 As many of you know, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently visited the United States and there were a lot of people who were excited for this. His event, Howdy Modi, was trending on Twitter. Modi and Trump presumably grew even closer. Supporters of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi attended a massive event. Meanwhile, nobody's really addressing the elephant in the room, except for one person, Bernie Sanders. So in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle, he writes this about Modi's visit to the United States. The Modi-Trump rally is happening at a moment when the state of Kashmir remains under lockdown. In early August, Modi's government unilaterally revoked Kashmir's long-standing autonomy, has cracked down on dissent, jailed political leaders and instituted a communications blackout. The lockdown has also blocked Kashmiri's access to basic medical care. In a letter in the British Medical Journal on August 16, a group of doctors from across India asked their government to ease restrictions on communication and travel, saying there were a blatant denial of the right to health care and the right to life because they made it difficult for patients and staff to get to hospitals. A recent Human Rights Watch report notes that from chemotherapy to dialysis, patients are struggling to access life-saving treatment on time. Trump has voiced no criticism of these troubling moves. He should be demanding that these restrictions will be lifted and communications be restored immediately. To be clear, Pakistan has also often played a bad role in Kashmir, but I believe the US President must be clearly in support of international humanitarian law and in support of a UN-backed peaceful resolution between India and Pakistan that respects the will of the Kashmiri people. Trump's silence in the face of India's Kashmir crackdown is consistent with his broader failure to speak up for human rights across the world. So I think that this was a good response. The fact that he went out of his way to condemn Donald Trump's silence here, it shows that you know he's one of the few people, he's the only presidential candidate that consistently speaks out against human rights violations not just at home but around the world and he never veils his language in fiscal or political terms. He speaks directly to the needs of human beings. I mean is there another Democratic candidate with this kind of clarity on international human rights issues? Nope. It's Bernie Sanders because what he recognizes is that there is a universality about the human condition that people like to forget about. What Bernie Sanders tends to recognize is that we should never turn a blind eye just because something ostensibly doesn't affect us. We should acknowledge that the human experience doesn't defer based on the region of the world we were born. We all experience pain, we all experience suffering and happiness as human beings. So what I look for in a presidential candidate is someone who acknowledges that. Now I'm not saying that I want Bernie Sanders to go to war and you know intervene and occupy Kashmir, right? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about using your bully pulpit as president to put pressure on our allies when they do things that are bad, when they do things that are antithetical to human rights. So when India does it, when Saudi Arabia does it, when Turkey does it, when Brazil does it, we need a leader who's going to be bold and speak out. Bernie Sanders has demonstrated time and again he is that leader. Now the thing about Modi is he has benefited from two things overall. First of all is widespread ignorance here in the United States when it comes to Indian and Pakistani geopolitics. Nobody really knows about the dynamics at play there. Second of all, the thing that he benefits from is a blackout in the media. Nobody in mainstream news covers what Modi is doing. If you knew anything about Modi, you know that he is like Donald Trump on steroids. He takes the hate and fear mongering about Muslims and people who he deems the other to a whole new level. If you weren't familiar with Narendra Modi and what he's about, you can easily place him in the same category as this new wave of fascists that are popping up around the world that includes Jair Bolsonaro, Tayyip Erdogan, Donald Trump, and Arjun Sethi, a human rights lawyer and human rights activist, breaks it down pretty easily. In Modi's India, here's what's happening. Muslims and Dalits are openly lynched, academics and journalists are threatened and detained. Kashmir has been illegally seized and occupied. Millions in Assam have been rendered stateless. More internet blackouts than any country in the world. And we can't possibly dive into all of these details, all of these issues here. But if you just look at one, the issue related to Assam, well, it's horrifying. And his policies disproportionately affect Muslims. Now as Sigil Samuel explains in an article for Vox, India's massive, scary new detention camps explained. The Indian government stripped citizenship from 2 million people, mostly Muslims. Now it wants to put them in camps. And here's what that looks like in practice. What would you do if the country you were born in or the country you've lived in for decades suddenly announced you had to prove your citizenship or else faced detention and deportation? This is the situation, nearly 2 million people. Most of them Muslims, some of them Hindus of Bengali origin now find themselves in because their names do not appear on India's national register of citizens. That citizenship list published last month is part of the government's effort to identify and weed out what it claims are illegal immigrants in the northeastern state of Assam. India says many Muslims whose families originally came from neighboring Bangladesh are not rightful citizens, even though they've lived in Assam for decades. If you live in Assam and your name does not appear on the NRC, the burden of proof is on you to prove that you're a citizen. The obvious move would be to dig out your birth certificate or land deed, but many rural residents don't have paperwork. Even among those who do, many can't read it. A quarter of the population in Assam state is illiterate. You do get the chance to appeal to a foreigner's tribunal. If they don't buy your claim to citizenship, you can appeal to the High Court of Assam or even the Supreme Court. But if all that fails, you can be sent to one of the 10 mass detention camps the government plans to build, complete with boundary walls and watchtowers. And let me remind you, that's just one of a multitude of issues with Narendra Modi. He is xenophobic. He is a nationalist. His ideology is RSS. He believes in a Hindu ethno-state, essentially, to the exclusion of Muslims. And he has started to put that into practice. This is a bad person. And what Bernie Sanders is saying here is that people need to speak out. Donald Trump, as the leader, should be condemning Narendra Modi and putting pressure on him to stop this. But I mean, of course, Donald Trump isn't going to do that because Donald Trump is a fascist in the same way that Narendra Modi is. So we need everyone. We need all hands on deck here. What I would say, though, is to say nothing is probably better than legitimizing Modi at a time when we're trying to desperately educate people about the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding because of him. So when politicians like Tulsi Gabbard tweet out their warm welcome of Narendra Modi and the left pushes back, you know, it's not because she's Hindu that we're criticizing her and we're being Hinduphobic. Invoking Hinduphobia to shield someone from criticism, let me be clear about something. That is a neoliberal tactic. You play that card when you don't have an argument. This is what neoliberals do. We're criticizing her specifically because she has praised Modi and she hasn't said anything about the human rights abuses that he is perpetuating or, you know, the fact that his aggression is moving India and Pakistan closer to the nuclear war, which is something that she often rightfully points out is a real threat to human civilization. And I want to be clear that I'm not just inexplicably bringing up Tulsi Gabbard because I want to pick on her. I'm bringing her up in this conversation because, one, she needs to do better. She shouldn't double down so she can appear tough. No, you need to listen to constructive criticism from good faith actors and adjust your position if you truly want to appeal to the left. And second of all, the reason why I am showcasing her tweet is because we need, again, all hands on deck. To say nothing would be problematic, but to go out of your way and legitimize someone who is a fascist, that is a problem. That's why you're being criticized. The point is if you're gonna occupy arguably the same ideological space as Bernie Sanders, then understand, we will hold you to a higher standard than neoliberal politicians who are warmongers like Obama and Kamala and other politicians. Anyone who is pro-Modi, they're showing that they have a large blind spot when it comes to humanitarian issues. So this is why I think it's important to point out the differences between Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard here. Bernie Sanders is not mincing words. He's saying clearly this is a humanitarian issue. There are human rights abuses that are not being addressed. And Bernie didn't mention Tulsi Gabbard. He's specifically calling out Donald Trump, who obviously is the most guilty here. Because if you're the president and you're not doing anything when human rights are at stake, you are a bad person. What Bernie Sanders is doing is he's using his platform to spread awareness about these issues that are incredibly important, but only a handful of people in America know about. So he doesn't have much to gain by doing this. He's doing this because he genuinely cares about people. And when I hear the stories about people getting delayed access to dialysis, understand that could be a death sentence for these people because if you miss just a couple of days of dialysis, your life could be at risk. My father is on dialysis. And anytime there's weather issues or he can't get in, we're all in panic mode because that means you could literally die if you don't get in. So this is a human rights disaster and I want people to do better. I'm not bringing up Tulsi Gabbard and any other politician for that matter because I want to shit on them at the behest of Bernie. I'm bringing them up because I'm asking you to help us. I'm asking you to speak out and condemn human rights abuses wherever they may be, even if they are happening in a country that you don't wanna name, for a leader that you would otherwise support. Do better, call it out. That's all I'm asking for. Simple as that. People can take offense to that, but facts are facts. I commend Bernie for speaking out here and I think it's absolutely disappointing to say the least that people like Tulsi Gabbard are burying their head in the sand and choosing to not address what is a huge humanitarian issue here.