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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: In numerous programs, we have highlighted the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk, which deals, in part, with the rehabilitation of the Third Reich’s reputation and the transformation of Hitler into a hero.
In FTR #‘s 988 and 989, 990, 991, and 992, we detailed the Hindutva fascism of Narendra Modi, his BJP Party and supportive elements, tracing the evolution of Hindutva fascism through the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to the present time.
Modi’s BJP is a political cat’s paw for the RSS, the Hindutva fascist organization that murdered Gandhi.
It appears that a Serpent’s Walk scenario is indeed unfolding in India.
As the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover. There are exceptions: When a children’s book is entitled “Great Leaders” and has a picture of Adolf Hitler standing next to Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, that’s a book cover that suggests this book should be skipped.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
- Narendra Modi’s presence on the same book cover (along with Gandhi, Mandela, Obama and Hitler.)
- Modi himself has his own political history with children’s books that promote Hitler as a great leader: ” . . . . In 2004, reports surfaced of high-school textbooks in the state of Gujarat, which was then led by Mr. Modi, that spoke glowingly of Nazism and fascism. According to ‘The Times of India,’ in a section called ‘Ideology of Nazism,’ the textbook said Hitler had ‘lent dignity and prestige to the German government,’ ‘made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant’ and ‘instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people.’ . . . .”
- In India, many have a favorable view of Hitler: ” . . . . as far back as 2002, the Times of India reported a survey that found that 17 percent of students in elite Indian colleges ‘favored Adolf Hitler as the kind of leader India ought to have.’ . . . . Consider Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. Reviled it might be in the much of the world, but Indians buy thousands of copies of it every month. As a recent paper in the journal EPW tells us (PDF), there are over a dozen Indian publishers who have editions of the book on the market. Jaico, for example, printed its 55th edition in 2010, claiming to have sold 100,000 copies in the previous seven years. (Contrast this to the 3,000 copies my own 2009 book, Roadrunner, has sold). In a country where 10,000 copies sold makes a book a bestseller, these are significant numbers. . . .”
- A classroom of school children filled with fans of Hitler had a very different sentiment about Gandhi. ” . . . . ‘He’s a coward!’ That’s the obvious flip side of this love of Hitler in India. It’s an implicit rejection of Gandhi. . . .”
- Apparently, Mein Kampf has achieved gravitas among business students in India: ” . . . . What’s more, there’s a steady trickle of reports that say it has become a must-read for business-school students; a management guide much like Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese or Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking. If this undistinguished artist could take an entire country with him, I imagine the reasoning goes, surely his book has some lessons for future captains of industry? . . . .”
- Hitler’s shockingly popular reputation in India, is due, in part, to the efforts of Bal Thackeray, the now deceased chief of the Shiv Sena party which is a long-standing BJP ally. ” . . . .Thackeray freely, openly, and often admitted his admiration for Hitler, his book, the Nazis, and their methods. In 1993, for example, he gave an interview to Time magazine. ‘There is nothing wrong,’ he said then, ‘if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.’ This interview came only months after the December 1992 and January 1993 riots in Mumbai, which left about a thousand Indians slaughtered, the majority of them Muslim. Thackeray was active right through those weeks, writing editorial after editorial in his party mouthpiece, ‘Saamna’ (‘Confrontation’) about how to ‘treat’ Muslims. . . .”
- Again, Thackeray felt that the treatment Hitler meted out to the Jews should be meted out to Muslims: ” . . . . Thackeray said this about the führer’s famous autobiography: ‘If you take Mein Kampf and if you remove the word Jew and put in the word Muslim, that is what I believe in.’ . . . .”
Next, we further develop the operational link between Pierre Omidyar (of EBay and Intercept fame) and Narendra Modi’s BJP (a political front for the Hindutva fascist RSS. (We covered this in–among other programs–FTR #889.)
Jayant Sinha, the lead advisor for the Omidyar Network in India became Narendra Modi’s finance minister and is now a member of parliament. Sinha garlanded (adorned with flowers) eight men convicted of killing a meat trader last year as part of a far right Hindu national “cow vigilantism” campaign. The killing was caught on video. One of the killers was a local BJP leader.
The killing of Alimuddin Ansari took place a day after Modi belatedly proclaimed that “killing people in the name of cow protection unacceptable.”
Prior to Modi’s statement, cow vigilantism had been going on for years with a muted response from Modi’s government.
As a result of Modi’s statement, the eleven people involved with the killing were sent to a fast track court and given life sentences in March, making it the FIRST successful conviction over an act of cow vigilantism.
Sinha protested that conviction, claiming that he was convinced that justice was not done. He then demanded that the case be probed again, but by the Central Bureau of Investigation this time.
Fast forward to today: eight of the convicted were released on bail, while they appeal their conviction. They then traveled to Sinha’s residence where they were feted.
The symbolic importance of cow vigilantism isn’t simply a demonstration of the BJP’s willingness to cater to Hindutva fascist ideology. The focus on the cow is part of the atavistic, anti-modernist, anti-pluralist narrative the BJP and its ideological RSS parent have been promoting.
Cow vigilantism is central to a narrative that exalts a mythical time of Brahmanic purity that allegedly existed before the arrival of the British and Muslims on the Indian subcontinent.
Because lower caste Hindus and Muslims who consume beef in India, the cow vigilantism provides a convenient proxy issue to excuse attacks on those seen as ‘other’ by the Hindu nationalists.
As the article puts it, a crucial ingredient to Modi’s political success has been tapping into a nostalgic impulse for a purer past. The sacredness of the cow has come to symbolize that Hindu nationalist drive for national renewal.
” . . . . Under this worldview, the golden age of Hindu rule in the Vedic period, subsequently sullied by foreign pollutants—the British, yes, but the rapacious Muslim in particular—is to be channeled into twenty-first-century renewal, piloted by an arbitrary set of “Hindu values.” And foremost among these is the inviolability of the cow. . . .
. . . . The BJP, as well as its ideological parent organization the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, peddle a version of nationalism that prioritizes exclusivity, in which Indians are rigidly defined by ethnicity and religion. The trope of the cow is thus a convenient instrument, measuring the allegiance to the nation along gastronomical—and thereby spiritual—lines. Non-Hindus are deemed a surplus population, and violence against them is sanctioned in an attempt to cleanse the true body politic. . . .”
In our discussions with Peter Levenda, we have set forth the manner in which fascism mobilizes xenophobic, eugenicist longing for a mythical “purer past” to gain and rally adherents.
” . . . . But the crucial ingredient is the way Modi has tapped into the nostalgic impulse. Svetlana Boym, a Russian-American philologist, has described this as the ‘historical emotion’ of modernity, and argued that attempts to create a ‘phantom homeland’ through ahistorical restoration would only breed monstrous consequences. As she writes in The Future of Nostalgia, it is a ‘restorative nostalgia’ that ‘is at the core of recent national and religious revivals. It knows two main plots—the return to origins and the conspiracy.’
And so we inhabit a landscape where MAGA caps, Little England, the Hindu Rashtra, and the Islamic Caliphate have arrested the imagination of millions. These are all overtures to an Edenic past, promising an order that preserves tradition by purifying society of contagion. . . .”
With 2017 now in the rear view mirror, we conclude the program by capping our revulsion at the Bay Area’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the Summer of Love (1967.) In FTR #991, we detailed the Hindutva fascist/Nazi philosophy of Hare Krishna cult founder and head guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
On 1/29/1967, Prabhupada and his cult were the beneficiaries of monies generated by a concert and dance featuring the leading San Francisco psychedelic-era rock bands. The event also featured participation by LSD guru Timothy Leary, whose activities and career are inextricably linked with the CIA.
Program Highlights:
- Hare Krishna cult founder Bhaktivedanta Swami’s fundamental opposition to democracy. “So monarchy or dictatorship is welcome. . . . Personally, I like this position, dictatorship. Personally, I like this.”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami’s teachings dovetail superbly with Nazi occult philosophy. ” . . . . Bhaktivedanta Swami, however, speaks extensively about ‘the Aryans’–at least twenty-five of his purports and over a hundred lectures and conversations contain lengthy elaborations on the topic. He places all those whom he calls ‘non-Aryan’ in a category similar to his ‘unwanted population,’ thus dividing humans into two groups: a large group of varna sankara and non-Aryans on one side, and a small group of Aryans, ie those who follow varnashram, on the other: ‘Those who traditionally follow these principles are called Aryans, or progressive human beings.’ ‘The Vedic way of life,’ he writes, ‘is the progressive march of civilization of the Aryans.’ ‘In the history of the human race, the Aryan family is considered to be the most elevated community in the world.’ . . . . In more than one fifth of his statements he clearly describes or defines them in racial terms: The Aryan family is distributed all over the world and is known as Indo-Aryan. The Aryans are white. But here, this side, due to climatic influence, they are a little tan. Indians are tan but they are not black. But Aryans are all white. And the non-Aryans, they are called black. Yes . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami’s philosophy saw Europeans and Americans as part of, and extensions of, the Aryan race. Note that he, also, invokes the mythical lost past, in which Aryan/Brahmanic culture became degraded. In an address to a French audience, he intoned as follows: ” . . . . So we all belong to the Aryan family. Historical reference is there, Indo-European family. So Aryan stock was on the central Asia. Some of them migrated to India. Some of them migrated to Europe. And from Europe you have come. So we belong to the Aryan family, but we have lost our knowledge. So we have become non-Aryan, practically. You French people, you are also Aryan family, but the culture is lost now. So this Krishna consciousness movement is actually reviving the original Aryan culture. Bharata. We are all inhabitants of Bharatavarsha, but as we lost our culture, it became divided. So on the whole, the conclusion is that the Aryans spread in Europe also, and the Americans, they also spread from Europe. So the intelligent class of human being, they belong to the Aryans. Aryan family. Just like Hitler claimed that he belonged to the Aryan family. Of course, they belonged to the Aryan families. . . .”
- It should come as no surprise that Bhaktivedanta was pro-Hitler, viewing the Fuehrer as “a gentleman,” who had to kill the Jews because they were “financing” against him. “. . . . So these English people, they were very expert in making propaganda. They killed Hitler by propaganda. I don’t think Hitler was so bad [a] man. Hitler knew it [the atomic bomb] . . . . He was gentleman. He said that ‘I can smash the whole world, but I do not use that weapon.’ The Germans already discovered. But out of humanity they did not use it. . . . The activities of such men are certainly very great . . . Therefore Hitler killed these Jews. They were financing against Germany. Otherwise he had no enmity with the Jews. . . . Therefore Hitler decided, ‘Kill all the Jews.’ . . . .”
- An in-depth view of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s view of “shudras” reveals the deep racist/fascistic views of social class/caste. Described variously as “black” or “common,” shudras are the focus of deep ideological contempt. This should be seen against the background of the Aryan racial philosophy of Bhaktivedanta Swami. “. . . . ordinary people; the laborer class; once-born; the lowest class of men; non-Aryan; worker; the black man; he must find out a master; one who has no education; almost animal; just like a dog; he becomes disturbed; one who is dependent on others; they are ignorant rascals; unclean; equal to the animal; no training; fools, rascals. . . According to his understanding, people of black or dark skin color, as well as native Americans, are shudras, are third-class, degraded, and less intelligent: ‘Shudras have no brain. In America also, the whole America once belonged to the Red Indians. Why they could not improve? The land was there. Why these foreigners, the Europeans, came and improved? So Shudras cannot do this. They cannot make any correction. . . . A first-class Rolls Royce car, and who is sitting there? A third class negro. This is going on. You’ll find these things in Europe and America. This is going on. A first-class car and a third-class negro. . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami did not feel that the black American slaves should be freed. ” . . . . Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? . . . That is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be satisfied. . . . ‘So the Kiratas, they were always slaves of the Aryans. The Aryan people used to keep slaves, but they were treating slaves very nicely.’ And that the Kiratas were Africans, he had explained many times: ‘Kirata means the black, the Africans.’ . . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami had some “choice” things to say about women: ” . . . . Generally all women desire material enjoyment.Women in general should not be trusted. Women are generally not very intelligent. It appears that women is a stumbling block [sic] for self-realization. . . . Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape. When a husbandless woman is attacked by an aggressive man, she takes his action to be mercy. Generally when a woman is attacked by a man—whether her husband or some other man—she enjoys the attack, being too lusty. . . .”
1a. We begin by referencing the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk. Like The Turner Diaries (also published by National Vanguard Books), the book seems to be a blueprint for a Nazi takeover of the United States (rather than a novel), set to take place in the middle of the 21st century. The book describes the Third Reich going underground, buying into the American media, and taking over the country.
It assumes that Hitler’s warrior elite — the SS — didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War. Instead their survivors went underground and adopted some of the tactics of their enemies: they began building their economic muscle and buying into the opinion-forming media. A century after the war they are ready to challenge the democrats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Americans, who have begun to have their fill of government-enforced multi-culturalism and ‘equality.’
1b. This process is described in more detail in a passage of text, consisting of a discussion between Wrench (a member of this Underground Reich) and a mercenary named Lessing.
. . . . The SS . . . what was left of it . . . had business objectives before and during World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but from other places: Bogota, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Colombo, Damascus, Dacca . . . you name it. They realized that the world is heading towards a ‘corporacracy;’ five or ten international super-companies that will run everything worth running by the year 2100. Those super-corporations exist now, and they’re already dividing up the production and marketing of food, transport, steel and heavy industry, oil, the media, and other commodities. They’re mostly conglomerates, with fingers in more than one pie . . . . We, the SS, have the say in four or five. We’ve been competing for the past sixty years or so, and we’re slowly gaining . . . . About ten years ago, we swung a merger, a takeover, and got voting control of a supercorp that runs a small but significant chunk of the American media. Not openly, not with bands and trumpets or swastikas flying, but quietly: one huge corporation cuddling up to another one and gently munching it up, like a great, gubbing amoeba. Since then we’ve been replacing executives, pushing somebody out here, bringing somebody else in there. We’ve swing program content around, too. Not much, but a little, so it won’t show. We’ve cut down on ‘nasty-Nazi’ movies . . . good guys in white hats and bad guys in black SS hats . . . lovable Jews versus fiendish Germans . . . and we have media psychologists, ad agencies, and behavior modification specialists working on image changes. . . .
1c. Before turning directly to the subject of music, the broadcast addresses the gradual remaking of the image of the Third Reich that is represented in Serpent’s Walk. In the discussion excerpted above, this process is further described.
. . . . Hell, if you can con granny into buying Sugar Turds instead of Bran Farts, then why can’t you swing public opinion over to a cause as vital and important as ours?’ . . . In any case, we’re slowly replacing those negative images with others: the ‘Good Bad Guy’ routine’ . . . ‘What do you think of Jesse James? John Dillinger? Julius Caesar? Genghis Khan?’ . . . The reality may have been rough, but there’s a sort of glitter about most of those dudes: mean honchos but respectable. It’s all how you package it. Opinion is a godamned commodity!’ . . . It works with anybody . . . Give it time. Aside from the media, we’ve been buying up private schools . . . and helping some public ones through philanthropic foundations . . .and working on the churches and the Born Agains. . . .
1d. In numerous programs, we have highlighted the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk, which deals, in part, with the rehabilitation of the Third Reich’s reputation and the transformation of Hitler into a hero.
In FTR #‘s 988 and 989, 990, 991, and 992, we detailed the Hindutva fascism of Narendra Modi, his BJP Party and supportive elements, tracing the evolution of Hindutva fascism through the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to the present time.
Modi’s BJP is a political cat’s paw for the RSS, the Hindutva fascist organization that murdered Gandhi.
It appears that a Serpent’s Walk scenario is indeed unfolding in India.
As the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover. There are exceptions: When a children’s book is entitled “Great Leaders” and has a picture of Adolf Hitler standing next to Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, that’s a book cover that suggests this book should be skipped.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
- Narendra Modi’s presence on the same book cover.
- Modi himself has his own political history with children’s books that promote Hitler as a great leader: ” . . . . In 2004, reports surfaced of high-school textbooks in the state of Gujarat, which was then led by Mr. Modi, that spoke glowingly of Nazism and fascism. According to ‘The Times of India,’ in a section called ‘Ideology of Nazism,’ the textbook said Hitler had ‘lent dignity and prestige to the German government,’ ‘made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant’ and ‘instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people.’ . . . .”
- In India, many have a favorable view of Hitler: ” . . . . as far back as 2002, the Times of India reported a survey that found that 17 percent of students in elite Indian colleges ‘favored Adolf Hitler as the kind of leader India ought to have.’ . . . . Consider Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. Reviled it might be in the much of the world, but Indians buy thousands of copies of it every month. As a recent paper in the journal EPW tells us (PDF), there are over a dozen Indian publishers who have editions of the book on the market. Jaico, for example, printed its 55th edition in 2010, claiming to have sold 100,000 copies in the previous seven years. (Contrast this to the 3,000 copies my own 2009 book, Roadrunner, has sold). In a country where 10,000 copies sold makes a book a bestseller, these are significant numbers. . . .”
- A classroom of school children filled with fans of Hitler had a very different sentiment about Gandhi. ” . . . . ‘He’s a coward!’ That’s the obvious flip side of this love of Hitler in India. It’s an implicit rejection of Gandhi. . . .”
- Hitler’s shockingly popular reputation in India, is due, in part, to the efforts of Bal Thackeray, the now deceased chief of the Shiv Sena party which is a long-standing BJP ally. ” . . . .Thackeray freely, openly, and often admitted his admiration for Hitler, his book, the Nazis, and their methods. In 1993, for example, he gave an interview to Time magazine. ‘There is nothing wrong,’ he said then, ‘if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.’ This interview came only months after the December 1992 and January 1993 riots in Mumbai, which left about a thousand Indians slaughtered, the majority of them Muslim. Thackeray was active right through those weeks, writing editorial after editorial in his party mouthpiece, ‘Saamna’ (‘Confrontation’) about how to ‘treat’ Muslims. . . .”
An Indian publisher came under fire this weekfor including Hitler in a children’s book about world leaders who have “devoted their lives for the betterment of their country and people.”
“Dedicated to the betterment of countries and people? Adolf Hitler? This description would bring tears of joy to the Nazis and their racist neo-Nazi heirs,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization, said in a statement.
Published by the Pegasus imprint of India’s B. Jain Publishing Group, the book, called “Leaders” — but listed on the publisher’s website as “Great Leaders” — spotlights 11 leaders “who will inspire you,” according to a product description on the publisher’s website.
On the book’s cover, a stony-faced Hitler is featured alongside Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. . . .
“Placing Hitler alongside truly great political and humanitarian leaders is an abomination that is made worse as it targets young people with little or no knowledge of world history and ethics,” Rabbi Cooper [of the Simon Wiesenthal Center] said in the statement.
Annshu Juneja, a publishing manager at the imprint, said by email that Hitler was featured because, like Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, “his leadership skills and speeches influenced masses.”
“We are not talking about his way of conduct or his views or whether he was a good leader or a bad leader but simply portraying how powerful he was as a leader,” he said. . . .
. . . . In parts of Asia, atrocities committed in Nazi Germany are poorly understood and Hitler is sometimes glorified as a strong, effective leader.
In 2004, reports surfaced of high-school textbooks in the state of Gujarat, which was then led by Mr. Modi, thatspoke glowingly of Nazism and fascism.
According to “The Times of India,” in a section called “Ideology of Nazism,” the textbook said Hitler had “lent dignity and prestige to the German government,” “made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant” and “instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people.” Only briefly does the book mention the extermination of millions of Jews and others by the end of World War II.
Dilip D’Souza, an Indian journalist, wrote in a 2012 editorial that when 25 mostly upper-middle-class students taught by his wife at a private French school in Mumbai were asked to name the historical figure they most admired, nine of them picked Hitler.
“ ‘And what about the millions he murdered?’ asked my wife. ‘Oh, yes, that was bad,’ said the kids. ‘But you know what, some of them were traitors.’ ” . . .
2. Hitler has had a positive impact on many students in India, whereas Gandhi’s image has been tarnished. Much of the posthumous popularity of Hitler comes from Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Shena Party.
“Hitler’s Strange Afterlife in India” by Dilip D’Souza; The Daily Beast; 11/30/2012
Hated and mocked in much of the world, the Nazi leader has developed a strange following among schoolchildren and readers of Mein Kampf in India. Dilip D’Souza on how political leader Bal Thackeray influenced Indians to admire Hitler and despise Gandhi. My wife teaches French to tenth-grade students at a private school here in Mumbai. During one recent class, she asked these mostly upper-middle-class kids to complete the sentence “J’admire …” with the name of the historical figure they most admired.
To say she was disturbed by the results would be to understate her reaction. Of 25 students in the class, 9 picked Adolf Hitler, making him easily the highest vote-getter in this particular exercise; a certain Mohandas Gandhi was the choice of precisely one student. Discussing the idea of courage with other students once, my wife was startled by the contempt they had for Gandhi. “He was a coward!” they said. And as far back as 2002, the Times of India reported a survey that found that 17 percent of students in elite Indian colleges “favored Adolf Hitler as the kind of leader India ought to have.”
In a place where Gandhi becomes a coward, perhaps Hitler becomes a hero.
Still, why Hitler? “He was a fantastic orator,” said the 10th-grade kids. “He loved his country; he was a great patriot. He gave back to Germany a sense of pride they had lost after the Treaty of Versailles,” they said.
“And what about the millions he murdered?” asked my wife. “Oh, yes, that was bad,” said the kids. “But you know what, some of them were traitors.” . . . .
. . . . Except this is no easily written-off experience. The evidence is that Hitler has plenty of admirers in India, plenty of whom are by no means kids.
Consider Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. Reviled it might be in the much of the world, but Indians buy thousands of copies of it every month. As a recent paper in the journal EPW tells us (PDF), there are over a dozen Indian publishers who have editions of the book on the market. Jaico, for example, printed its 55th edition in 2010, claiming to have sold 100,000 copies in the previous seven years. (Contrast this to the 3,000 copies my own 2009 book, Roadrunner, has sold). In a country where 10,000 copies sold makes a book a bestseller, these are significant numbers.
And the approval goes beyond just sales. Mein Kampf is available for sale on flipkart.com, India’s Amazon. As I write this, 51 customers have rated the book; 35 of those gave it a five-star rating. What’s more, there’s a steady trickle of reports that say it has become a must-read for business-school students; a management guide much like Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese or Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking. If this undistinguished artist could take an entire country with him, I imagine the reasoning goes, surely his book has some lessons for future captains of industry?
Much of Hitler’s Indian afterlife is the legacy of Bal Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena party who died on Nov. 17 [of 2012–D.E.] .
Thackeray freely, openly, and often admitted his admiration for Hitler, his book, the Nazis, and their methods. In 1993, for example, he gave an interview to Time magazine. “There is nothing wrong,” he said then, “if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.”
This interview came only months after the December 1992 and January 1993 riots in Mumbai, which left about a thousand Indians slaughtered, the majority of them Muslim. Thackeray was active right through those weeks, writing editorial after editorial in his party mouthpiece, “Saamna” (“Confrontation”) about how to “treat” Muslims.
On Dec. 9, 1992, for example, his editorial contained these lines: “Pakistan need not cross the borders and attack India. 250 million Muslims in India will stage an armed insurrection. They form one of Pakistan’s seven atomic bombs.”
A month later, on Jan. 8, 1993, there was this: “Muslims of Bhendi Bazar, Null Bazar, Dongri and Pydhonie, the areas [of Mumbai] we call Mini Pakistan … must be shot on the spot.”
There was plenty more too: much of it inspired by the failed artist who became Germany’s führer. After all, only weeks before the riots erupted, Thackeray said this about the führer’s famous autobiography: “If you take Mein Kampf and if you remove the word Jew and put in the word Muslim, that is what I believe in.”
With rhetoric like that, it’s no wonder the streets of my city saw the slaughter of 1992–93. It’s no wonder kids come to admire a mass-murderer, to rationalize away his massacres. It’s no wonder they cling to almost comically superficial ideas of courage and patriotism, in which a megalomaniac’s every ghastly crime is forgotten so long as we can pretend that he “loved” his country. . . .
3. It should come as no surprise that Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena party was an ally of Modi’s BJP.
. . .The party has a powerful hold over the Bollywood film industry.[13] It has been referred to as an “extremist”,[14][15] “chauvinist”,[16][17] as well as a “fascist party”.[18][19] Shiv Sena has been blamed for the 1970 communal violence in Bhiwandi, the 1984 Bhiwandi riot and violence in the 1992–1993 Bombay riots . . .
. . . . The party has been in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for Lok Sabha as well as Maharashtra Assembly since 1989. The two formed a government in Maharashtra between 1995–1999.[23] The Sena was the opposition party in the state along with the BJP from 1999 to 2014. . . .
4. Jayant Sinha, the lead advisor for the Omidyar Network in India became Narendra Modi’s finance minister and is now a member of parliament. Sinha garlanded (adorned with flowers) eight men convicted of killing a meat trader last year as part of a far right Hindu national “cow vigilantism” campaign. The killing was caught on video. One of the killers was a local BJP leader.
Jayant Sinha, the union minister from Jharkhand has landed himself in the middle of a rowafter the minister felicitated eight men convicted for killing a meat trader last year.
The controversy erupted after photographs emerged showing the minister welcoming them at his residence. In some, the union minister of state for civil aviation is also seen garlanding the eight convicts at his residence on the outskirts of Hazaribagh.
“This is despicable,” Jharkhand’s leader of opposition Hemant Soren tweeted in a stinging swipe at the union minister, tagging the minister’s alma mater, the prestigious Harvard University of the US.
“Your alumnus @jayantsinha felicitating the accused in cow related lynching death in India. Is this what @Harvard stands for?” Mr Soren tweeted about Mr Sinha, the BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Hazaribagh. Ramgarh town is also a part of his constituency.
A total of 11 men, including a local BJP leader, were sentenced to a life term for beating Alimuddin to death on 30 June last year.
The meat trader in Jharkhand was dragged out of his car and beaten to death by a mob that suspected he was carrying beef. As Alimuddin Ansari, 55, lay dying on a road in Ramgarh town, his car was also set on fire.
The deadly attack by the self-styled cow vigilantes had come just a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called “killing people in the name of cow protection unacceptable”. . . .
The Raghubar Das government in Jharkhand decided to send a strong message, ordered the police to quickly probe the case and sent it to a fast track court.
The court verdict came nine months later, in March this year.
They were convicted on the basis of a statement by Alimuddin’s wife Mariam Khatoon.
The police also came across a video that it said showed Nityanand Mahto, 45, the district BJP’s media in-charge dragging Alimuddin Ansari out of the car that a group of cow vigilantes had forced to stop near Ranchi. The mob took over from there and mercilessly thrashed him.
Ajoy Kumar of the Congress too expressed his shock at Mr Sinha, who he said was considered “among the most educated minister in PM Modi’s cabinet, “openly” supporting people convicted for killing an innocent. “Do they have no work to show except playing politics on dead bodies and dividing society?” he said in an attack on the BJP. . . .
5.The killing of Alimuddin Ansari took place a day after Modi belatedly proclaimed that “killing people in the name of cow protection unacceptable.”
Prior to Modi’s statement, cow vigilantism had been going on for years with a muted response from Modi’s government.
As a result of Modi’s statement, the eleven people involved with the killing were sent to a fast track court and given life sentences in March, making it the FIRST successful conviction over an act of cow vigilantism.
Sinha protested that conviction, claiming that he was convinced that justice was not done. He then demanded that the case be probed again, but by the Central Bureau of Investigation this time.
Fast forward to today: eight of the convicted were released on bail, while they appeal their conviction. They then traveled to Sinha’s residence where they were feted.
On March 21, the court had awarded life imprisonment to 11 cow vigilantes, including a local BJP leader, for lynching 55-year old Alimuddin alias Asgar Ali for carrying what they claimed was beef in his vehicle last year.
Union minister Jayant Sinha on Saturday demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Ramgarh lynching case of a Muslim trader, raising doubts over the police investigation, in which a local court convicted and awarded life sentence to 11 people last month. . . .
. . . . “We respect the judicial process. But from whatever I have gathered after consultations and studying the various facets (of the case), I firmly believe that complete justice has not been done. I am not a police officer, and I have not done a detailed inquiry, but as per my understanding, complete justice has not been done. I consulted senior lawyers and also took advice from the party (BJP) on the matter. I have decided to write to the (Jharkhand) chief minister (Raghubar Das), requesting him to recommend a CBI probe,” the minister said.
The court of additional district judge Om Prakash held guilty all the accused under Section 302 (murder) and other offences of the IPC, making it the first case in the country in connection with cow vigilantism and related violence in which the accused were convicted. The BJP-ruled Jharkhand witnessed a series of lynching of Muslim cattle traders in the months of May and June in 2017. . . .
6. The symbolic importance of cow vigilantism isn’t simply a demonstration of the BJP’s willingness to cater to Hindutva fascist ideology. The focus on the cow is part of the atavistic, anti-modernist, anti-pluralist narrative the BJP and its ideological RSS parent have been promoting.
Cow vigilantism is central to a narrative that exalts a mythical time of Brahmanic purity that allegedly existed before the arrival of the British and Muslims on the Indian subcontinent.
Because lower caste Hindus and Muslims who consume beef in India, the cow vigilantism provides a convenient proxy issue to excuse attacks on those seen as ‘other’ by the Hindu nationalists.
As the article puts it, a crucial ingredient to Modi’s political success has been tapping into a nostalgic impulse for a purer past. The sacredness of the cow has come to symbolize that Hindu nationalist drive for national renewal.
In our discussions with Peter Levenda, we have set forth the manner in which fascism mobilizes xenophobic, eugenicist longing for a mythical “purer past” to gain and rally adherents.
In past programs, we have noted that former Trump campaign manager and aide Steve Bannon was a big supporter of Modi. Key Trump business partners in India are members of the BJP which, again, is a political front for the Hindutva fascist party RSS.
India has been beset by a wave of gruesome lynchings. And at the epicenter of the country’s violent upheaval is the indolent cow. Emboldened by an ascendant Hindu nationalist movement, coupled with a controversial government ban on cattle slaughter, so-called cow-vigilante groups have been carrying out a ruthless form of mob justice, summarily executing those suspected of killing, trading, or consuming beef. India’s embattled minorities, particularly Muslims, have borne the brunt of the violence, confirming the worst suspicions about what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his brand of Hindu chauvinism would unleash on the country.
The atrocities have steadily been mounting. In September 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was hanged over rumors that he killed a cow and refrigerated its meat. A month later, 16-year-old Zahid Rasool Bhaat was slain by vigilante groups. In March of this year, suspected cattle traders Muhammed Majloom and Azad Khan were lynched. In April, 55-year old dairy farmer Pehlu Khan was accused of smuggling cows and was brutally beaten to death. In May, traders were assaulted for alleged beef storage, and Abu Hanifa and Riazuddin Ali were killed for purportedly stealing cattle. In June, Ainul Ansari was attacked on suspicion of transporting beef, while 15-year-old Junaid Khan was stabbed to death by a mob after being branded a beef eater.
Since September of last year, there have been more than a dozen lynchings across the country. Modi, who was feted by Donald Trump at the White House in June, has been ominously quiet on the issue.
Two cases in particular—of Pehlu Khan and Junaid Khan—offer the starkest evidence to date that an indelible rot is growing in the Indian Republic. Pehlu Khan’s death at the hands of cow vigilantes in Rajasthan occurred with the complicity of the crowd, who collectively bayed for his execution. It was also captured on camera, and subsequently watched by millions on social media. Just as chilling was the muted response that followed, as Aatish Taseer argued in a column for The New York Times:
Like all forms of theater, a lynching depends on what is left unsaid; it creates a mood, an atmosphere. The silence that settles in after the euphoric act of violence, which all have witnessed, tells a minority group that it has been forsaken. It is this element of a suggestive and creeping threat, in which the state apparatus and a silent majority are complicit, that has the power to demoralize a community as much as the physical acts of violence.
In the case of Junaid Khan, police were unable to produce a witness for the grim spectacle of his stabbing death, despite the fact that some 200 people had been assembled on the railway platform in Haryana where the killing took place. This kind of “unseeing” has become common—as Aarti Sethi writes, lynchings are a “social non-event in contemporary India.” This is an extreme form of alienation, in which Hindus have chosen to disregard the dead body of a Muslim child. In doing so, they symbolically withdrew Junaid’s membership from the socio-political order.
The country’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the stewardship of Modi and his openly Hindutva (“Hindu-first”) platform, have done little to stem the rise in communal tensions. They have not denounced this barbarism with conviction, only paying reluctant lip service in the face of incessant public pressure.
In fact, much of the hysteria over the cow, a sacred animal in Hinduism, was shrewdly engineered. During Modi’s election campaign in 2014, he railed against a “pink revolution,” a euphemism for India’s $5 billion-a-year meat export industry (the color pink is a reference to the color of beef), which was flourishing under Congress Party rule. The industry is concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, providing direct or indirect employment to around 2.5 million people. The sector is dominated by Muslims but also provides work to low-caste Hindus, which means the surge in cow protectionism has had a disproportionate impact on those communities. [Yogi Adyinath was appointed chief minister of the province by Modi–D.E.]
“Do you want to support people who want to bring about a Pink Revolution?” Modi bellowed on the campaign trail.
It should come as no surprise that, in the three years since the BJP took the reins of power, India has witnessed a growing climate of intolerance against minorities. Whipping up communal strife is a necessary part of the Hindu nationalist playbook. But the roots of the current crisis, in which the life of a cow is considered more sacred than that of a teenaged boy, go much deeper than Modi, reaching into the fundamental battle for modern India’s soul, between illiberal Hindutva forces and a pluralistic tradition that has rarely looked so vulnerable.
This is why Modi’s adherents have constructed a grand monolithic narrative to justify their actions, one that proclaims cultural continuity of tradition and that pivots upon a retrograde Brahmanical core. The complex history of the priestly caste is papered over with strident assertions of Brahmanical purity, of which vegetarianism and the sanctity of the cow are indispensable components.
Under this worldview, the golden age of Hindu rule in the Vedic period, subsequently sullied by foreign pollutants—the British, yes, but the rapacious Muslim in particular—is to be channeled into twenty-first-century renewal, piloted by an arbitrary set of “Hindu values.” And foremost among these is the inviolability of the cow.
However, this schema suffers from a significant flaw: A pristine and contiguous Hindu civilization in which the cow’s sanctity was upheld is disputed by the historical record. It is little more than embellished mythmaking. Much like other appeals to a bygone era of civilizational supremacy and homogeneity, it is thoroughly a product of modernity. . . .
. . . . The BJP, as well as its ideological parent organization the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, peddle a version of nationalism that prioritizes exclusivity, in which Indians are rigidly defined by ethnicity and religion. The trope of the cow is thus a convenient instrument, measuring the allegiance to the nation along gastronomical—and thereby spiritual—lines. Non-Hindus are deemed a surplus population, and violence against them is sanctioned in an attempt to cleanse the true body politic.
We have seen versions of this story play out across the world, in response to the failures of technocratic elites and the supposed champions of pluralistic democracy. In India’s case, the Congress Party became mired in corruption scandals, paving the way for Modi and the BJP to present themselves as pragmatic reformers. And indeed, that is how Modi is generally conveyed in the international press, with a focus on his attempts to overhaul India’s sclerotic tax system and to root out endemic corruption.
But the crucial ingredient is the way Modi has tapped into the nostalgic impulse. Svetlana Boym, a Russian-American philologist, has described this as the “historical emotion” of modernity, and argued that attempts to create a “phantom homeland” through ahistorical restoration would only breed monstrous consequences. As she writes in The Future of Nostalgia, it is a “restorative nostalgia” that “is at the core of recent national and religious revivals. It knows two main plots—the return to origins and the conspiracy.”
And so we inhabit a landscape where MAGA caps, Little England, the Hindu Rashtra, and the Islamic Caliphate have arrested the imagination of millions. These are all overtures to an Edenic past, promising an order that preserves tradition by purifying society of contagion. . . .
Modi’s two central agendas—economic development and Hindu cultural revival— compete with one another for headlines. Yet his commitment to pandering to the far right has never truly been in question. The creation of communal discord crystallizes the BJP’s ambition to alter history and hegemonize “Indian values” as exclusively Hindu values. The party has eagerly deployed Hindu symbols and myths to convert nostalgia into electoral support. So far this approach has been extremely successful: Close to half of Indians now dwell in BJP-controlled states, devoid of an effective opposition.
7. Yogi Adityanath is the Modi-appointed RSS governor of Uttar Praddesh, known for encouraging vigilante death squads against Muslims. A week of riots broke out in the city of Kasganj in the state of Uttar Pradesh on Jan. 26, India’s Republic Day. The accounts of how the riots started are in dispute.
It is clear is that Modi’s appointment of Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh greatly exacerbated the Hindu-Muslim tensions in that city.
Rahul Upadhyay, a wiry journalist with a shock of black hair, was at home when he received news of his death.
During celebrations on India’s Republic Day, Jan. 26, a clash broke out between Hindus and Muslims in the city of Kasganj. Schools, shops and a mosque were damaged. One person was killed; another nearly had his eye gouged out.
Mr. Upadhyay, 24, stayed away from the violence, bunkering down inside his home in a nearby village. But the following evening, a friend called to share a peculiar bit of news: “You have been elevated to being a martyr.”
In the span of a few hours, messages on WhatsApp and Facebook mourning “martyr Rahul,” and saying he had been killed in clashes, went viral across Uttar Pradesh State, which includes Kasganj.
Candlelight vigils paying respect to Mr. Upadhyay, who is Hindu, lit up the streets of seven districts, some with the participation of local politicians.
By the time Mr. Upadhyay found out, there was little he could do: The riots had become so bad in Kasganj that the authorities shut down the internet.
“No media house or politician bothered to visit my place or call me first to confirm that I was indeed dead,” he said. “The marketplace of rumors had heated up beyond control.”
Kasganj was not always like this. For much of its history, Muslims and Hindus coexisted peacefully in this dusty city about 100 miles east of New Delhi. As the price of land shot up in the area, the city prospered. Now, rows of mustard-colored crops, markers of the region’s agrarian roots, frame Honda dealerships catering to a population eager to trade bicycles for motorbikes.
In the years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in 2014, violent outbreaks between Hindus and Muslims have become more common in some pockets of India.
But locals said the energy did not change in Kasganj until last year, when Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand politician with ties to far-right Hindu nationalist groups, was chosen as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, home to over 200 million people.
The clashes began with a flag. On Jan. 26, a group of Muslims gathered in an open square in Kasganj, unstacking rows of red plastic chairs and preparing to hoist a flag into the air to celebrate Republic Day, which marks the enactment of India’s constitution in 1950.
Around the same time, dozens of men on motorbikes affiliated with a far-right Hindu student group approached the assembly, asking that the Muslims move the chairs so they could pass. Accounts of what happened next vary.
According to a police report filed by Sushil Gupta, the father of Abhishek Gupta, the man who was actually killed, a group of Muslims began taunting the Hindus, shouting “Long Live Pakistan,” and telling them that they would have to chant “Hail Pakistan” if they wanted to pass.
Shamsul Arafeen, 70, a Muslim tailor who was part of the crowd, remembered the encounter differently, describing a “big mob” of Hindus who demanded that the Muslims move the chairs before boiling the argument down to religion. Others said the Hindus told the Muslims to go back to Pakistan.
“They started abusing us, saying, ‘If you want to live in Hindustan, you must chant ‘Hail Sita and Ram,’” Mr. Arafeen said, using another name for India and referring to two Hindu gods.
The confrontation became physical soon afterward, with rioters from both sides throwing stones at each other and burning shops to the ground. Videos of the confrontations spread rapidly. The authorities shut down internet service in the area for hours.
By the end of the clashes, which stretched over a week, over 100 people had been arrested, both Hindu and Muslim. Mohar Singh Tomar, an investigating officer with Kasganj’s police force, said it was unclear who started the clashes, brushing aside suggestions that either religious group had received unfair treatment.
Purnendra Pratap Singh Solanki, the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, took a harder line, characterizing the confrontation as a “preplanned conspiracy” by a growing Muslim population to target Hindus.
“What is very problematic for us is that Muslims are ruled by their religion first,” he said. “They consider themselves Muslims before Indians, whereas the Hindus consider themselves Indians first and then Hindus.”
“The solution to such problems is to control their population,” Mr. Solanki added. “Their religious education at the madrassas must be combined with nationalism, peppered with nationalism. The problem is they don’t want to get educated at all.”
Reacting to the violence in Kasganj, R. V. Singh, the district magistrate in Bareilly, also in Uttar Pradesh, described a recent episode involving a Hindu march in a village in his district.
“A strange trend has started of carrying out processions through Muslim localities and raising anti-Pakistan slogans,” he wrote in a Facebook post that was subsequently deleted after he faced pressure from the state government. “Why? Are these people from Pakistan?”
At the same time, the always rocky relationship between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan has notably worsened in recent months.
Around Kasganj, many people said they were terrified to leave their homes and return to work. . . .
. . . . As for Mr. Upadhyay, he still has not figured out who first reported his death or why he had been singled out. Over the last weekend in January, he fielded over 400 calls from people asking if he had died. “My mother had to serve endless cups of tea to visitors and convince them that I was alive,” he said.
Eventually, Mr. Upadhyay figured that if he could not control social media, he might as well participate.
“I am Rahul Upadhyay,” he said in a recorded message sent out into cyberspace. “I am well and I have not even received a scratch.”
Still, he said, the damage was done. Hundreds of miles away, in the city of Gorakhpur, posters with his photograph had already been distributed.
Near his face was a warning: “We will take revenge for the death of martyr Rahul Upadhyay.”
Around the same time, dozens of men on motorbikes affiliated with a far-right Hindu student group approached the assembly, asking that the Muslims move the chairs so they could pass. Accounts of what happened next vary.
According to a police report filed by Sushil Gupta, the father of Abhishek Gupta, the man who was actually killed, a group of Muslims began taunting the Hindus, shouting “Long Live Pakistan,” and telling them that they would have to chant “Hail Pakistan” if they wanted to pass.
Shamsul Arafeen, 70, a Muslim tailor who was part of the crowd, remembered the encounter differently, describing a “big mob” of Hindus who demanded that the Muslims move the chairs before boiling the argument down to religion. Others said the Hindus told the Muslims to go back to Pakistan.
“They started abusing us, saying, ‘If you want to live in Hindustan, you must chant ‘Hail Sita and Ram,’” Mr. Arafeen said, using another name for India and referring to two Hindu gods.
The confrontation became physical soon afterward, with rioters from both sides throwing stones at each other and burning shops to the ground. Videos of the confrontations spread rapidly. The authorities shut down internet service in the area for hours. . . .
8. With 2017 now in the rear view mirror, we cap our revulsion at the Bay Area’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the Summer of Love (1967.) In FTR #991, we detailed the Hindutva fascist/Nazi philosophy of Hare Krishna cult founder and head guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
On 1/29/1967, Prabhupada and his cult were the beneficiaries of monies generated by a concert and dance featuring the leading San Francisco psychedelic-era rock bands. The event also featured participation by LSD guru Timothy Leary, whose activities and career are inextricably linked with the CIA.
We discussed this at length in AFA #28:
AFA 28: The CIA, the Military & Drugs, Pt. 5
The CIA & LSD
Part 5a 46:15 | Part 5b 45:52 | Part 5c 42:56 | Part 5d 45:11 | Part 5e 11:25
(Recorded April 26, 1987)
It is so very, very tragic that idealistic young people were led astray in such a fashion. It is outrageous that the process was effected by elements of CIA, employing a chemical–LSD–developed by the Nazi SS during World War II as a disabling agent. It works very well.
It is grotesque that so many of the people who lived through those events have failed to come to terms with what was done to them and the implications of that experience. The ramifications of those events are still very much with us.
“Mantra Rock;” The Hare Krishna Movement.
Mantra Rock Concert
Sunday, January 29, 1967 marked the major spiritual event of the San Francisco hippie era, and Srila Prabhupada, who was ready to go anywhere to spread Krishna Consciousness, was there.
The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service — all the new-wave San Francisco bands — had agreed to appear with Srila Prabhupada at the Avalon Ballroom’s Mantra-Rock Dance, proceeds from which would go to the local Hare Krishna temple.
Thousands of hippies, anticipating an exciting evening, packed the hall.
At about 10 p.m., Srila Prabhupada and a small entourage of devotees arrived amid uprorious applause and cheering by a crowd that had waited weeks in great anticipation for this moment. Srila Prabhupada was given a seat of honor onstage and was introduced by Allen Ginsberg, who explained his own realizations about the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and how it had spread from the small storefront in New York to San Francisco.
The chanting started slowly but ryhthmically, and little by little it spread throughout the ballroom, enveloping everyone. Hippies got to their feet, held hands, and began to dance as enormous, pulsing pictures of Krishna were projected around the walls of the ballroom in perfect sync with the beat of the mantra.
By the time Srila Prabhupada stood and began to dance with his arms raised, the crowd was completely absorbed in chanting, dancing and playing musical instruments they had brought for the occasion.
As the tempo speeded up, the chanting and dancing became more and more intense, spurred on by a stageful of top rock musicians, who were as charmed by the magic of the maha-mantra as the amateur musicians had been at the Tompkins Square kirtanas only a few weeks before.
The chant rose; it seemed to surge and swell without limit. When it seemed it could go no further, the chanting stopped. Srila Prabhupada offered prayers to his spiritual master into the microphone and ended-by saying three times, “All glories to the assembled devotees!” The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood buzzed with talk of the mantra-Rock Dance for weeks afterward.
Allen Ginsberg later recalled, “We sang Hare Krishna all evening. It was absolutely great — an open thing. It was the height of the Haight-Ashbury spiritual enthusiasm.”
9. Timothy Leary was present at the “Mantra Rock” event.
“Mantra-Rock Dance;” Wikipedia.com.
. . . . The participation of countercultural leaders considerably boosted the event’s popularity; among them were the poet Allen Ginsberg, who led the singing of the Hare Krishna mantra onstage along with Prabhupada, and LSD promoters Timothy Leary and Augustus Owsley Stanley III.[3][10]
10. Excerpted from the description for FTR #991:
- Hare Krishna founder and chief guru Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada provided commentary on Hindu religious text “. . . . and often suggested that they had not actually been written by himself, but that God, Krishna, had revealed them to him. . . .” This was in order to “ . . . .underline the absolute position, superhuman qualities, and overall importance of the guru. [Basically, “guru” as “fuhrer”–D.E.] . . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami was fundamentally opposed to democracy. “So monarchy or dictatorship is welcome. . . . Personally, I like this position, dictatorship. Personally, I like this.”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami felt that Hinduism was in a “fallen state” and that only his discipline/teachings could restore it to its proper place. In our discussions with Peter Levenda, we have noted that fascism manifests a longing for a bygone time–one that never really existed.
- Fascist philosophies frequently invoke a by-gone, mythical “golden age,” which the fascist cadre in question will restore, after the corrupting forces have been neutralized. ” . . . . He too believed that in bygone ages a divine and scientific social system had existed in India, and like Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, he too founded a movement whose express mission was to reestablish what he often referred to as the “perfectional form of human civilization,” varnashram dharma. . . .” Note that “foreigners” or what would be termed in our society today “immigrants,” “migrants,” “Mexicans,” or “Muslims” are blamed for this degeneration. ” . . . . . . . . Indian civilization on the basis of the four varnas and ashrams deteriorated because of her dependency on foreigners, or those who did not follow the civilization of varnasham. . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami valued the traditional position of the Kshatriya warrior caste, to which the Nazi SS considered themselves as successors, according to Kevin Coogan’s brilliant analysis (in Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International.) “. . . . the kshatriyas should be taught how to fight also. There will be military training. There will be training how to kill. Kshatriya students in the ISKCON varnashram college were to practice killing: ‘Just like Kshatriyas, they have to learn how to kill.’ . . . . There is no single instance where Bhaktivedanta Swami speaks about kshatriya training without mentioning killing. . . . ‘Learn to kill. No nonviolence. Learn to kill. Here also, as soon you’ll find, the Kshatriya, a thief, a rogue, unwanted element in the society, kill him. That’s all. Finish. Kill him. Bas. Finished. . . .” It is not that because the Kshatriyas were killing by bows and arrows formerly you have to continue that. That is another foolishness. If you have got . . . If you can kill easily by guns, take that gun. All the royal princes were trained up how to kill. . . . A Kshatriya, he is expert in the military science, how to kill. So the killing art is there. You cannot make it null and void by advocating nonviolence. No, That is required. Violence is also a part of the society. . . .”
- Tulsi Gabbard’s political vector may be evaluated against the background of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s prognostication that the Hare Krishna cult could infiltrate and take over a key political party and/or government in a democracy. Recall that he viewed democracy with utmost contempt. ” . . . . Bhaktivedanta also thought that he and his movement could take over some government and rule some part of the world: ‘However in Kali-yuga, democratic government can be captured by Krishna conscious people. If this can be done, the general populace can be made very happy.’ . . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami’s teachings dovetail superbly with Nazi occult philosophy. ” . . . . Bhaktivedanta Swami, however, speaks extensively about ‘the Aryans’–at least twenty-five of his purports and over a hundred lectures and conversations contain lengthy elaborations on the topic. He places all those whom he calls ‘non-Aryan’ in a category similar to his ‘unwanted population,’ thus dividing humans into two groups: a large group of varna sankara and non-Aryans on one side, and a small group of Aryans, ie those who follow varnashram, on the other: ‘Those who traditionally follow these principles are called Aryans, or progressive human beings.’ ‘The Vedic way of life,’ he writes, ‘is the progressive march of civilization of the Aryans.’ ‘In the history of the human race, the Aryan family is considered to be the most elevated community in the world.’ . . . . In more than one fifth of his statements he clearly describes or defines them in racial terms: The Aryan family is distributed all over the world and is known as Indo-Aryan. The Aryans are white. But here, this side, due to climatic influence, they are a little tan. Indians are tan but they are not black. But Aryans are all white. And the non-Aryans, they are called black. Yes . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami’s philosophy saw Europeans and Americans as part of, and extensions of, the Aryan race. In an address to a French audience, he intoned as follows: ” . . . . So we all belong to the Aryan family. Historical reference is there, Indo-European family. So Aryan stock was on the central Asia. Some of them migrated to India. Some of them migrated to Europe. And from Europe you have come. So we belong to the Aryan family, but we have lost our knowledge. So we have become non-Aryan, practically. You French people, you are also Aryan family, but the culture is lost now. So this Krishna consciousness movement is actually reviving the original Aryan culture. Bharata. We are all inhabitants of Bharatavarsha, but as we lost our culture, it became divided. So on the whole, the conclusion is that the Aryans spread in Europe also, and the Americans, they also spread from Europe. So the intelligent class of human being, they belong to the Aryans. Aryan family. Just like Hitler claimed that he belonged to the Aryan family. Of course, they belonged to the Aryan families. . . .”
- It should come as no surprise that Bhaktivedanta was pro-Hitler, viewing the Fuehrer as “a gentleman,” who had to kill the Jews because they were “financing” against him. “. . . . So these English people, they were very expert in making propaganda. They killed Hitler by propaganda. I don’t think Hitler was so bad [a] man. Hitler knew it [the atomic bomb] . . . . He was gentleman. He said that ‘I can smash the whole world, but I do not use that weapon.’ The Germans already discovered. But out of humanity they did not use it. . . . The activities of such men are certainly very great . . . Therefore Hitler killed these Jews. They were financing against Germany. Otherwise he had no enmity with the Jews. . . . Therefore Hitler decided, ‘Kill all the Jews.’ . . . .”
- An in-depth view of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s view of “shudras” reveals the deep racist/fascistic views of social class/caste. Described variously as “black” or “common,” shudras are the focus of deep ideological contempt. This should be seen against the background of the Aryan racial philosophy of Bhaktivedanta Swami. “. . . . ordinary people; the laborer class; once-born; the lowest class of men; non-Aryan; worker; the black man; he must find out a master; one who has no education; almost animal; just like a dog; he becomes disturbed; one who is dependent on others; they are ignorant rascals; unclean; equal to the animal; no training; fools, rascals. . . According to his understanding, people of black or dark skin color, as well as native Americans, are shudras, are third-class, degraded, and less intelligent: ‘Shudras have no brain. In America also, the whole America once belonged to the Red Indians. Why they could not improve? The land was there. Why these foreigners, the Europeans, came and improved? So Shudras cannot do this. They cannot make any correction. . . . A first-class Rolls Royce car, and who is sitting there? A third class negro. This is going on. You’ll find these things in Europe and America. This is going on. A first-class car and a third-class negro. . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami did not feel that the black American slaves should be freed. ” . . . . Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? . . . That is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be satisfied. . . . ‘So the Kiratas, they were always slaves of the Aryans. The Aryan people used to keep slaves, but they were treating slaves very nicely.’ And that the Kiratas were Africans, he had explained many times: ‘Kirata means the black, the Africans.’ . . . .”
- Bhaktivedanta Swami had some “choice” things to say about women: ” . . . . Generally all women desire material enjoyment.Women in general should not be trusted. Women are generally not very intelligent. It appears that women is a stumbling block [sic] for self-realization. . . . Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape. When a husbandless woman is attacked by an aggressive man, she takes his action to be mercy. Generally when a woman is attacked by a man—whether her husband or some other man—she enjoys the attack, being too lusty. . . .”
Here’s another growing trend in India that will no doubt be exploited by India’s far right: We’ve already seen how WhatsApp, the wildly popular encrypted communications smartphone app owned by Facebook, has become a public health hazard in countries like Brazil, where fake ‘public health’ videos tell people not to get vaccinated in the face of viral outbreaks because vaccines are part of a plot an Illuminati population reduction plot. And as we should expect, something similar is happening in India, which is WhatsApp’s largest market with 200 million users. WhatsApp is apparently being used to spread fake stories about child abductions in India. And since WhatsApp is treated as a news source by large numbers of people, this rumor campaign is predictably leading to vigilante violence:
“Her husband recently was forwarded a video that shows a child’s mutilated body. It’s unclear where or when the video is from, or whether it’s been doctored. A voice implores people to forward it to others, and to stay vigilant — that kidnappers are on the loose.”
Videos of mutilated children with warnings that the perpetrators are on the loose and calls to stay vigilant going viral over an encrypted app. It’s the perfect set up for sparking vigilante violence:
The rumor campaign is so successful that school attendance has actually dropped. Far worse, it’s successfully driven people to murder, with around two dozen people lynched or beaten to death by mobs prompted by social media in just the few months:
The misinformation campaign appears to be so persuasive that the woman interviewed in the article, Iram Sabah, remains concerned they could be true despite the fact that he family actually had to save a family for mob violence triggered by this exact same misinformation campaign earlier this month:
And as we should expect, many of these viral disinformation messages spreading fears of child abduction or whatever else place the blame on rival religions and ethnic groups, highlighting how this is the perfect tool for India’s far right:
In response, India’s police are launching an anti-fake new campaign. And in the town of Maelgaon where Iram Sabah live, the chief of police is even threatening to jail anyone who forwards such messages. Which, of course, will be very difficult to do given the fact that WhatsApp is designed to operate without anyone knowing who sent what to whom:
The Indian government is also demanding WhatsApp block these viral disinformation messages, which, again, is something WhatsApp is specifically designed to not allow. But WhatsApp respond with a new feature laughably intended to address this issue: when someone forwards a WhatsApp message they receive to someone else, that message will be labeled “forwarded”. That’s the ‘fix’:
Adding to the alarming nature of this is that this demonstration of the effectiveness of using WhatsApp to spread misinformation, and the futile efforts to stop it, comes right before next year’s general elections. So it’s pretty much a guarantee that political misinformation is going to play a major role during Modi’s reelection bid:
So should we expect Modi and the BJP government to take even further steps to crack down on WhatsApp? Well, it’s possible they could just try to ban WhatsApp. Although it seems more likely that they’ll focus on trying to punish the people who respond to these misinformation campaigns with violence.
But as the following article from May of 2017 reminds us, if the Modi government does indeed decide to crack down on the perpetrators of mob violence instigated by WhatsApp, that’s probably going to include cracking down on a lot of ‘cow vigilantes’ and even some BJP officials:
“A hotel owner in the Indian state of Rajasthan has expressed his frustration over the fact that his hotel has been closed for weeks over false accusations that it had served beef on the premises.”
So a hotel in Rajasthan was closed for weeks over false accusation that it served beef, which is illegal there, prompting a mob of ‘cow vigilantes’ to descend on the hotel. And who sent this false rumor? Well, lots of people since it was forwarded around on WhatsApp. And one of those people happened to be the mayor of Jaipur (a BJP member):
And as the following article notes, the mayor of Jaipur, Ashok Lahoty, shared the rumor about beef being served on a BJP WhatsApp group. So it was literally one of the BJP’s own WhatsApp groups that was used to spread this rumor that would inevitably reach the ‘cow vigilantes’. And the message he sent was that the hotel was sealed for “feeding beef to cows”:
“The owner of Hotel Hayat Rabbani, Naeem Rabbani, who held a press conference with his staff here on Monday, said “a repeat of Dadri had been averted”. Police, which reached the hotel in Sindhi Camp a few minutes after the crowd surrounded it, has said that the meat they seized appeared to be “chicken legs”, and it had been sent for testing to the forensic lab to placate tempers. However, hours after the incident, Jaipur Mayor Ashok Lahoty shared a message on a BJP media cell WhatsApp group saying the hotel had been sealed for “feeding beef to cows”.”
So a group of ‘cow vigilantes’ descended on the hotel, police arrive explaining that the suspected meat was actually chicken, but then the mayor of Jaipur sends a message to a BJP WhatsApp group saying the hotel had bee sealed for “feeding beef to cows”. And that’s how the rumor mill works: a group of cow vigilantes charges the hotel with serving beef, and the local mayor ends up sending up a message about how the hotel was feeding beef to cows. It’s like the Telephone Game but with vigilantes who might go murder someone as the message passes around and gets increasingly inflammatory.
And, of course, the mayor gives the an innocent sounding explanation: he was just forwarding a WhatsApp message someone sent to him:
“I received the message so I forwarded it.” That was the explanation the mayor of Jaipur gave. And that’s probably going to the explanation for all the other outbreaks of misinformation-induced hysteria that India is experiencing. But as we saw with the WhatsApp stories about kidnappers, someone is intentionally spreading this stuff and getting the misinformation ball rolling. So if authorities, or WhatsApp, could figure out who is starting these misinformation campaigns they might actually be able to stop it, or at least punish the punish the perpetrators. But, of course, they can’t find out who started it because that’s what WhatsApp is all about.
So will the Indian government find some sort of solution to this problem when there’s no obvious solution available? Well, as the following article makes grimly clear, there is one possible solution, although it would require India to vote in a new government because it appears that the BJP is behind much of these rumor campaigns as part of its Hindu nationalist agenda:
“Sukanta Chakraborty was hired in June by the Information and Culture department of the Indian state of Tripura to teach Indians how to spot fake news on apps like WhatsApp. He was dead before July.”
The guy hired by the Indian government to educate people about fake news as literally killed within a month due to fake news. That actually happened:
“On June 28, Chakraborty entered the tiny village of Kalacherra, less than 15 miles from the border with Bangladesh, to help defuse the situation. That’s when the mob, fearing him to be the mythic child abductor he was hired to dispel, turned on him.”
And as analysts of India’s fake news epidemic grimly point out, the Modi government has been largely silent on this deadly fake news epidemic because Modi’s party is behind a much larger systematic misinformation campaign designed to promote their far right agenda, of which WhatsApp is just one componennt:
“While the media in India and elsewhere have focused on WhatsApp deaths, we have to realize that this is only a specific way in which fake news is being spread by right-wing Hindu supremacists, many of them closely linked to the ruling BJP and its parent body, the openly fascist RSS.”
And while the Indian government has recently started to openly blame WhatsApp for this mob violence, WhatsApp claims that when they offered to meeting with the Indian government over the issue they have yet to receive a response. So it doesn’t sound like Modi’s government actually wants to find a solution to this:
Local authorities, on the other hand, are expressing severe concern. Concern and a sense of futility that presumably comes from an awareness that so much of this disinformation is coming from the fuling BJP itself:
And it’s not purely speculation that the BJP is behind this. As we saw above, BJP officials keep getting caught using social media and WhatsApp to spread messages that aren’t just fake but inflammatory:
And then there are the former BJP member were were literally part of the BJP’s troll armies who have gone public with how they were asked to promote a constant barrage of misogyny, Islamophobia, and general hatred:
And then there’s the BJP’s defense of “Postcard News”, known as a “mega factor of fake news”:
And this is all part of what one academic describes as the “hierarchical tree-like structure” of the BJP’s social media machine. Large numbers of BJP local volunteers work with the central BJP leadership to unleash coordinated waves of propaganda around the the country:
And that’s all why we probably shouldn’t expect India’s WhatsApp-fueled mob violence to end any time time. It’s part of the secret to the BJP’s success. Sure, it’s an open secret at this point, but a particularly hard open secret to prove because, again, that’s what WhatsApp is all about.
Here’s an interesting development in the epidemic of using the WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted communications smartphone app to spread misinformation about child abductions and trigger lynchings: The Indian government is warning that it’s going to demand that WhatsApp give them legal access to the contents of WhatsApp messages in order to investigate the misinformation campaigns. But if WhatsApp agreed to this it would completely negate the main selling point of WhatsApp that it’s so secure no one, even WhatsApp, can read the messages other than the end users. So, quite predictably, we have a situation where encryption technology is being abused and everyone is discovering that there’s little that can be done to address the abuse.
Now, keep in mind that there are strong indicators the ruling party of India, the BJP, is actually creating a number of these misinformation campaigns as part of a divide and conquer political strategy of fomenting ethnic and sectarian tensions. So it’s very unclear how much we should believe the Modi government actually wants to address the WhatsApp misinformation epidemic. But, at least on the surface, the Modi government is threatening legal action if WhatsApp doesn’t hack itself soon:
“The request for traceability, which came from India’s Ministry of Electronics & IT last week, was more than a suggestion. The Ministry said Facebook-owned WhatsApp would face legal actions if it failed to deliver.”
It’s not just a request for the traceability of messages. It’s a legal threat:
And it’s not like demanding the ability for law enforcement to trace the origins of messages that are analogous to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater (or, shouting “child abductors!” in this case) is some sort of egregious government overreach. This is merely exactly the kind of conflict we should have expected the when communication technology that no government can crack became popular.
But, of course, this reasonable request cuts at the core of the service WhatsApp is providing: secure communications. Being unable to address the abuses of WhatsApp has always been WhatsApp’s selling point:
So it doesn’t sound like WhatsApp has any interest in cracking itself. Which means we’re probably in store for a big public relations campaign by a slew of privacy advocates trying to explain why WhatsApp shouldn’t be expected to make the changes required to police itself.
One privacy advocate, Matthew Green, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, is already questioning why traditional investigative techniques — like asking the people who receive the misinformation messages to forward them to police along with the identify of the people who sent it to them — hasn’t been adequate in addressing the problem:
Keep in mind that Mathew Green is also one of the people behind Zerocoin, an extension of the of Bitcoin protocol designed to make Bitcoin transactions even more anonymous than they already were. So if you’re the type of person who doesn’t think Bitcoin transactions were anonymous enough, you’re probably not going to be very enthusiastic about government demands for the ability to trace WhatsApp messages. Also keep in mind that India isn’t the only government experiencing waves of WhatsApp-driven dangerous misinformation campaigns with no real solution.
But Green does raise the interesting question of whether or not the Indian government have something else in mind when it makes these demands. So it’s worth noting that there is one rather ominous possible answer to that question: as a pretext for placing government spyware on Indians’ phones. After all, the one obvious means of getting around end-to-end encryption is to hack one of the ends of that communication. And when you consider the BJP’s role in promoting these misinformation campaigns along with the Modi government’s close ties to Silicon Valley, an ulterior motive seems like the kind of thing we should be watching out for.
So does is seem far fetched to imagine the Modi government using the WhatsApps misinformation campaigns — many created by the BJP itself — as an excuse for greater surveillance of people’s smartphones? Well, when you consider that the Modi government recent request bid for companies to provide them with tools to monitory all Indians’ social media posts and even emails in order to promote nationalistic sentiments and combat fake news, it might seem less far fetched:
“They should monitor Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Internet forums and even email in order to analyze sentiment, identify “fake news,” disseminate information on behalf of the government and inject news and social media posts with a “positive slant for India,” the tender said.”
A system to monitoring everyone’s emails, ostensibly to to identify and combat fake news. That sure sounds like the kind of agenda that could actually benefit immensely from a WhatsApp misinformation campaign that appears to have no other solution.
And it’s going to be about far more than just combating ‘fake news’. The vision is for a platform that will literally provide real-time surveillance of public sentiment and the tools that can be used to push those sentiments in a more nationalist direction:
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this plan is for this system to have the ability to create historical archives of individual conversations. Everyone’s chit chat on the internet is going to archived and analyzed for appropriate levels of nationalism, and this data will be used for predictive modeling, data mining, and the creation of a positive narrative about India:
So if this envisioned system is archiving individual social media content, and potentially emails too, it’s not like it’s going to be a big stretch for the Indian government to say, “oh, and you need to have this special app on your phone for monitoring your conversations over WhatsApp and any other popular chat apps too so we can combat fake news.”
And that’s all part of what’s going to make the Modi government’s emerging showdown with Whatsapp so fascinating to play out: there really is a big misinformation problem created by WhatsApp, but the Modi government appears to be a big part of that big problem. And by creating this big problem, the Modi government may have created the kind of situation that will make it a lot easier to get public support for its mass surveillance/manipulation agenda designed to optimize the pro-BJP/Hindu nationalist messaging for maximum propagandistic effect. In other words, the answer to India’s fake news problem is probably going to be government=run curated and turbo-charged fake news developed with the use of the all the surveillance data gathered in order to combat the original fake news.
Here’s a piece that’s another reminder of how deeply the Hindu nationalist ideologies that underpin India’s ruling BJP party, and its parent RSS group, were fundamentally shaped by the Nazis. It’s also a reminder of how important mythological pasts are for these kinds of movements. Finally, it’s a reminder of the important role anti-Semitism played in both providing a model to RSS of how to successfully demonize of minority group (Muslims, in the case of the RSS) and how anti-Semitism remains a ‘go-to’ tool for Hindu nationalists today when dealing with non-Indians perceived to be enemies of the movement: Audrey Truschke, a historian of premodern India at Rutgers University, has clearly ruffled some Hindu nationalist feathers with her scholarly works on the historical legacy of Islam in India. Her research primarily deals with Muslim dynasty that ruled much of north and central South Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries. As a result of that work, Truschke has found herself under attack from Hindu nationalists upset with her work, with anti-Semitism being at the core of these attacks (despite Truschke not being Jewish):
“India has a growing problem with hate and intolerance. Alarmingly, in recent years, much of this hate has been sponsored by groups and figures that are close to the Indian government. Within India, Muslims remain the chief targets of mounting bigotry and violent assaults. When attacking non-Indians, however, Hindu nationalists increasingly resort to the virulent anti-Semitic ideas that inspired their early leaders.”
Anti-Semitism: the default attack of Hindu nationalists when they can’t easily accuse someone of being a Muslim. And that makes it a particularly useful attack against foreign scholars who can contradict Hindu nationalist claims about a pristine Hindu past and scholars who can provide an accurate description of the dark origins of groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). And that’s exactly what brought the wrath of the Hindu nationalists upon Truschke. Her work doesn’t portray the Mughals as savage barbarians who spoiled the pristine pre-Muslim past in accordance with the Hundi Nationalist mythology, and since the Hindu nationalists can’t attack her work, they hurl anti-Semitic attacks instead:
This is despite the fact that she’s not even Jewish. But as an academic, the fascist meme that ‘Jews control universities’ is part of that readymade fascist playbook, even against a non-Jew like Truschke. She’s assumed to be under the power of ‘the Jews’ running academia:
It’s a readymade playbook that the early RSS and Hindu nationalist leaders were drawing from from the very beginning of the Hindu nationalist movement. The anti-Semitism of the Nazis was explicitly seen as a model the RSS could use against India’s Muslims:
And that’s all why the anti-Semitic attacks against a non-Jewish academic by Hindu nationalists is simultaneously reprehensible, absurd, and completely to be expected based on the history of Hindu nationalism. It’s also a reminder of one of the reasons anti-Semitism, and the mythologies of global Jewish dominance, is so useful for the far right: anything that challenges those far right mythologies can be blamed on ‘the Jews’. Even well documented history.
Should gravitational waves be renamed “Narendra Modi Waves”? Probably not, but that proposal, which was based on the assertion that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were both wrong about gravity, turned out to be just one of the many highly questionable ideas floated at the annual Indian Science Congress thanks to growing attempts to insert Hindu nationalist ideas into India’s science community:
“Hindu mythology and religion-based theories have increasingly become part of the Indian Science Congress agenda.”
Just what India needs: far right religious meddling in its scientific community. While it doesn’t sound like this was new, it does sound like it’s getting worse:
And, of course, it appears the BJP is leading the charge in moving pseudoscience science into the mainstream, with Modi himself setting the tone:
And note how, in keeping with the far right tendency to create a mythical ‘perfect’ past that needs to be restored (through force), so many of these claims were based on suggesting India has some sort of advanced technology in the distant past:
So it looks like the BJP’s quest to corrupt science doubles as a quest to corrupt India’s history too. Which is at least thematically consistent.
That said, if a network of landing strips for the demon king’s 24 types of aircraft is ever discovered in Sri Lanka, that will be pretty cool. We still probably shouldn’t rename gravitational waves “Narendra Modi waves” at that point. Although if evidence of ancient Indian cosmetic surgery that turns your nose into an elephant trunk is discovered it would be fine to name that procedure after Modi.
Now that India has voted and it appears that Modi and the BJP won a resounding victory, one of the big questions facing India is the extent to which Modi’s reelection will turbocharge his ongoing drive towards Hindutva fascism. So here’s a look at what’s in store for India now that Modi’s political strategy of stoking far right sectarian tensions has wildly succeeded: Days before the vote, one of the BJP’s candidates suddenly created a controversy so big that even Modi had to condemn her comments. Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP’s MP candidate for a seat in Bhopal, the capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh, was asked a question about the patriotism of Nathuram Godse, the Hindu extremist who assassinated Gandhi. In Thakur’s words, Godse, “was, is and will remain a patriot.” It’s also important to note that Thakur herself is currently out on bail as she faces trial on terrorism charges involved a 2008 explosion that killed six people and injured more than 100. Beyond getting the BJP’s backing for the seat, Thakur has has senior party leaders attend her campaign events, including Modi. During the campaign Modi has also criticized opposition parties for the use of the term “Hindu terror” by asserting that there has been not been a single single such incident in thousands of years of history terror. That’s part of the context of the selection of Thakur for this seat. A context where Modi is literally trolling the country over Hindu terrorism as the same time his government is openly supporting domestic terror campaigns targeting Muslim via the ‘cow vigilante’ movement.
So given that Godse was a member of the RSS, BJP’s parent party, and given that Modi himself was a long-time RSS member, Thakur’s comment created an obvious political problem. Even Modi denounced her words and the BJP declared that “We strongly condemn this particular statement”. Yep, just that particular statement got a condemnation from the BJP. The rest of what Thakur stands for, like terrorism, is fine with the party. But she remained on the ballot and just might have been elected. We’ll find out soon. It’s a sign of how dominant far right politics is in contemporary India that a scandal like this could break out days before a sweeping Hindu nationalist victory:
“Thakur’s statement sparked a chorus of condemnation, but it accurately reflects the views of right-wing Hindu extremists. One fringe group celebrated the anniversary of Gandhi’s death earlier this year.”
Yep, Thakur’s endorsement of Gandhi’s assassin may have sparked condemnation, but her words merely accurately reflect the view of right-wing Hindu extremists. Hindu extremists who are now in the political mainstream and basically running the Indian government. That’s why someone like Thakur out on bail over terror charges was even nominated for this seat by the BJP and received the support of senior BJP leaders. Because Hindu extremism is how mainstream in India:
And note how the BJP’s statement condemning Thakur’s words ONLY condemned that particular statement by her. The rest of what Thakur stands for is in line with the party. Because, again, the BJP is now a full blown Hindu nationalist extremist party. That’s why someone like Modi, who spent most of his life in the RSS, is leading it and making trollish comments about how there’s never been a single act of Hindu terror in history:
And that open embrace of a Hindu nationalist terrorist by Modi and BJP coupled with the trollish denials that Hindu terrorism even exists is a big reason why the reelection of Modi is so ominous for the future of India. Because as the following article notes, not only is Modi personally endorse Thakur. That endorsement is just one example of how the political slogans Modi used to get initially elected — the ‘clean and principles’ anti-corruption campaign he initially used in 2014 — have been steadily replaced with open sectarian baiting and Hindu nationalism. And that shift clearly worked, which mean India’s fascists have learned over the past five years that India’s Hindu population is psychologically ready for the dropping the mask and an open embrace of Hindu nationalism a religious hatred. Beyond that, the success of the Hindu nationalist rhetoric is required to mask the absolute disaster that Modi’s pro-big business fascist economic policies have actually had on India’s populace. India currently has the highest unemployment rate in 45 years. That’s how wildly successful the Hindu nationalism has been politically: even though a large percent of Indians were unhappy with Modi’s far right economic policies, they still supported him due to the far right sectarian hatred:
“For democratically minded Indians, the stakes couldn’t be higher. On one side is the legacy of Gandhi and on the other is literally the legacy of those who assassinated Gandhi. India is turning its back on nonviolence. In his final rally, Modi told his audience that when you vote for the BJP, “you are not pushing a button on a [voting] machine, but pressing a trigger to shoot terrorists in the chest.””
Yep, the 2019 Indian election turned into a kind of battle between the legacy of Gandhi and the legacy of the group that literally murdered him and the murderers won. Big.
And in the process of winning big, the murderers of Ganhdi dropped the mask about caring about anti-corruption and just embraced full blown Hindu nationalism and it worked. India has the highest unemployment rate in 45 years under the BJP and party won big by double down on sectartian hatred. As a reult, the Pew Research Center current ranks India as the fourth-worst country for religious intolerance in the world, only followed by Syria, Nigeria, and Iraq:
And that’s why India appears to have an extremely dark period ahead of it. Gandhi’s assassins won Indian hearts and minds and won big.
Following the sweeping victory of the BJP in India’s elections that exceeded the expectations, there’s no shortage of questions of how the BJP managed such a resounding victory despite what appeared to be growing popular frustrations with the party just six months ago. And while the embrace of nationalism and sectarianism no doubt played a major role along with the tensions with Pakistan, it’s also important to give credit to the profound role social media played in this year’s elections. Specifically, organized social media disinformation campaigns run by the BJP:
“This contagion of a staggering amount of morphed images, doctored videos and text messages is spreading largely through messaging services and influencing what India’s voters watch and read on their smartphones. A recent study by Microsoft found that over 64 percent Indians encountered fake news online, the highest reported among the 22 countries surveyed.”
Yep, India has the worst social media disinformation problem of the 22 countries surveyed by Microsoft. It’s so bad that in the lead up to the elections the Indian parliament invited Facebook to appear before a committee to talk about what it planned to do to combat disinformation on its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp). This was, of course, a farce of a hearing since the BJP is the primary source of social media disinformation. Also, Facebook India has a laughably small staff of 11–22 fact checkers:
And note how Facebook appeared to almost be running cover for the BJP’s disinformation campaigns on its platform when, in April, the company deleted around 1,000 pages targeting India that were deemed fake news. When Facebook announced this purging it announced that the majority of the deleted pages were for Congress (BJP’s main opposition) but when it came to the pro-BJP pages removed Facebook only naming the technology company behind them:
Also note how there’s basically no point in asking the social media giants to fix the disinformation crisis because most of the disinformation is being spread on WhatsApp and even Facebook itself can’t observe what’s being sent on WhatsApp:
And as the following article notes, the farcical nature of the BJP government asking Facebook to help with the disinformation crisis is even more farcical by the fact that Facebook has previously conducting training workshops to help the BJP use Facebook more effectively. The article describes the teams of IT cells that were set up by the BJP for the 2014 election to build a larger-than-life image for Modi.
There were four cells and for some reason they all worked largely independently and only exchanges information on a need-to-know basis.
One of those cell was run by Modi’s right hand man Dr Hiren Joshi. Joshi has had, and continues to have, a close and long-standing association with Facebook’s senior employees in India according to the article. Hiren’s team worked closely with Facebook’s staff. Shivnath Thukral, who was hired by Facebook in 2017 to be its Public Policy Director for India & South Asia, worked with this team in 2014. And that’s just an overview of how tightly Facebook was working with the BJP in 2014:
“The 2014 Modi pre-election campaign was inspired by the 2012 campaign to elect Barack Obama as the “world’s first Facebook President.” Some of the managers of the Modi campaign like Jain were apparently inspired by Sasha Issenberg’s book on the topic, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. In the first data-led election in India in 2014, information was collected from every possible source to not just micro-target users but also fine-tune messages praising and “mythologising” Modi as the Great Leader who would usher in acche din for the country.”
2014 was the first year social media micro-targeted disinformation shaped India’s elections in a big way. And it was the BJP’s social media efforts to mythologize Modi that was leading the way. But the BJP had crucial help in this area: Facebook was conducting training workshops for the BJP’s IT cells. And one of those cell leaders, Dr. Hiren Joshi, just happens to have an ongoing close and long-standing relationship with Facebook’s senior employees in India:
And one of those present day senior Facebook employees, Shivnath Thukral, was a member of Joshi’s 2014 team:
Keep in mind that, as Facebook’s Public Policy Director for India, Thukral is the public face of Facebook’s anti-disinformation efforts in India. Yep.
It’s also rather interesting that these four BJP IT cells really did operate in a cell-like manner, with each cell largely working entirely separately and information only shared on a “need to know basis”. This is spun as being efficient and “how any sensible organization works”, but in terms of political messaging it seems rather odd that you wouldn’t want these teams to be coordinating with each other...unless, of course, the four teams were engaged in dirty tricks and knowledge of those dirty tricks was intentionally being compartmentalized:
And note how one of the 2014 cell leaders, Prodyut Bora, left the BJP after that election in disgust with the “madness” of the disinformation that was being spread in a ‘win at any cost’ mentality:
So the BJP and Facebook appear to have a rather close working relationship.
But as the following article reminds us, it’s not just the BJP Indians need to worry about. BJP’s Nazi-inspired parent movement, the RSS, was apparently a key force behind the pro-BJP WhatsApp disinformation campaigns. A pro-BJP WhatsApp campaign by RSS that was designed to seem “neutral” by never mentioning the BJP and instead just spreading propaganda again the Congress party:
“But if one were to pick a less obvious and more impactful reason for BJP’s resounding success in Rajasthan, a large credit for it will go to a parallel election campaign run on social media by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.”
The RSS secretly comes to the BJP’s rescue. That literally sort of happened because just six months ago the BJP was losing in local elections and starting to look vulnerable in the 2019 national elections. But thanks in part to the RSS’s extensive WhatsApp disinformation work of sowing the seeds of doubt about the Congress opposition party the BJP won big. And the RSS did all while ensuring that their disinformation campaign never mentioned the BJP. It was consistently just about raising doubts about Congress, presumably to ensure that the disinformation campaign wasn’t seen as a pro-BJP operation:
And all of this is exactly what we should have expected and should continue to expect in future elections.
So while the tensions between India and Pakistan no doubt played a major role in shoring up the BJP’s nationalist support along with the open embrace of Hindutva fascist sectarian, the fact that the BJP and its RSS allies appear to have mastered the art of social media disinformation campaigns shouldn’t be underestimated. And keep in mind that these parties are only going to get better and better at doing this with each election cycle. Thanks, in part, to help from Facebook.
And in related news, note that Pragya Thakur, the BJP candidate who celebrated Gandhi’s assassin last week, did indeed win her race. By a very large margin.
Narendra Modi’s government is rolling out the red carpet for a state visit by President Trump, with massive crowds that are guaranteed to soothe Trump’s notorious crowd-size sensitivity. But it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that the part of the trip Trump might end up enjoying wasn’t planned. That would be the bloody and deadly sectarian rioting between Muslim protestors of the Modi government’s new anti-Muslim “Citizenship Amendment Act” (CAA), a law that threatens to end India’s secularist government structure and turn India into a country that is overtly pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim. The riots first broke out on Sunday between groups in favor and against the new law in Muslim-majority neighborhoods of Delhi, where Trump had been holding meetings with India’s leadership. People have been shot and over a dozen killed. When asked about the violence, Trump said it was “up to India” to handle it and said he was impressed by the government’s response.
While both sides are blaming each other for the outbreak of the violence, it’s being blamed in part on a BJP leader, Kapil Mishra, who threatened a group of anti-CAA protesters staging a sit-in over the weekend that they would be forcibly evicted once Trump left India.
It also appears that authorities are allowing the riots to play out without the police trying to control the situation. Delhi police spokesman MS Randhawa told reporters that the situation was under control and a “sufficient number of policemen” had been deployed but BBC reporters in the area continued to observe mobs chanting slogans and throwing stones. And Delhi’s newly re-elected chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, called on the federal government to restore order, declaring that “There are not enough police on the streets. Local police are saying they are not getting orders from above to control the situation”. It turns out the Delhi capital police force reports directly to Modi’s BJP-led government, rather than Mr Kejriwal’s local administration. In other words, if anti-Muslim riots break out in Delhi and there’s a lack of a police response, that’s because the BJP decided to hold back that response. So at the same time there’s all this pomp and pageantry around Trump’s visit it appears that the BJP is allowing this riot to play out:
“The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) — which critics say is anti-Muslim — has sparked massive protests since it was passed last year, and some of those have turned violent. But the demonstrations in Delhi have been peaceful until now.”
Yep, there have been protests against the CAA for months now. It’s only when Trump comes to town that it becomes violent. And while there appears to be violence coming from both sides, the reports make it sound like most of it is coming from Hindu mobs that are showing up in the Muslim-majority neighborhoods. And it just happens to be the case that BJP leader Kapil Mishra threatened a group of protestors staging a peaceful sit-in against the CAA, telling them they would be forcefully evicted after Trump’s visit. So in the lead up to Trump’s visit we had BJP leaders threatening CAA protestors with force:
And while the Delhi police spokesman is assuring reporters that the situation is under control and enough police have been deployed, reporters aren’t seeing a situation under control. They’re seeing ongoing mobs throwing stones. And it turns out that the police force in Delhi, India’s capital, are under the control of the federal BJP-run government. That sure makes it appear that the BJP is actively supporting this anti-Muslim mob action:
Given all that, it’s no surprise that Trump was impressed by the government’s response. Having the police stand by while far right mobs terrorize Muslim neighborhoods seems like precisely the kind of government response that Trump would be enamored with:
Now here’s an article about a mosque that was set on fire in the Ashok Nagar neighborhood of Delhi. As the article describes, a member of the Hindu mob was seen climbing the mosques minaret with an Indian flag in hand and a failed attempt to pull down a section of the minaret. Shops within and round the mosque were being looted. Locals were also telling reporters that the looters were not residents of the area, which is primarily a Hindu neighborhood with a few Muslim families. Locals also said the police removed Muslims from the locality. And while there were firefighters present on site the police could not be seen anywhere. So it appears that the police response to the arson attack on this mosque and looting of the surrounding shops was to remove the Muslims from the neighborhood and just let the mobs continue their looting:
“In video footage that has since emerged on Twitter, one of the mob is seen climbing up the minaret with an Indian flag in his hand. He attempts to pull down a section of the minaret but does not apparently succeed.”
Open attacks on mosques in India’s capital on the day of Trump’s arrival. It’s quite a welcome for someone like Trump. And in the Ashok Nagar neighborhood we find no police to stop the looters and arsonists, but apparently the police were there to remove the few Muslim families from the area:
It’s as if the BJP just declared ‘open season’ on Delhi’s Muslim community.
So we can see, not only did the Modi’s government roll out the red carpet for Trump, but the red carpet was then stained with the blood of India’s Muslim community. No wonder Trump was so impressed with his welcome.
Here’s a disturbing update on how India is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that has an even more disturbing tie in to the threats by the Trump administration to punish China for the pandemic by calling on US companies to leave China:
Three Indian states that compromise about a quarter of India’s population — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat — have enacted a strategy for dealing with the economic turmoil of the pandemic. It’s kind of what we should expect from three states dominated by the fascist BJP. The three state governments gutted state and federal labor laws that protect workers’ rights to a minimum wage and safe working conditions. Daily work hours have increased from 8 to 12 hours. Yep, less worker protections, lower wages, and longer hours. That’s how these three states decided to response.
The regulations being lifted had affected the “formal” part of the Indian economy which
only covers less than 10% of India’s workforce. So it sounds like these were labor protections for relatively well-off workers, although the indirect effects are undoubtedly going to felt across the labor sector, formal or informal.
So what is the rationale for these moves? They claim the goal is to attract international corporations who might be leaving China:
“Several state governments have responded to this unprecedented crisis by suspending most of the labor laws, in a bid to help industry recover, and spur private investment. They have also increased the daily working hours from eight to 12.”
More labor and less protections. China clearly has competition. It yet it’s unclear if this competition is actually going to lure any companies to these Indian states because China has so much competition elsewhere in places like Vietnam or Bangladesh:
And note how even a BJP-linked trade union is opposing these changes, with a rather ominous warning for the rest of India: many other states are readying to follow the trend. So this is a trend now, meaning even if this strategy works and international companies decide to leave China an relocate to India, those companies are going to have a lot of states to choose from because Indian states are competing with each other:
Note that the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) trade union is actually backed by the RSS and has been calling for nationwide protests. It will be interesting to see if the BMS effectively end up leading the opposition to these laws which potentially is a great way for the RSS and BJP to control the opposition as this ‘trend’ plays out.
So that’s one example of how a country might ‘rethink’ itself in the face of this pandemic: it’s going to ‘rethink’ the idea of minimum wages and labor protections and instead embrace a race to the bottom as its economic salvation. A global race to the bottom that can only work for a country if no one else does it. Or, at least, that can only work for the workers in a country if no one else does it. Wealthy fascists and corporations win either way, and win bigger the more countries get involved in this race. It’s why one of the big lessons we could end up learning from this global pandemic is giant a lesson in why races to the bottom are so popular at the top.
It was quite the pleasant surprise: Narendra Modi’s BJP failed to win an outright majority in last week’s elections. It was the kind of outcome that seemingly no one expected at this point as Modi begins his third consecutive term in office. But it happened. And while the consequences of the BJP’s electoral stumble on Modi’s Hindu Nationalist agenda have yet to be determined, here’s a quick reminder that Modi is still very much in power for at least another term and there should be no expectation that his Hindu Nationalist remaking of Indian society is going to stop. A remaking that, as we’ll see, includes a reimagining of Gandhi’s legacy. Specifically, a Hindu Nationalist-friendly reimagining of Gandhi’s legacy. The kind of Hindu National reimagining where the fight for Indian independence can remain, but not so much Gandhi’s lessons on multi-faith solidarity.
And if the plans for Gandhi’s old home in the city of Ahmedabad come to fruition, that reimagined Gandhi legacy will be sold to India and the rest of the world in the form of what will effectively be a Gandhi theme park. But this isn’t just a plan turn Gandhi’s home into a fancy tourist attraction. Ahmedabad also happens to be where Modi political rise took place and remains the base of his power. In other words, if Modi wants to see a theme park built on top of Gandhi’s home, he has the clout to make that happen.
It also sounds like the wealthy families tasked with overseeing the land trusts are already on board with the plan. While he was still alive, Gandhi actually transferred the land to a trust he established for the uplifting of Dalits. Following his death, the land was divided across different trusts dedicated to Gandhian pursuits. A roughly 5 acre plot visited by tourists today is managed by the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (S.A.P.M.T.). As we’re going to see, the chair of the SAPMT, Kartikeya Sarabha, hails from a family that’s been called the Rockefellers of Ahmedabad. As Sarabha admits, the big challenge with this project is ensuring it doesn’t become some “Disneyland on Gandhi.” “You’re seeing this new India emerge,” Sarabhai states, but “Gandhi’s position in that new India” has yet to be worked out.
Oh, and it turns out thousands of Dalits who have lived on the land for generations now are likely to be displaced as part of this project. So while this remaking of Gandhi’s traditional home is intended to be a celebration of Gandhi, it’s actually a rebuke of his teachings and the creation of a new Hindu Nationalist Gandhian legacy:
“In the run-up to India’s recent election, Modi officially inaugurated a whopping hundred-and-forty-million-dollar project to redevelop Gandhi’s ashram and transform it into a “world-class destination.” The undertaking throws into relief the struggles over memorialization being waged in many countries, from efforts to censor the teaching of slavery and civil rights in American schools to the removal of statues of imperialists such as Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II in places like Cape Town and Antwerp. (A statue of Gandhi himself was removed from the University of Ghana, in 2018, in part because of his racist views about Black South Africans.) While “decolonizing” initiatives in Europe and North America have generally been led by the political left, in India Hindu nationalists such as Modi have adopted similar rhetoric about Mughals and about Muslims in general—branding them as foreign invaders no different from the British. The Modi government has not hesitated to implement projects that edit India’s history to align with Hindutva ideals. At stake in the ashram revamp is more than how this particular site will look; it’s whether Modi will succeed in draining Gandhi’s legacy of its political substance by funnelling it into his own. What vision of post-colonial India will prevail—inclusive secular democracy, or bigoted Hindu-first autocracy? Gandhi vs. Modi: two dynamic personalities, one momentous site.”
Gandhi’s legacy is about to undergo some ‘Modi’-fications. Permanent modification if Modi and the rest of his Hindu nationalist movement gets its way. It may not happen overnight. But there’s no reason to suspect core elements of Gandhi’s message — like interfaith harmony and collaboration — can’t get excised. They’ll keep the rest. Not just keep the rest but make a theme park in celebration of it. And few people are more capable of facilitating the creation of a new theme park than Modi, especially given that Ahmedabad is Modi’s power base too. A political power base rooted in the legacy of the RSS and Gandhi’s assassination:
And note how the caretakers of the Gandhian trusts, the Sarabhais, are considered the “Rockefellers of Ahmedabad”. And as Kartikeya Sarabhai — chairman of the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (S.A.P.M.T.) — put it, “You’re seeing this new India emerge...Gandhi’s position in that new India” has yet to be worked out. A reimagining of Gandhi’s message is at hand, managed by oligarchic allies to Modi who seem very fine with the plan to force the relocation of all the people living on this land:
Finally, note how this Ahmedabad redevelopment scheme doesn’t just include the erasure of much of Gandhi’s core message. It will also literally erase thousands of Dalits who lived on the property for generations in many cases. It’s adding injury to insult:
Will this end up being a largely frivolous but harmless Gandi theme park? Or something much darker? A ‘second assassination’ of his message? Time will tell, but it’s not hard to imagine the BJP’s surprisingly poor electoral results are only going to fuel the desire to complete this project while the window of opportunity is still open. A window that will presumably be open for at least the next five years as Modi completes his historic third consecutive term. That may or may not be enough time to build a whole new Gandhi theme park. And certainly not enough time to erase Gandhi’s memory. But it should be plenty of time to expel the people on that land and get the longer-term Hindu Nationalist Gandhi revisionism project underway.