The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

A10 eZ re the washington post.friday, february 21 , 2020

BY JOANNA SLATER

AHMEDABAD, InDIA — The 49-
year-old tailor has lived in this
western Indian city for his entire
life, but he has never seen any-
thing quite like this.
Ahead of President Trump’s v isit
to India next week, workers have
descended on his modest neigh-
borhood, resurfacing roads, laying
concrete sidewalks where none ex-
isted, fixing street lamps and paint-
ing an overpass with fresh white
paint. On a recent afternoon, they
gingerly placed row upon row of
saplings into a barren road divider.
“It’s fantastic,” said Hamir
Vaghela, surveying the activity
around him. Trump “should come
once every six m onths.”
Trump arrives Monday for his
first visit as president to the world’s
largest democracy, and although
he is staying for only 36 hours, the
Indian government is leaving
nothing to chance. The iconic Ta j
Mahal is being buffed and
scrubbed before a sunset visit by
Trump and the first lady. The
world’s largest cricket stadium —
so new it is not officially open —
will host a rally for up to 120,
people dubbed “Namaste Trump,”
or “Hello Trump.”
Other preparations are more
controversial: In Ahmedabad, mu-
nicipal authorities have raised a
6-foot-high, 200-yard-long wall in
front of a slum along a road Trump
may take near the airport. The city
says the timing is a coincidence,
but residents are not convinced.
On earlier VIP visits, workers put
up curtains on the route, they say.
“Now the number one country is
coming, so as per the number one
standards, they built the wall,” s aid
Vikram Rathod, 40, a laborer who
lives in the slum. “They have decid-
ed that poor people should not be
seen.”
Walls notwithstanding, Trump
will likely receive an enthusiastic
reception in India, even if it is not
quite as large as he hopes. Trump
told reporters Tuesday that Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
had promised there would be
“7 million people” on the streets of
Ahmedabad to greet him. That is
roughly the entire population of
the city, and the true figure for the
motorcade route will likely be clos-
er to 100,000, according to a mu-
nicipal official.
Indians generally have a posi-
tive view of Trump. The country is
one of just six where a majority of
those surveyed approved of his
handling of world affairs, accord-
ing to a poll by the Pew Research
Center. (The five others are the
Philippines, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria
and Poland.)
Trump benefits from the fact
that m any Indians have a “very
positive attitude toward Ameri-
cans,” a s well as the “celebrity com-
ponent,” s aid Milan Vaishnav, who
heads the South Asia program at
the C arnegie Endowment f or Inter-
national Peace. Other than a few
missteps — such as his offer to
mediate the Kashmir dispute —
Trump has been “broadly favorable
to India’s regional interests,” he
said.
Modi has cultivated a relation-
ship with Trump even as tensions
over trade have flared. Last year,
Modi invited Trump to a large rally
he held in Houston (it was called
“Howdy, Modi”) where the two
men clasped hands and described
one another admiringly. India and

The World

BRitAiN

Man arrested after

stabbing at mosque

Police arrested a man on
suspicion of attempted murder
after h e entered t he London
Central Mosque on Thursday
afternoon and allegedly stabbed
the m uezzin, w ho makes the c all
to prayer.
The victim’s i njuries were not
life-threatening, police said. The
man, who is in his 70s, w as
treated by e mergency medical
technicians at t he scene a nd was
taken to a hospital.
Ayaz A hmed, an adviser for the
mosque who witnessed t he
attack, told t he Guardian
newspaper that worshipers h ad
just started afternoon prayers, at
about 3 p.m. T he attacker w as
behind the muezzin and then
stabbed him, A hmed said.
“We all tussled with him; a few
hundred people were w orshiping
at t he t ime. The muezzin has been
here for 25 years, calling the
prayer f ive t imes a day. He i s very
respected,” he said.
The attacker w as a pprehended

by worshipers and held until

police arrived, a ccording to a

statement from t he mosque.

Police did not release the

suspect’s name, and a motive and

any possible a ffiliation w ere not

known. Police did not label t he

stabbing a terrorist attack.

Imam Chokri Majouli

discounted the p ossibility that

the a ttack was r acially m otivated.

In a n interview posted o n social

media, the i mam said t he man

often prayed a t the m osque and

seemed to have a mental i llness.

He s aid the m an sometimes

prayed o ff t o the side while

smiling to himself.

— K arla Adam and William Booth

sYRiA

2 Turkish troops killed

amid surge in f ighting

Turkish forces and Syrian

rebels fought government troops

in northwest Syria on T hursday

and Russian warplanes struck

back in a sharp escalation of a n

intense b attle o ver the l ast rebel

bastions, Russian and Turkish

officials said.

The Turkish Defense Ministry

said two of its soldiers were k illed

and f ive wounded in S yrian

government airstrikes in Idlib

province, bringing Turkish

military fatalities to 15 this month

in the region. I t said more than

50 Syrian soldiers had been killed

in retaliation.

Earlier, t alks between Moscow

and A nkara, which b ack d ifferent

sides i n Syria’s nine-year war, had

failed to reach a compromise to

ease the s ituation a nd head off a

direct confrontation b etween

them in Aleppo a nd Idlib

provinces. Syrian t roops backed

by Russian forces h ave been

battling since December t o

eradicate the last rebel

strongholds i n the r egion.

— R euters

isRAeL

Prosecutors to probe

Gantz’s failed start-up

Israeli prosecutors T hursday

announced the opening of a

criminal investigation i nto the

failed start-up of Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu’s

challenger, shaking up the f inal

days o f what h as been a bitter and

tumultuous election c ampaign.

The announcement d id not say

whether Benny Gantz is a suspect.

But i t came less than two weeks

before the March 2 election and

during a campaign in which

Gantz’s Blue a nd White party h as

painted i tself as a scandal-free

alternative to Netanyahu, who

faces trial on graft charges.

After examining documents

and o ther evidence, “the a cting

state prosecutor has d ecided to

move the subject o f the s uspicions

surrounding t he company ‘Fifth

Dimension’ to a criminal

investigation,” t he Justice

Ministry said i n a statement.

— A ssociated Press

91 migrants missing at sea: A

dinghy p acked with 91 mostly

African migrants t hat set out

from Libya to reach E urope has

apparently d isappeared in t he

Mediterranean, the U.N. r efugee

agency said. News of the missing

boat comes amid criticism of t he

European Union’s lack of r escue

missions in the r egion.

Sudanese forces clash with

protesters: Sudanese s ecurity

forces u sed tear g as and b atons t o

disperse t housands of protesters

demanding the reinstatement of

army o fficers dismissed f or

refusing to crack down on

protests against former president

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, said

witnesses in Khartoum. A t least

17 p eople w ere hurt, activists said.

— F rom news services

Digest

navesh chitrakar/reuters

A devotee walks along the premises of Pashupatinath Te mple a day

ahead of the Shivaratri festival in Kathmandu, Nepal. The Hindu

celebration draws hundreds of thousands of devotees to the temple,

according to the Nepal To urism Board.

As Trump prepares to visit, a wall rises in India

His first trip as president to the world’s largest democracy has officials racing to spruce things up — even the Taj Mahal

Nehra denied that the building

of the wall in front of the slum was

connected to Trump’s visit. The

slum was “overflowing and prolif-

erating on the sidewalk and on the

road,” he said, so the city put out a

tender to build a wall there. The

fact that it is being completed in

the days before the president’s ar-

rival is a “coincidence,” he said.

Reshma Saraniya, 29, has lived

in the slum, a broken-down collec-

tion of homes with corrugated tin

roofs, her whole life. Earlier this

month, she was at her job at a

nearby hotel when neighbors

called her to say the city authorities

had arrived to demolish about

20 huts, including the one where

she had lived with her 11-year-old

son for the past two years. Saraniya

knew a demolition could happen,

she said, her voice vibrating with

emotion, but she received no warn-

ing it was imminent. Now there is

ragged earth and a cement wall

where she used to live.

Aswathy Jwala, an activist from

the southern state of Kerala, trav-

eled 1,400 miles by train to mount a

one-woman protest in solidarity

with the slum residents. She

perched on a ledge near the en-

trance of the slum with a handwrit-

ten sign. “Don’t hide our India,” i t

said. “Work towards making it bet-

ter.” She pledged to stay until

Trump arrived but expected police

to detain her first.

The following day, Jwala was

gone. But the wall was almost com-

plete, screened by rows of trees in

pots, ready to welcome the Ameri-

can president.

[email protected]

Mahesh langa contributed to this

report.

U niversity of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign. Trump could focus

“on how to bring a polarized people

together and how to diminish hate

instead of encouraging it.”

On a recent sunny afternoon,

Vijay Nehra, the municipal com-

missioner of Ahmedabad, was jug-

gling television interviews and

calls from his superiors. He i s over-

seeing the “roadshow” — the

crowds and performers who will

line Trump’s r oute through the city.

Nehra said there will be artists

from all over t he country perform-

ing on specially built stages,

filmed by nearly 100 camera crews

from India’s state-owned broad-

caster. It will be an “unprecedent-

ed event” f or the city, he said. But

“we would not like to be boastful

in claiming that it will be the

biggest roadshow ever in the

world o r something like that.”

Gujarat, with a newly redeveloped

waterfront along the Sabarmati

River, is Modi’s favorite place to

bring visiting leaders, including

Xi Jinping of China and Shinzo

Abe of Japan. Now billboards in

the city feature photos of Trump

and Modi (“Two dynamic person-

alities, one momentous occa-

sion”). Ahmedabad i s also home t o

the ashram where Mohandas

Gandhi spent 13 years of his life.

Unlike other dignitaries, Trump

will probably skip t he ashram, b ut

stop instead at a memorial to Gan-

dhi i n New Delhi on Tuesday.

If Trump “wants to pick up a

Gandhian message, he will need to

find some quiet moments, and re-

main silent, and reflect on Gan-

dhi’s thought of crossing out the

big ‘I’, ” s aid Rajmohan Gandhi, the

grandson of the revered indepen-

dence leader and a professor at the

as a potential opportunity to deep-

en the ties between the two na-

tions. Modi is facing the most sig-

nificant show of opposition to his

government since he took office in

2014, with protests continuing

against a citizenship law that crit-

ics say is discriminatory and un-

constitutional.

Trump will be the first sitting

American president to visit Modi’s

home state of Gujarat, the place

where Modi rose to political power.

As chief minister of Gujarat, Modi

earned a reputation as a business-

friendly leader who did not tolerate

corruption. He also presided over

the worst communal violence in

recent Indian history, when more

than 1,000 people, mostly Mus-

lims, were killed in 2002. A special

investigating team later cleared

Modi of involvement in the riots.

Ahmedabad, the largest city in

the United States have intensified

their military and security cooper-

ation in recent years as both coun-

tries cast a wary eye toward China.

It appears few substantive ac-

complishments will be an-

nounced during Trump’s visit. In-

dia and the United States have

failed to conclude even a minor

agreement to resolve some of

their trade differences, despite

more than a year of negotiations

and repeated assertions that a

deal was close. I ndia’s cabinet ear-

lier this week approved the pur-

chase of 24 L ockheed Martin mili-

tary helicopters worth $2.4 bil-

lion.

But the lack of concrete achieve-

ments may not matter for either

leader. For both Trump and Modi,

the trip is a respite from domestic

politics and a chance to promote

their images as statesmen — as well

ajit solanki/associated Press

susan Walsh/associated Press

TOP: Workers build a wall in Ahmedabad that slum residents

suspect is intended to hide their homes from President Trump.

ABOVE: Trump and India’s Narendra Modi in Washington in 201 7. Source: The Foreign Secretary of India

INDIA

CHINA

PAKISTAN

NEPAL

Mumbai

Kolkata

AARON STECKELBERG/THE WASHINGTON POST

New Delhi

Tuesday

New Delhi

Tuesday

Agra

Monday

afternoon

Agra

Monday

afternoon

Ahmedabad

Monday

morning

Ahmedabad

Monday

morning

HI

MA

LAY

AS

Trump is scheduled to make his first trip to

India as president next week. He will begin with

a rally in Ahmedabad, then visit the Taj Mahal

in Agra. His trip will conclude with ceremonies

and a state banquet in New Delhi.

Trump is scheduled to make his first trip to

India as president next week. He will begin with

a rally in Ahmedabad, then visit the Taj Mahal

in Agra. His trip will conclude with ceremonies

and a state banquet in New Delhi.

200 MILES

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