By attending the inauguration of a new JCB factory in Gujarat on Thursday, Boris Johnson might have thought he was leaving his troubles behind in Westminster. What harm was there in going in to bat for a successful British business owned by a big Tory donor? Plenty, it transpires. Mr Johnson walked into a major human rights controversy over the use of JCB’s bulldozers in flattening Muslim homes and businesses in Delhi and in states run by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party.
Mr Johnson should not have mugged for the cameras with the machinery used to intimidate religious minorities by a regime seemingly bent on creating a theocratic Hindu state. Perhaps he is unaware of the growing sense of vulnerability felt by India’s 200 million Muslims. But no one who is paying attention could miss what Mr Modi is about. He is the only person ever denied a US visa for “severe violations of religious freedom”. This was in 2005, after he failed, as Gujarat’s chief minister, to stop a series of deadly anti-Muslim riots.
