singh, who was also present during the show, said that even as there was nothing wrong in inviting an international delegation but the choice of leaders did not work in India’s favour.”I don’t know why we have to market the normalcy [in Kashmir] to a particularly motley group of people, which represents fringe opinion in Europe and much of that is anti-foreigner, Islamophobic and against the Europian Union itself. It’s not going to endear us [India to the world],” KC Singh said.”Strings of the puppet are showing”The career diplomat said that there was nothing wrong in a government organising such a visit but it has to be done more systematically.”There is nothing wrong with inviting MPs of other countries, all governments do that. But the web that they weave of NGOs is very credible and they are at arm’s length away from the government,” Singh said.The former MEA official said that cancelling the invitation of Chris Davies because he sought permission to roam freely in Kashmir showed to the world that India was trying to manage the visit. “The second problem is the narrow shade of opinion being represented by the panel.””Strings of the puppets are showing. It’s very poorly handled, though there is nothing wrong in doing it. It’s manner of the outreach to the kind of people, it’s the manner of doing it and the context that within the country you are not allowing free political interaction of the Valley with the mainstream and at the same time you bring together all these people, I think this has not worked together well,” KC Singh said.Killing of Labours during visit planned by RAW as previous practice.RSS& far right Nazis in Europe have common agenda, Islamophobia.
