By Isaac Chotiner September 24, 2019
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was at a Houston stadium on Sunday for a rally, appearing with President Trump before a crowd of fifty thousand people. Many of the attendees were Indian-American supporters of Modi, the leader of a Hindu-nationalist movement. “This is extraordinary. This is unprecedented,” Modi told the crowd, before walking around the floor hand in hand with Trump. Modi said that he admired Trump for “his sense of leadership, a passion for America, a concern for every American, a belief in American future, and a strong resolve to make America great again.”
Modi has been trying to make India great again, with his long-held conviction that India, which was founded on pluralist values, should become a Hindu state. Before Modi became Prime Minister, he was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat, where there is strong evidence that he presided over a pogrom of Indian Muslims. Since he took national office, in 2014, hate crimes against Muslims, who make up about fifteen per cent of the population, have risen sharply, and the country’s democratic foundations have been gravely weakened. The state of Assam is conducting a mass citizenship check, which could lead to many Muslims being deprived of all civil rights. The government is building detention camps in Assam to house those declared illegal, and Modi’s close adviser, Amit Shah, has discussed doing something similar nationwide. On August 5th, Modi’s government revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which had granted special status to India’s only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, and imposed a near-total blockade on it. A journalist who was recently there wrote to me, “Soldiers, brought in from outside the state, stand on every street corner. Public gatherings are banned. The state’s leadership and civil society are either in jail or under house arrest. Young men are picked up regularly in raids; many disappear, those released complain of beatings and torture.”
In a Times column on Monday, titled “Don’t Mess with Modi in Texas,” the longtime foreign correspondent Roger Cohen applauded Modi’s leadership abilities. After noting some of the human-rights abuses in Kashmir, Cohen wrote, “The question, however, is whether Modi had any choice in Kashmir and whether, over time, the revocation of an article conceived as temporary breaks the Kashmiri logjam, pries open the stranglehold of corrupt local elites and offers a better future. I think it might.” He added, “Modi, a self-made man from a poor family, is measured, ascetic, not driven by impulse. Trump was born on third base. He’s erratic, guided by the devouring needs of his ego. I’d bet on Modi to transform India, all of it, including the newly integrated Kashmir region.”
I spoke by phone with Cohen on Monday about his column and his views of Modi. Born in London, he has reported from numerous countries throughout Europe, South America, and the Middle East, for the Times and the Wall Street Journal. The interview, edited for length and clarity, is below.
I read an interview with you where you stated, “In many ways, journalism is a young person’s game. When the phone goes in the middle of the night and you’re twenty-five and you’re asked to go to Beirut, it’s the greatest thing. But, when that happens at fifty, less so. I also like writing longer-form magazine journalism and I get less opportunity to do that than I used to. Doing a column, though, I choose where I want to go. I can’t complain about midnight calls from the desk.” Can you talk more about how different column-writing is from reporting?
I think it is very different. First of all, the form is very tight. There is a great premium on pithiness, and, of course, you have to have an idea—probably one and a half ideas, something to give it a little bit of a tweak near the bottom. There is very little room for narrative or descriptive writing, and that’s also something I enjoy doing. As a foreign correspondent, I like to report for my columns. I like to get out there. I am very wary of writing about places I have not seen, because I think seeing and feeling things is the basis of what we do, and the view from the ground. I believe in that very strongly. And, as a correspondent, of course, you are trying to immerse yourself in place and describe what you see as evocatively and fairly and powerfully as you can. As a columnist, you are taking a view.
What did you learn most from reporting that you try to use in column-writing?
Well, I think, above all, that you need to get out there. You need to probe deeply and try to understand something, and the world is complex. That’s almost a platitude. The basis of what we do as journalists, I think, is that. Everything has changed since I was filing by telex from the Commodore Hotel in Beirut in 1983. But the basis of what we do I don’t think has changed—the fundamental effort that has to be made to speak to people, to understand people, to probe deeply into the situation.
How big a story do you think the rise of right-wing authoritarianism is now? Does it feel like the most important story you are writing about, and do you feel that you bring something with your reporting past that allows you to connect various strands in these different countries that are distinct but have commonalities?
I think it is a huge story. I think it is an unexpected story. If you had told me, at the beginning of this century, a decade or so after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that we would be dealing with nationalist, nativist, xenophobic reaction, from Brazil to the United States to parts of Europe, parts of Asia, too, I would not have believed it. I do think it is a very big story—the biggest one around, probably. Having taken a deep interest in European history, having served as the Times’ bureau chief in Berlin, when the capital was returning from Bonn to Berlin—and I spent a lot of time in Poland and Central Europe, and also covered the Bosnian war, a war in which there were concentration camps—for better or worse, I do bring that sensibility to it.
You refer, in your latest column, to Modi as “measured, ascetic, not driven by impulse.” Is that the best way to describe someone who is a right-wing ideologue and has gleefully waved away reports of mass murder that he presided over?
Well, I think, you know, I’m not—I have been in India several times. I can’t claim to be an India hand. As came through in that column, I’m skeptical of this knee-jerk reaction to Modi, who seems, to me, to be a very important and transformative figure. Troubling, but the fact is that, after seventy years [of Indian statehood], I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of toilets, of roads, of gas connections, he’s made. It is also a human right, in my view, not to have to defecate outside. And he is moving India forward, I think, in a very powerful and interesting way. And he just got elected in a landslide, by more than six hundred million people. You will tell me that Orbán was elected, too, and so was Hitler, for that matter, but six hundred million votes—that’s the world’s largest democracy in action.
To be clear, his party didn’t get six hundred million votes. That’s the number of people who voted in that election.
Yeah, sorry, yeah. It’s clear also that he comes from a Hindu-nationalist background, and that his base, his party—there have been some very ugly incidents. But there are a hundred and fifty million-plus Muslims in India. How many Hindus are there in Pakistan? In general, I am a little skeptical of the knee-jerk liberal reaction across the board. I think one has to think very carefully. Even with Trump, you have to step back and think, What is actually happening here? Why was this guy elected? Trump is us. We elected him. Let’s look at what caused that.
Sure. I am curious what you think the knee-jerk liberal reaction is to Modi. He was the chief minister of a state and presided over a mass murder that was carried out by his ideological allies, that he waved away. Since he got into office, there has been a massive rise in hate crimes—
There was never, I mean, Modi—it went all the way through the courts in India. Yes. Clearly, he looked away. Whether he did more than that, I don’t know. And, yes, that is grave, that is very serious. And I certainly recognize that.
I think many analysts would argue that previous governments did more on social indicators like defecation. Have you read about what is happening in the state of Assam, where they are trying to remove Muslims from the citizenship roles and are building camps? Modi’s party has talked about doing this nationwide.
Well, obviously if that happened—if there was an attempt to remove a hundred and fifty million Muslims from the electoral rolls in India—then we are in a whole new ball game, and we are in a completely unacceptable trashing of Indian democracy. But, you know, I stand by what I wrote.
But what is the knee-jerk liberal reaction to being upset by right-wing movements—
No, no, there is nothing wrong with being upset at all. But to make the perfect enemy of the good, to write this man off, to write Modi off, I am not ready to do that. I think he is changing India in some very important and positive ways.
Such as?
He is modernizing it. He’s taking the country forward.
What does that mean?
Well, economic development. Better conditions. All these people in the countryside who voted for him, they are voting for him because their lives are getting better. And I don’t think what you said about the previous government having done as much as Modi—if Modi’s numbers are to be believed, and I don’t see any reason why they aren’t—where do you get that information? It is not what I have seen or read.
You are making the assumption that he is doing well because he is winning. If Trump won reëlection, would your assumption be that he made poor people’s lives better?
I am not ready to cast an absolute judgment on Narendra Modi. You seem to think it is incumbent on me to do that. I am not ready to do it. Have you been in India recently? Have you seen for yourself?
I go almost every year.
And what do you think?
I certainly don’t think the country is changing in terms of economic development. But I do think it is becoming scarier in terms of the lack of free press and intercommunal relations.
Why do you think so many Indians have this adulation for him?
I think he has tapped into feelings of wounded pride and feelings of resentment toward different groups that politicians the world over use. I agree he is genuinely popular. Have you been to Kashmir?
I have not been to Kashmir, no.
You wrote very positively about what Modi is doing there. Do you think what he is doing is meant to be in the best interests of the Kashmiri people?
I think the jury is out. I don’t know. Obviously, the situation has been blocked and punctuated with violence, and, from everything I have read and heard, there are powerful vested interests that are attached to the status quo. It’s not that unlike the situation in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is thoroughly corrupt, and everyone knows that. And the situation is blocked. And you can blame a lot of different people for that. I don’t know where it is going to head.
Kashmir has been under military occupation for decades, there have been rapes and torture, and now people can’t get in touch with their families, the press is blacked out, people have been arrested without charge—
I said there have been human-rights abuses. There certainly have. I said one of the worst things about the Trump Presidency is that he has essentially provided open season for any autocrat who wants to engage in human-rights abuses, and that is very bad. It’s an abdication of what the United States should stand for.
I can’t tell whether you are saying what is going on in Kashmir was primarily about violating human rights, or about making Kashmir great again.
I don’t know. Have you been there since it happened? No, neither have I.
I have friends and colleagues who have.
Do you have friends and colleagues on both sides?
I am not sure what you mean. I have friends who can’t get in touch with their families.
Right—who are on both sides, who have two different views there? Or do they all uniformly think in the same way?
Most of my friends who can’t get in touch with their families or know people who can’t generally have the same view, that it is really bad.
Well, I am sure the situation there is bad. The question is: How was it before? And was there any prospect of it getting better? My impression is, no.
Kashmir has been under occupation for a very long time. Pakistan has played a bad role for a very long time.
Under occupation? It’s part of India, right? India has not annexed it, which I see written a lot. It is part of India. So why do you say it is under occupation?
It is one of the most militarized areas on earth.
That’s different.
They have passed this Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which allows the military to operate there without normal law. Soldiers who torture people or rape them go unpunished. It’s not operating in a normal sphere where civilians have the same legal rights.
Right.
You wrote a column on India several years ago in which you argued, “In the end, intangible qualities—the empowerment of women (India has a long way to go), the capacity to place the future over the past, and the space afforded for civilized disagreement—are better indicators of the health of a society than economic statistics.” And “anyone betting against India over the long term would be foolish. Openness and capaciousness tend to win.” Does that sum up how you are feeling now about India?
Yeah, I think that in China you have a command economy, and it has managed to grow at an extraordinary rate, and in India you don’t. You have more arguments, it is more laborious, it is more difficult, it is more contentious. But, in the long term, yes. I am a huge believer in democracies, in liberal democracies, in an independent judiciary, in debate. India has that quality. As I said at the beginning, Isaac, I have not spent as much time as I would have liked in India. But, when I have been there, that is what struck me. You said earlier that the press had been severely curtailed. My impression—again, my impression—is that there is a pretty vigorous press in India, and the people I talk to do not seem to feel that whatever infringements there have been on that—and they are all regrettable—have fundamentally changed that very vital aspect of Indian society, which I think is healthy and I think is a big plus for India in the long-term.