Gardiner and Gujarat: how a "left" Labour MP defended genocide

I hope readers were sad to be reminded, or shocked to learn, of the vicious anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat in 2002 (Solidarity 626).

There is a supplementary fact, connected to the UK, that is also shocking (in a more minor key).

I wrote recently about Labour MP Barry Gardiner’s support for Narendra Modi and the Hindu right. Gardiner has also defended Modi over Gujarat specifically.

Gardiner’s background is firmly on the Labour right, but he now presents himself as some sort of left-winger. He is a regular presence at labour movement actions and demonstrations. After a union fringe meeting at Labour conference last year I argued with him about Modi’s government and the Indian farmers’ struggle (which he was very clear he did not support).

After a union protest about London Transport cuts in December, the argument continued. Defending his support for and “friendship” with Modi, Gardiner praised his record specifically in Gujarat. My eyes widening, I pointed out Modi's advocacy of the kind of neo-liberal, anti-worker policies Gardiner claims to oppose - and raised the 2002 massacres. He responded that India’s Supreme Court had found Modi completely innocent. As I explained in Solidarity 626, that is a gross misrepresentation on multiple levels.

(On the same occasion, Gardiner denied there is harsh repression in Kashmir.)

It's far from just a matter of those one-on-one conversations. In 2013, as Modi approached power nationally, after the UK government lifted a decade-long de facto ban on him coming here, Gardiner defended Modi over Gujarat on the world stage.

Shortly after the ban was lifted, Gardiner himself invited Modi to the UK! Following protests here, Modi declined – but Gardiner militantly defended the invitation, praising Modi.

Appearing on India’s NDTV (New Delhi TV) in August 2013, Gardiner was challenged about this invitation by interviewer Nidhi Razdan. After attempting to deny that Modi had ever been banned from the UK, he said:

“It's a matter for the people of Gujarat who have now re-elected Narendra Modi in successive elections since he was first elected in 2001. They have seen fit to restore him to office. And it is not for me as a foreign politician to interfere in the process in any way.”

Apply this to any far-right leader around the world who has won elections. And in fact Gardiner did intervene, by supporting Modi – inviting him to the UK, praising him and appearing on Indian TV to defend him, all in the run up to 2014 Indian election. (In 2019, when Modi won re-election, Gardiner tweeted congratulating him, praising his commitment to "diversity".)

Challenged again by Nidhi Razdan, Gardiner said:

“It seems you have no respect for your own Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of India has looked at those allegations, I believe, on a number of occasions. And has absolved Mr Narendra Modi completely from those allegations. For you to be bringing them up on Indian television is extraordinarily strange.”

As explained here, this a distortion of what the Supreme Court-appointed “Special Investigation Team” actually said; it ignores the dire problems with that process; and in any case it whitewashes Modi in defiance of blatant facts.

Imagine if a Labour MP, let alone a “left” Labour MP, engaged in this kind of apologism for Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump – neither of whose records includes anything quite like the Gujarat massacre. Gardiner is poisonous.