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India Moving Toward Outright Fascism
The core of this movement are recruited when very young and drilled in the martial arts. They carry lathis (hard cane sticks), wear Gestapo-like uniforms and salute their superiors. Many of them, including high-ranking politicians, openly worship Hitler -- wearing armbands and swastikas (the word is of Sanskrit origin) among other icons.
In news from South Asia the term "fundamentalist" usually calls up the image of Islamic radicals. But in India, a virulent strain of Hindu fundamentalism is gathering strength and PNS commentator Andrew Robinson sees in this the foreshadowings of fascism in the world's largest democracy. Robinson, who speak several Indian languages, has been writing about South Asian affairs for over a decade.
"Islamic fundamentalist" is a familiar cliche, one that has haunted the American imagination ever since Iran, 1979. In contrast, the word "Hindu" calls to mind lightly-clad figures dancing about with flowers and finger-cymbals.
So "Hindu fundamentalist" may seem odd -- but they are here. Indeed, with 720,000 Indian troops massed at the Pakistani border, and democracy in a kind of patriotic suspension since this round of fighting over Kashmir began, India is beginning to resemble a fascist state.
The core of this movement are recruited when very young and drilled in the martial arts. They carry lathis (hard cane sticks), wear Gestapo-like uniforms and salute their superiors. Many of them, including high-ranking politicians, openly worship Hitler -- wearing armbands and swastikas (the word is of Sanskrit origin) among other icons.
"Germany has shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures... to be assimilated into one united whole," says M.S. Golwalkar, the leader of India's largest Hindu fundamentalist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This is "a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."
Hindusthan means Hindu place. This and Hindutva (Hindu culture) and Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation) are all part of a campaign designed to turn India into the Hindu equivalent of an Aryan state.
And the movement has never been stronger than it is today.
Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, described by Time magazine as "a portly, affable... scholarly moderate," is an RSS cadre. So is his political partner, Home Minister L.K. Advani, who was president of the Bharatiya Janata Parishad (BJP), now India's ruling party. The current BJP president, Kushabhu Thakre, is a lifelong RSS member -- and as fanatic as they come.
In fact, some 75 percent of the BJP's executives have RSS roots, and many consider the BJP nothing more than the RSS dressed in politician's clothing. The BJP's popularity is based almost entirely on nationalistic principals as applied against Christians, Muslims, and India's arch foe, Pakistan -- particularly over the Kashmir, where the majority Muslim population has sought to secede from India.
When the BJP first established a government in 1996, it lasted a total of 12 days. When they took power again a year later, they were still trying to form a stable coalition when Vajpayee ordered underground nuclear tests. Popular support for the BJP swelled -- nowhere more loudly than in Hindu fundamentalist groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena (Shiva's Army).
"We will no longer be thought of as a country of eunuchs!" exclaimed Shiv Sena leader Bal Thakaray, referring to the reputation for non-violence that has dogged India ever since Gandhi shed his lawyer's suit.
The BJP was quick to increase military spending (by as much as 68 percent for its nuclear program). The amount allocated for new weapons was only slightly less than the total for education, health and social programs -- in a country that reports only about 50 percent of its adult population is literate. About 200 million Indians -- some 20 percent -- lack access to clean water and more than 300 million survive on less than 50 cents per day.
Last May, only a few days after learning that his government was on the verge of dissolving, Prime Minister Vajpayee ordered the test of a nuclear-capable missile. Home Minister Advani -- and many others -- publicly declared that India's nuclear capability (often called the "Hindu Bomb" in the press) would finally bring a lasting solution to the Kashmir situation. He was -- as events have shown -- wrong. In fact, the opposite may be true.
The fighting in Kargil at the border "appears to be just one event set off by the forces unleashed after last year's nuclear tests in Pokhran [India]," explains Praveen Swami, a senior journalist with India's Frontline Magazine. "The self-proclaimed defender of national unity, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has led India to its most serious crisis since the war of 1948."
Hard-line Hindus are calling for a nuclear attack against Pakistan. Once relatively balanced newspapers now publish anti-Pakistan commentary and paeans to Indian bravery as hard news. One Internet provider in Bombay has blocked web access to Pakistan's English-language daily. Celebrities rush to Kashmir to donate blood -- including even Sonia Gandhi, president of the opposition Congress(I) party. And Indian cricket authorities are recommending the country's team no longer play against Pakistan -- something Hindu fundamentalists have long sought.
This is not to say that fundamentalism, or for that matter fascism, is any less virulent across the Pakistani border. But in light of current Indian politics, the battle over Kashmir is clearly less about territory than about stirring up mass support for a fundamentalist political agenda.
"When facing discontent from people at home, foster discontent for people abroad," said an Athenian statesman in the 5th century B.C. Perhaps the American media is too jaded by its own history of war distractions and wag-the-dog tales to recognize the phenomenon abroad, but 2500 years later the Athenian's lesson appears to apply to the world's largest democracy.
http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.14/990709-india.html
"Islamic fundamentalist" is a familiar cliche, one that has haunted the American imagination ever since Iran, 1979. In contrast, the word "Hindu" calls to mind lightly-clad figures dancing about with flowers and finger-cymbals.
So "Hindu fundamentalist" may seem odd -- but they are here. Indeed, with 720,000 Indian troops massed at the Pakistani border, and democracy in a kind of patriotic suspension since this round of fighting over Kashmir began, India is beginning to resemble a fascist state.
The core of this movement are recruited when very young and drilled in the martial arts. They carry lathis (hard cane sticks), wear Gestapo-like uniforms and salute their superiors. Many of them, including high-ranking politicians, openly worship Hitler -- wearing armbands and swastikas (the word is of Sanskrit origin) among other icons.
"Germany has shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures... to be assimilated into one united whole," says M.S. Golwalkar, the leader of India's largest Hindu fundamentalist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This is "a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."
Hindusthan means Hindu place. This and Hindutva (Hindu culture) and Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation) are all part of a campaign designed to turn India into the Hindu equivalent of an Aryan state.
And the movement has never been stronger than it is today.
Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, described by Time magazine as "a portly, affable... scholarly moderate," is an RSS cadre. So is his political partner, Home Minister L.K. Advani, who was president of the Bharatiya Janata Parishad (BJP), now India's ruling party. The current BJP president, Kushabhu Thakre, is a lifelong RSS member -- and as fanatic as they come.
In fact, some 75 percent of the BJP's executives have RSS roots, and many consider the BJP nothing more than the RSS dressed in politician's clothing. The BJP's popularity is based almost entirely on nationalistic principals as applied against Christians, Muslims, and India's arch foe, Pakistan -- particularly over the Kashmir, where the majority Muslim population has sought to secede from India.
When the BJP first established a government in 1996, it lasted a total of 12 days. When they took power again a year later, they were still trying to form a stable coalition when Vajpayee ordered underground nuclear tests. Popular support for the BJP swelled -- nowhere more loudly than in Hindu fundamentalist groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena (Shiva's Army).
"We will no longer be thought of as a country of eunuchs!" exclaimed Shiv Sena leader Bal Thakaray, referring to the reputation for non-violence that has dogged India ever since Gandhi shed his lawyer's suit.
The BJP was quick to increase military spending (by as much as 68 percent for its nuclear program). The amount allocated for new weapons was only slightly less than the total for education, health and social programs -- in a country that reports only about 50 percent of its adult population is literate. About 200 million Indians -- some 20 percent -- lack access to clean water and more than 300 million survive on less than 50 cents per day.
Last May, only a few days after learning that his government was on the verge of dissolving, Prime Minister Vajpayee ordered the test of a nuclear-capable missile. Home Minister Advani -- and many others -- publicly declared that India's nuclear capability (often called the "Hindu Bomb" in the press) would finally bring a lasting solution to the Kashmir situation. He was -- as events have shown -- wrong. In fact, the opposite may be true.
The fighting in Kargil at the border "appears to be just one event set off by the forces unleashed after last year's nuclear tests in Pokhran [India]," explains Praveen Swami, a senior journalist with India's Frontline Magazine. "The self-proclaimed defender of national unity, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has led India to its most serious crisis since the war of 1948."
Hard-line Hindus are calling for a nuclear attack against Pakistan. Once relatively balanced newspapers now publish anti-Pakistan commentary and paeans to Indian bravery as hard news. One Internet provider in Bombay has blocked web access to Pakistan's English-language daily. Celebrities rush to Kashmir to donate blood -- including even Sonia Gandhi, president of the opposition Congress(I) party. And Indian cricket authorities are recommending the country's team no longer play against Pakistan -- something Hindu fundamentalists have long sought.
This is not to say that fundamentalism, or for that matter fascism, is any less virulent across the Pakistani border. But in light of current Indian politics, the battle over Kashmir is clearly less about territory than about stirring up mass support for a fundamentalist political agenda.
"When facing discontent from people at home, foster discontent for people abroad," said an Athenian statesman in the 5th century B.C. Perhaps the American media is too jaded by its own history of war distractions and wag-the-dog tales to recognize the phenomenon abroad, but 2500 years later the Athenian's lesson appears to apply to the world's largest democracy.
http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.14/990709-india.html
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"In Gujarat, I heard echoes of the RSS view that minorities in India must "earn the goodwill of Hindus" even from those who assured me that they were Congress supporters. "
Pre-poll Verdict: No Winners in Battle for Gujarat
MAHESH DAGA
[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2002 12:01:58 AM ]
In Gujarat today, there are two battles being fought at the same time. In three days' time, we will know the outcome of one of them. But the outcome of the second is already known. And this outcome, although it would have a bearing on the election results, has nothing to do with the victory of this or that political party.
Narendra Modi might well not lead the next government in Gandhinagar — regardless of whether his party gets a majority or not — but the message that he has come to represent, of reducing the minorities in his kingdom to the status of subjects rather than citizens, has acquired dangerous levels of acceptance. In that sense, even if he loses the electoral battle, he has "won", to an alarming degree, the war of ideas.
The reason Godhra vs governance emerged as the central theme of the campaign is because a nervous, battle-shy Congress came to the conclusion that fighting Mr Modi on his chosen turf was a lost cause. Governance as the alternative to Godhra was not so much a positive, pro-active campaign slogan as strategic evasion. The party had little chance of winning "the battle for the soul of Gujarat" — as its manifesto put it — because it had neither the conviction nor the resources to fight it. From fielding a total of four Muslim candidates in a House of 182, to feigning amnesia on the post-Godhra violence to keeping its minority leadership from campaigning actively, the Congress "matched" the BJP step for step in excluding minorities from the political process. Their only "role" is, as an angry Muslim analyst told me, "to be herded like sheep into the polling booths, come December 12".
In the past week, this defensive strategy of the Congress has been justified on grounds of electoral "pragmatism". Given the highly polarised environment in the state, the apologists have argued, taking a "hard" secular line would have amounted to playing into Mr Modi's hands.
On the face of it, there appears to be merit in this argument. At least one senior BJP leader confessed to me in Ahmedabad that, unlike in the last poll, the party was finding it hard to brand the Congress as "pro-minority", given its carefully worked out strategy of "not being seen to be on the side of Muslims". And that this was going to hurt the BJP's chances.
But this argument from tactical necessity suffers from serious flaws. For one, it takes a rather myopic view of what is ultimately at stake in Gujarat. For another, it assumes, quite naively, that defeating the logic of Hindutva in the political arena is all there is to fighting the myth and message of Mr Modi.
The lesson from the history of Indian politics in the last decade-and-a-half is, however, quite the opposite. While the political fortunes of the BJP have waxed and waned in this period, Hindutva as a way of making sense of the world has maintained a steady upward graph, both in terms of shrillness and depth. Compare the rhetoric of Narendrabhai's gaurav yatras with Advaniji's rath yatra of more than 10 years ago and it would be difficult to miss the point.
There is, in other words, a need to separate the political fate of Hindutva from its growing cultural and social resonance. In purely electoral terms, Hindutva may achieve only fitful success in the complex caste and community calculus that underpins Indian politics, but even without a clear mandate, it continues to redefine the social commonsense. In Gujarat, I heard echoes of the RSS view that minorities in India must "earn the goodwill of Hindus" even from those who assured me that they were Congress supporters.
The Congress idea of secularism — vaguely derived from Nehru but ultimately hostage to the eroding credibility of the state that he had fashioned — is a holding operation. It cannot promise long-term deliverance from the excesses of Hindutva.
What is disturbing about Gujarat then is not so much the exclusion of minorities — whether as candidates, campaigners or as objects of political compassion and concern — as the absence of an alternative social and political vision that could take on the passion, prejudice and paranoia unleashed by Mr Modi. The sporadic Congress slogan of peace and harmony sounded no better than a pious sentiment. As for governance, it can, helped by a strong anti-incumbency undercurrent, win an occasional battle. But it is no answer to frenzy and fervour.
In the past week, BJP ideologues have taken to educating us on the difference between state and nation. What Advaniji renounced in Parliament recently, we have been told, is not the idea of a Hindu nation but a Hindu state — rajya not rashtra, as someone remarked in Ahmedabad. Knowing the parivarwallahs, it is likely that we will hear this minor lesson in political theory being repeated endlessly like an echo in a deep cavern.
While no one should overlook this obvious distinction, the lesson from Gujarat suggests that it is perhaps just an academic matter. The state that Mr Modi has presided over does not formally qualify as 'Hindu' but Gujarat is slowly approaching the ideal of a Hindu rashtra. Except this is not the only nation that exists in Gujarat. In Naroda Patiya, Kalupur and elsewhere, one gets a glimpse of the other — Muslim — nation: Shadowy, sullen and alienated.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/comp/articleshow?artid=30985609
Pre-poll Verdict: No Winners in Battle for Gujarat
MAHESH DAGA
[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2002 12:01:58 AM ]
In Gujarat today, there are two battles being fought at the same time. In three days' time, we will know the outcome of one of them. But the outcome of the second is already known. And this outcome, although it would have a bearing on the election results, has nothing to do with the victory of this or that political party.
Narendra Modi might well not lead the next government in Gandhinagar — regardless of whether his party gets a majority or not — but the message that he has come to represent, of reducing the minorities in his kingdom to the status of subjects rather than citizens, has acquired dangerous levels of acceptance. In that sense, even if he loses the electoral battle, he has "won", to an alarming degree, the war of ideas.
The reason Godhra vs governance emerged as the central theme of the campaign is because a nervous, battle-shy Congress came to the conclusion that fighting Mr Modi on his chosen turf was a lost cause. Governance as the alternative to Godhra was not so much a positive, pro-active campaign slogan as strategic evasion. The party had little chance of winning "the battle for the soul of Gujarat" — as its manifesto put it — because it had neither the conviction nor the resources to fight it. From fielding a total of four Muslim candidates in a House of 182, to feigning amnesia on the post-Godhra violence to keeping its minority leadership from campaigning actively, the Congress "matched" the BJP step for step in excluding minorities from the political process. Their only "role" is, as an angry Muslim analyst told me, "to be herded like sheep into the polling booths, come December 12".
In the past week, this defensive strategy of the Congress has been justified on grounds of electoral "pragmatism". Given the highly polarised environment in the state, the apologists have argued, taking a "hard" secular line would have amounted to playing into Mr Modi's hands.
On the face of it, there appears to be merit in this argument. At least one senior BJP leader confessed to me in Ahmedabad that, unlike in the last poll, the party was finding it hard to brand the Congress as "pro-minority", given its carefully worked out strategy of "not being seen to be on the side of Muslims". And that this was going to hurt the BJP's chances.
But this argument from tactical necessity suffers from serious flaws. For one, it takes a rather myopic view of what is ultimately at stake in Gujarat. For another, it assumes, quite naively, that defeating the logic of Hindutva in the political arena is all there is to fighting the myth and message of Mr Modi.
The lesson from the history of Indian politics in the last decade-and-a-half is, however, quite the opposite. While the political fortunes of the BJP have waxed and waned in this period, Hindutva as a way of making sense of the world has maintained a steady upward graph, both in terms of shrillness and depth. Compare the rhetoric of Narendrabhai's gaurav yatras with Advaniji's rath yatra of more than 10 years ago and it would be difficult to miss the point.
There is, in other words, a need to separate the political fate of Hindutva from its growing cultural and social resonance. In purely electoral terms, Hindutva may achieve only fitful success in the complex caste and community calculus that underpins Indian politics, but even without a clear mandate, it continues to redefine the social commonsense. In Gujarat, I heard echoes of the RSS view that minorities in India must "earn the goodwill of Hindus" even from those who assured me that they were Congress supporters.
The Congress idea of secularism — vaguely derived from Nehru but ultimately hostage to the eroding credibility of the state that he had fashioned — is a holding operation. It cannot promise long-term deliverance from the excesses of Hindutva.
What is disturbing about Gujarat then is not so much the exclusion of minorities — whether as candidates, campaigners or as objects of political compassion and concern — as the absence of an alternative social and political vision that could take on the passion, prejudice and paranoia unleashed by Mr Modi. The sporadic Congress slogan of peace and harmony sounded no better than a pious sentiment. As for governance, it can, helped by a strong anti-incumbency undercurrent, win an occasional battle. But it is no answer to frenzy and fervour.
In the past week, BJP ideologues have taken to educating us on the difference between state and nation. What Advaniji renounced in Parliament recently, we have been told, is not the idea of a Hindu nation but a Hindu state — rajya not rashtra, as someone remarked in Ahmedabad. Knowing the parivarwallahs, it is likely that we will hear this minor lesson in political theory being repeated endlessly like an echo in a deep cavern.
While no one should overlook this obvious distinction, the lesson from Gujarat suggests that it is perhaps just an academic matter. The state that Mr Modi has presided over does not formally qualify as 'Hindu' but Gujarat is slowly approaching the ideal of a Hindu rashtra. Except this is not the only nation that exists in Gujarat. In Naroda Patiya, Kalupur and elsewhere, one gets a glimpse of the other — Muslim — nation: Shadowy, sullen and alienated.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/comp/articleshow?artid=30985609
That's typical. Several thousand Muslims are viciously slaughtered in Gujarat and some right wing asshole posts a long article about how it's really the Muslims fault.
Leave it to the Nazis to promote ideas of Aryan superiority (the Nazis got that from the Hindu fundamentalists rather than the other way around).
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