Modi fills Wembley as UK and India leaders look forward

An estimated 60,000 people will crowd into Wembley Stadium this evening for the biggest political rally seen in Britain in recent times, dwarfing Jeremy Corbyn's meetings during the Labour leadership campaign, where the attendance was counted in hundreds, rather than thousands or tens of thousands. The star attraction will be India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, a man who was banned from visiting Britain, the European Union and the United States for 10 years until 2012, but was yesterday feted in parliament, the foreign office and 10 Downing Street.

Tonight's rally will follow a pattern set by Modi in visits to Australia and the US since his Hindu nationalist BJP's landslide victory in last year's general election. ModiExpress buses will travel to Wembley from all over the country for a spectacle that will include singing and dancing as well as Modi's speech, and will end with what the UKWelcomesModi website promises will be "the biggest fireworks display in the whole country".

For many of the 1.7 million British Indians, the prime minister’s visit is a cause for celebration but noisy protests outside parliament and Downing Street served as a reminder that he is not universally welcome.

Train fire

Before moving to Delhi last year, Modi was prime minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, and it was in this role in 2002 that he earned the opprobrium which clung to him until recently. When 85 Hindu pilgrims were burned to death in a train fire, rumours (later shown to be false) blamed the Muslim tea-sellers at the station where the fire broke out.

Instead of seeking to quell the riots that followed, Modi, who faced re-election a few months later, encouraged them, citing Newton’s Third Law: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.

For three days and nights, mobs went from door to door, identifying Muslims from electoral records. They dragged men, women and children out on to the street, pouring kerosene down their throats and, in front of cheering crowds, set them alight.

About 1,000 people died in the riots, most of them Muslims, and Modi was banned from the US and the EU, including Britain, for condoning the violence. In 2012, India’s supreme court ruled that he was not involved in the 2002 massacre, but even his most fervent admirers don’t claim he did much to stop it.

Asked if David Cameron would raise the events of 2002 with Modi, his spokeswoman said that "nothing is off the table". Or, to put it another way: no.

When Cameron was asked about the massacre at the prime ministers' joint press conference at the foreign office, he made clear that it was time to let bygones be bygones.

"He comes with an enormous mandate from the people of India who made him prime minister with a record and historic majority. As for what happened in the past, there were legal proceedings, there were also representations from the British government at the time. We are now discussing the future partnership between Britain and India," he said.

Modi was in no mood to reflect on the past either, and he dismissed concerns about the climate of intolerance that has swept India since he came to power last year and which has seen attacks on Muslims and Christians across the country.

“India is a land of Gandhi and therefore there is something that is deeply entrenched in our culture, our traditions, which is that we are not accepting anything that is having to do with intolerance. Any incident that happens is a serious incident and we do not tolerate these incidents at all,” he said.

Modi was happier when he was talking about his vision of “Digital India” which he said was “transforming the interface between government and people”. And both prime ministers were eager to talk about new business deals between Britain and India worth £9 billion.

Britain will help to develop three Indian cities as part of Modi’s plan to create 100 “smart cities”, the City of London will seek to establish itself as the world’s centre for trading in India’s rupee currency, and British companies hope to get a slice of the construction work that will accompany Modi’s plans.

UK-India year of culture

The year 2017 will be a UK-India year of culture, during which the British Library will digitise 200,000 pages of its South Asian archives and Madame Tussaud’s, where waxworks of Bollywood stars are among the most popular attractions, will open a branch in Delhi.

Finally, Shakespeare’s First Folio and the 1225 edition of the Magna Carta will tour India. Both would make useful reading for the Indian prime minister.