German MPs visit was not in accordance with India’s policy

German MPs visit was not in accordance with India’s policy
By Japan K Pathak
Ahmedabad, DeshGujarat, 17 April, 2010



In his recent visit to the US, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met German Chancellor. Offending activities of two right wing Christian German MPs during their recent visit to India was not discussed. It needs guts to talk tough.


It has now become clear that two right-wing German Catholic MPs who visited Gujarat and Orissa early this month were here on Tourist visa. Interestingly, though they were on tourist visa here, in Gujarat they declared openly that they were studying human right situation for submitting a report about same to German government.

So it is a clear case that the German MPs of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) violated the purpose for which they were awarded Visa. In the name of tourism, they actually did a job not acceptable to the country. One of the two MPs who visited Gujarat, Ute Granold clearly writes on her website “The goal of our trip(to Gujarat and Orissa) was to us to gain a first impression of the situation of religious minorities.”

India’s visa policy for foreign based human right watch delegations is more or less clear. Last year visa was denied to the US commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF) delegation. The USCIRF wanted to visit Indian states of Gujarat and Orissa to check human right situation on June 12, 2009, but denied visa. USCIRF was denied entry to India even during the governments led by PV Narsimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajapayee who never allowed such institutions to sit in judgment on India regarding human rights. Thus the stand on such issue was always agreed upon across various political fronts. Last year when Christian Missionaries were lobbing for USCIRF’s India visit, various government officers also had objected to the “vitiated” method of reporting by the US-based body.

If the German MPs had disclosed a real agenda of their visit to India, it was most likely that their visa could be denied. Perhaps knowing this very well, they backed by Christian religious body ‘Missio’, involved in conversion of Hindus, managed to arrive in India on tourist visa but then did the job exactly according to their agenda. It should be very well mentioned that MP Ute Granold is Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union / CSU Parliamentary Group in the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid of the German Bundestag.

Do tourists call press conferences? Do tourists defame the leaders of the host nation in public? Do tourists meet opposition party leaders? What kind of tourism was that? Do they tourists just visit Ahmedabad and Kandhmahal and not Taj Mahal or Jaipur?

How come government allowed these German MPs to make judgment on human right situation here? Somewhere down the line, the government of India is responsible for German MPs episode. After their Gujarat press conference, they could be immediately deported for their activities that were not in accordance with tourist visa.

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German MPs activity was not in accordance with India’s policy