Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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Introduction: Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi, with a political background in a Hindu nationalist party with strong fascist roots, is now in charge of the world’s second largest country and the world’s largest democracy.
Narendra Modi belonged to the RSS, an organization with an historical affinity for Nazism and fascism. Capitalizing on anti-Muslim fervor in India, RSS has generated much gravitas.
Modi has been implicated in complicity in lethal anti-Muslim rioting in India.
In addition to anti-colonial sentiment that pitted Indian nationalists against the British Raj prior to World War II, Nazism and Hindu philosophy also found common ground in elements of “Aryan” mysticism. Many elements of the Brahmin caste also found affinity with the elitist and anti-democratic philosophy of Mussolini’s fascism as well.
Program Highlights Include:
- Karl Haushofer (a key influence on a number of important Hitler aides) developed the concept of German allegiance with “the Colored Peoples” of the colonial world as a further vehicle for securing German economic and political control. Haushofer’s theories underlie, in part, the fascist heritage of key elements of the Hindhu Nationalist movement currently gaining increasing influence in Indian politics.
- An associate of RSS assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
- The BJP itself evolved from the RSS.
- In 2012, Digvijaya Singh discussed Modi’s campaign tactics, comparing his RSS training with the methodology of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
- The Indian situation has some similarities with regard to Islam with the rise of fascist groups in Europe. The center parties simply ignore the problems of jihadism and do nothing, creating a vacuum for the fascist groups to fill. No country on the planet suffers more from jihad terrorism than India... but nobody calls it terrorism, they use euphemisms like “communal violence” as if both parties are guilty. Sometimes hundreds are slaughtered and it barely makes the Western press, because, let’s face it, Indian lives are cheap in the eyes of multinational finance and corporatism.
- Currently, Modi isn’t even allowed to come to the US due to his support of anti-Muslim riots (note: if the U.S. applied this concept to those who support PRO-Muslim riots, we would have a lot less visitors from several parts of the world, so this double-standard plays right into the right-wing Hindu wheelhouse).
- Modi’s talking all the right “free trade” talking points with the West right now, and the EU has lifted his visa ban–the US will surely follow suit.
- Modi’s election was assisted by the former head of Omidyar Networks, founded by Glenn Greenwald’s financial angel Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar also helped finance the coup in the Ukraine.
- Discussion of Savitri Devi, a European-born Hindu/Nazi mystic, who gained considerable influence in postwar Nazi and fascist circles.
1. Narendra Modi’s affinity for the neo-liberal, corporatist philosophies currently in ascendance was covered in a recent New Yorker article.
. . . As several commentators have noted in recent days, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister-elect, shares several characteristics with Margaret Thatcher, the late British Prime Minister.
Like Mrs. T., Modi is a product of the provincial petite bourgeoisie. Thatcher’s father ran a corner store in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Modi, too, came from a family of grocers: his father ran a number of tea stalls in the Gujarat city of Vadnagar. Thatcher was a strong believer in enterprise and the self-help ethos that often goes with it, and she disdained the metropolitan élites, whom she accused of bringing Britain to its knees. In seeking to put the “Great” back into “Great Britain”—that was how she saw her mission—she surrounded herself with right-wing oddballs and entrepreneurs, ignored the advice of her colleagues, and frequently acted dictatorially. . . .
2. Setting forth some of the historical genesis of the Nazi/Hindu nationalist link, Kevin Coogan notes the philosophy of Karl Haushofer, an early influence on Hitler and Third Reich geo-politics.
. . . . In its struggle to break British dominance, German military intelligence also looked to nationalist independence movements in the Middle East, Asia, and Ireland. After World War I, Haushofer continued to support these anti-British groups. In the 1930’s, Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose [whose Indian national Army later received military support in World War II from both Germany and Japan] was a correspondent for the Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik. [Haushofer’s publication.] . . . In July 1942, foreign policy expert Hans Weigert profiled Haushofer’s ‘Eurasian liberation front’ policies in Foreign Affairs. Weigert pointed that Haushofer actually welcomed ‘the rise of the colored world,’ even writing that ‘the struggle of India and China for liberation from foreign domination and capitalist pressure agrees with the secret dreams of Central Europe.’ . . . .
3. A story from the British Searchlight magazine synopsized the Hindu nationalist/Nazi link, noting that a former member of the RSS assassinated Gandhi in 1948. The article also notes the evolution of the BJP–Modi’s party–from the RSS.
. . . . During the 1940’s the RSS’s new leader, Madhev Golwalkar, following the death of [RSS founder Keshav Baliram] Hedgewar, sympathized both with German Nazism and Italian fascism. In 1939, Golwalkar said: ‘German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races-the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifest here. Germany has shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.’ (Golwalker [1939] in We, or Our Nationhood, Defined.’ . . .
. . . . There has been no explicit and unconditional disavowal of nazi-like doctrines by the RSS/HSS or a repudiation of Golwalker’s ideas. Indeed, Golwalkar is held up as an example and spiritual leader for young RSS/HSS Swayamsevaks (members) and affectionately referred to as ‘Guruji.’ . . . .
. . . . Following Mahatma Gahdhi’s assassination by a former RSS member, Nathuram Godse, the RSS was banned by the Indian government from 1948 to 1949. After the ban was reversed the RSS, while claiming to devote itself solely to cultural activities, created several offshoot organizations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, in 1964, the Jana Sangh political party in 1951, which was the precursor to the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and numerous other organizations. . . . .
4. Palash R. Ghosh presents a more detailed analysis of the evolution of the fascist/Hindu nationalist link. Note the affinity of RSS thinkers for the ethnic chauvinism manifested by Hitler.
. . . . The BJP has a very interesting history — officially formed in 1980, its history can be traced much further back to the pre-1947 era when Hindu nationalists not only demanded an independent India, but one completely dominated by Hindus.
The current BJP is the successor of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) party, which itself was the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a group that espoused openly militant Hindu activism and the suppression of minorities in India.
The RSS was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a doctor from the central Indian town of Nagpur in Maharashtra, who agitated for both independence from the British crown and the strict segregation of Hindus and Muslims.
What may surprise many in the West is that some of the most prominent figures of RSS deeply admired Fascism and Nazism, the two totalitarian movements that swept through Europe at the time.
As such, RSS was outlawed by the British (and was even periodically banned by the Indian government after independence). Indeed, Naturam Godse, the man who assassinated Gandhi in 1948, was himself a former RSS member who felt that the Mahatma made too many generous concessions to the Muslims.
In the decades prior to that momentous event, senior RSS members had direct links to both Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany. Part of the RSS’ fascination with these totalitarian regimes was their shared opposition to the British Empire — however, it went far beyond that. The RSS (as well as multitudes of other Hindu nationalists) admired the way Mussolini and Hitler reorganized their respective nations so quickly from the wreckage of war to build a powerful economy and military under the banner of patriotism and nationalism.
With respect to Hitler and Nazism, the links to India and Hinduism were deeper and more profound.
Much of Nazi ideology and imagery came from the symbols and history of ancient India – indeed, the infamous Nazi swastika was based on a Hindu symbol of strength and good fortune. Moreover, the legendary history (some would say, myth) of the invasion of prehistoric India by the mysterious “Aryan” tribes would (centuries later) provide Hitler with his notion of a “super master race” that was destined to dominate the world.
During World War II, some Indian nationalists received explicit support from German Nazis — in fact, some Indian soldiers even served in Hitler’s armies and in the notorious SS.
Marzia Casolari, an Italian scholar who studied Indian politics, once wrote of RSS’ connections with European fascism: The existence of direct contacts between the representatives of the [Italian] Fascist regime, including Mussolini, and Hindu nationalists demonstrates that Hindu nationalism had much more than an abstract interest in the ideology and practice of fascism. The interest of Indian Hindu nationalists in fascism and Mussolini must not be considered as dictated by an occasional curiosity, confined to a few individuals; rather, it should be considered as the culminating result of the attention that Hindu nationalists… focused on Italian dictatorship and its leader. To them, fascism appeared to be an example of conservative revolution.
Perhaps there was no greater admirer of Hitler and Mussolini in India than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, another leading member of RSS.
In a speech delivered in 1940 (after the Second World War had commenced), Savarkar said: There is no reason to suppose that Hitler must be a human monster because he passes off as a Nazi or Churchill is a demigod because he calls himself a Democrat. Nazism proved undeniably the savior of Germany under the set of circumstances Germany was placed in.
Savarkar criticized Nehru for his staunch opposition to fascism.
Who are we to dictate to Germany… or Italy to choose a particular form of policy of government simply?” Savarkar rhetorically asked.
“Surely Hitler knows better than Pandit Nehru does what suits Germany best. The very fact that Germany or Italy has so wonderfully recovered and grown so powerful as never before at the touch of Nazi or Fascist magical wand is enough to prove that those political ‘isms’ were the most congenial tonics their health demanded.”
Indeed, many Hindu nationalists also derided Gandhi for opposing Nazism and fascism. In 1939, a spokesman for the Hindu Mahasabha (Hindu Party) intimately connected Germany with Indian culture and people.
Germany’s solemn idea of the revival of the Aryan culture, the glorification of the Swastika, her patronage of Vedic learning and the ardent championship of the tradition of Indo-Germanic civilization are welcomed by the religious and sensible Hindus of India with a jubilant hope,” the spokesman blustered.
“Only a few Socialists headed by… Nehru have created a bubble of resentment against the present government of Germany, but their activities are far from having any significance in India.”
He added: “Germany’s crusade against the enemies of Aryan culture will bring all the Aryan nations of the world to their senses and awaken the Indian Hindus for the restoration of their lost glory.
While the RSS was not explicitly anti-Semitic (largely because India never had a large Jewish population), Savarkar even praised Hitler’s treatment of the Jews (at least before the death camps and ovens became known to the public at large).
In 1938, during the time of accelerating anti-Jewish legislation in Germany, Savarkar suggested a similar fate for India’s Muslims.
A nation is formed by a majority living therein,” he declared. “What did the Jews do in Germany? They being in minority were driven out from Germany.”
Another senior RSS member, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, also praised Nazism and believed the ideology should be applied to India.
German race pride has now become the topic of the day,” he wrote.
“To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan [India] to learn and profit by.
Golwalkar enthusiastically advocated for an India dominated by Hindus.
“There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race,” he wrote.
“That is the only sound view on the minorities problem. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the national life healthy and undisturbed… The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s rights.”
If one were to replace “Hindu” with “German,” Golwalkar’s words would match Hitler’s rhetoric almost exactly.
Savarkar also spelled out why Hindus should rule India and others should either be expelled or merged into the Hindu majority.
The Aryans who settled in India at the dawn of history already formed a nation, now embodied in the Hindus,” he wrote.“Hindus are bound together not only by the love they bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through their veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affection warm but also by the of the common homage we pay to our great civilization, our Hindu culture.
During a speech given to Indian military officers and Indian nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose in Dresden, Germany, in 1943, Hitler himself reportedly said: You are fortunate having been born in a country of glorious cultural traditions and a colossal manpower. I am impressed by the burning passion with which you and your Netaji [Bose] seek to liberate your country from foreign domination. Your Netaji’s status is even greater than mine. While I am the leader of 80 million Germans, he is the leader of 400 million Indians. In all respects he is a greater leader and a greater general than myself. I salute him, and Germany salutes him. It is the duty of all Indians to accept him as their führer and obey him implicitly. I have no doubt that if you do this, his guidance will lead India very soon to freedom.”
After the defeat of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in World War II, Hindu nationalists distanced themselves from the totalitarian regimes of Europe.
However, their calls for a “Hindu India have only strengthened over the years. In the present climate, the RSS and BJP are both generally opposed to the Muslim presence and express extreme hostility toward India’s principal Muslim rival, Pakistan.
Moreover, Nazism, and the mysticism of Adolf Hitler’s warped philosophies, remain an obsession with many Indians, almost 80 years after Der Führer came to power in Germany.
5. In the run-up to the recent Indian campaign, a political opponent compared Modi’s rhetorical attacks to those of Joseph Goebbels, a proponent of the Big Lie. Modi attacked Sonia Gandhi for using public funds to travel abroad.
The trips were to seek treatment for serious health problems and, as such, were not scandalous at all.
“Narendra Modi Trained by RSS in ‘Nazi Tradition’: Digvijayah Singh”; Times of India; 10/2/2012.
Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday slammed Narendra Modi over his allegation on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign trips, saying he has been trained well by RSS in the “Nazi tradition” of false propaganda and BJP’s “cheap intentions” have been proved by trying to politicise a health issue.
Comparing the Gujarat chief minister with Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi government in Germany, the Congress leader picked on his favourite target RSS alleging it trains its cadres in “disinformation campaign”.
In his posts on the microblogging site Twitter, Singh said, “Sangh trains it’s cadre in disinformation campaign. Obviously Modi has been trained well! Sangh has modelled itself in the Nazi tradition.
“Sangh training to it’s cadre. Jhoot bolo zor se bolo aur baar baar bolo (Tell a lie, tell it loudly and tell it hundred times). Doesn’t it remind you of Hitler’s Goebbels?”
Singh’s attack againt Modi and RSS came a day after Modi alleged that Rs 1,880 crore was spent from state exchequer for Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s foreign trips citing a media report.
In the night, he offered to publicly accept his mistake if the claim turned out to be false.
“I had said this thing based on the report of a newspaper. If my information is wrong, today I say that I will publicly accept this mistake”, Modi said addressing another rally in Junagadh.
Digvijaya Singh said the incident “establishes the motive of BJP and Narendra Modi, their malafide cheap intentions. They want to politicise even an issue like health”.
The Congress president had gone thrice to an undisclosed destination abroad in last more than a year for a surgery.
6a. Modi’s election was aided by the head of Pierre Omidyar’s “charitable” organization Omidyar Networks. In FTR #763, we noted that Omidyar is the financial angel backing Nazi fellow-traveler Glenn Greenwald’s new journalistic venture. Omidyar has also backed some grindingly oppressive, cruel projects in the Third World. His Indian micro-finance ventures were particularly horrible.
Omidyar also helped to finance the covert operation that brought the OUN/B successors to power in Ukraine.
Last weekend, India’s elections swept into power a hardline Hindu supremacist named Narendra Modi. And with that White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Obama administration “look[s] forward to working closely” with a man who has been on a US State Dept “visa blacklist” since 2005 for his role in the gruesome mass-killings and persecution of minority Muslims (and minority Christians).
Modi leads India’s ultranationalist BJP party, which won a landslide majority of seats (though only 31% of the votes), meaning Modi will have the luxury of leading India’s first one-party government in 30 years. This is making a lot of people nervous: The last time the BJP party was in power, in 1998, they launched series of nuclear bomb test explosions, sparking a nuclear crisis with Pakistan and fears of all-out nuclear war. And that was when the BJP was led by a “moderate” ultranationalist — and tied down with meddling coalition partners.
Modi is different. Not only will he rule alone, he’s promised to run India the way he ran the western state of Gujarat since 2001, which Booker Prize-winning author Arandhuti Roy described as “the petri dish in which Hindu fascism has been fomenting an elaborate political experiment.” Under Modi’s watch, an orgy of anti-Muslim violence led to up to 2000 killed and 250,000 internally displaced, and a lingering climate of fear, ghettoization, and extrajudicial executions by Gujarat death squads operating under Modi’s watch. . . .
. . . Omidyar Network, as Pando readers know, is the philanthropy arm of eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Since 2009, Omidyar Network has made more investments in India than in any other country in its portfolio. These investments were largely thanks to Jayant Sinha, a former McKinsey partner and Harvard MBA, who was hired in October 2009 to establish and run Omidyar Network India Advisors.
During Sinha’s tenure, Omidyar Network steered a large portion of its investments into India, so that by 2013, India investments made up 18% of Omidyar Network’s committed funds of well over $600 million, and 36% of the total number of companies in its portfolio.
In February of this year, Sinha stepped down from Omidyar Network in order to advise Modi’s election campaign, and to run for a BJP parliamentary seat of his own. Sinha’s father, Yashwant Sinha, served as finance minister in the last BJP government from 1998 (when his government set off the nukes) through 2002. This year, Sinha’s father gave up his seat in parliament to allow Jayant Sinha to take his place.
During the campaign, Sinha’s father publicly backed Modi’s refusal to apologize over the deadly riots under his watch: “Modi is right…why should he apologize?” His ex-Omidyar staffer son, Jayant, boasted a few weeks ago that his father’s BJP government ignored international outrage in 1998 when detonating its nukes, known as “Pokhran” . . . .
6b. Omidyar Network’s SKS undertaking in India–a micro-finance company–was a brutal, cruel effort.
“The Extraordinary Pierre Omidyar” by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine; NSFWCorp; 11/15/2013.
. . . . In 2012, it emerged that while the SKS IPO was making millions for its wealthy investors, hundreds of heavily indebted residents of India’s Andhra Pradesh state were driven to despair and suicide by the company’s cruel and aggressive debt-collection practices. The rash of suicides soared right at the peak of a large micro-lending bubble in Andhra Pradesh, in which many of the poor were taking out multiple micro-loans to cover previous loans that they could no longer pay. It was subprime lending fraud taken to the poorest regions of the world, stripping them of what little they had to live on. It got to the point where the Chief Minister of Andrah Pradesh publicly appealed to the state’s youth and young women not to commit suicide, telling them, “Your lives are valuable.”
The AP conducted a stunning in-depth investigation of the SKS suicides, and their reporting needs to be quoted at length to understand just how evil this program is. The article begins:
“First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, televisions, ration cards and heirloom gold jewelry. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself in a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children.
“Sometimes, the debt collectors watched nearby.”
What prompted the AP investigation was the gulf between the reported rash of suicides linked to SKS debt collectors, and SKS’s public statements denying it had knowledge of or any role in the predatory lending abuses. However, the AP got a hold of internal SKS documents that contradicted their public denials:
“More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves in late 2010, according to media reports compiled by the government of the south Indian state. The state blamed microfinance companies — which give small loans intended to lift up the very poor — for fueling a frenzy of overindebtedness and then pressuring borrowers so relentlessly that some took their own lives.
“The companies, including market leader SKS Microfinance, denied it.
“However, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, independent researchers and videotaped testimony from the families of the dead, show top SKS officials had information implicating company employees in some of the suicides.”
The AP investigation and internal reports showed just how brutal the SKS microfinancing program was, how women were particularly targeted because of their heightened sense of shame and community responsibility—here is the brutal reality of financial capitalism compared to the utopian blather mouthed at Davos conferences, or in the slick pamphlets issued by the Omidyar Network:
“Both reports said SKS employees had verbally harassed over-indebted borrowers, forced them to pawn valuable items, incited other borrowers to humiliate them and orchestrated sit-ins outside their homes to publicly shame them. In some cases, the SKS staff physically harassed defaulters, according to the report commissioned by the company. Only in death would the debts be forgiven.
“The videos and reports tell stark stories:
“One woman drank pesticide and died a day after an SKS loan agent told her to prostitute her daughters to pay off her debt. She had been given 150,000 rupees ($3,000) in loans but only made 600 rupees ($12) a week.
“Another SKS debt collector told a delinquent borrower to drown herself in a pond if she wanted her loan waived. The next day, she did. She left behind four children.
“One agent blocked a woman from bringing her young son, weak with diarrhea, to the hospital, demanding payment first. Other borrowers, who could not get any new loans until she paid, told her that if she wanted to die, they would bring her pesticide. An SKS staff member was there when she drank the poison. She survived.
“An 18-year-old girl, pressured until she handed over 150 rupees ($3)—meant for a school examination fee—also drank pesticide. She left a suicide note: ‘Work hard and earn money. Do not take loans.’”
As a result of the bad press this scandal caused, the Omidyar Network deleted its Unitus investment from its website—nor does Omidyar boast of its investments in SKS Microfinance any longer. Meanwhile, Unitus mysteriously dissolved itself and laid off all of its employees right around the time of the IPO, under a cloud of suspicion that Unitus insiders made huge personal profits from the venture, profits that in theory were supposed to be reinvested into expanding micro-lending for the poor.
Thus spoke the profit motive.
Curiously, in the aftermath of the SKS micro-lending scandal, Omidyar Network was dragged into another political scandal in India when it was revealed that Omidyar and the Ford Foundation were placing their own paid researchers onto the staffs of India’s MPs. The program, called Legislative Assistants to MPs (LAMPs), was funded with $1 million from Omidyar Network and $855,000 from the Ford Foundation. It was shut down last year after India’s Ministry of Home Affairs complained about foreign lobbying influencing Indian MPs, and promised to investigate how Omidyar-funded research for India’s parliament may have been “colored” by an agenda. . . .
Savitri Devi is largely an unknown (or forgotten) figure from 20th century history; but she is well worth remembering because she lived one of the strangest, most incomprehensible lives that one could imagine. A life that defied and/or contradicted all convention and stereotypes.
Savitri Devi was, for lack of a better description, a “Hindu Nazi.”
Her life trajectory followed a long and winding path that took her to unexpected places, to say the least. (Try to imagine a tiny female Nazi stormtrooper wearing a modest, plain Indian sari).
She was born in 1905 in Lyons, France as Maximiani Portas, the daughter of a Greek-Italian father and an English mother.
At some point in her young womanhood, Maximiani became enamored with Adolph Hitler and the German Nazi movement. Perhaps inspired by the Swastika (which was originally a Hindu symbol, but later co-opted by Hitler), she apparently sought to combine the National Socialist ideology with the ancient Hindu tales from the Bhagavad-Gita.
No doubt, Maximiani also developed a virulent strain of anti-Semitism from an early age, which dovetailed perfectly with Hitler’s fanatical hatred of the Jews.
The “link” between Nazism and Hinduism is an extremely controversial subject, but suffice it to say, Maximiani’s unlikely synthesis of these two very disparate philosophies led to her conviction that Hitler was a heaven-sent avatar, much like Vishnu, the Hindu God.
What complicates (and confounds) many people is the concept of the “Aryan” race. Hitler viewed himself (and the German people) as “pure Aryans,” the descendants of a mysterious race of “superhumans” who migrated to northern Europe from some unknown locale in Central Asia (or perhaps they moved in the reverse direction).
However, the Aryans, or rather, the Indo-Aryans, the warrior race that swept into India to subjugate the native Dravidian peoples of the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago, likely had little connection, if any, to the peoples of northern Europe.
Historians can’t seem to agree on who the Aryans exactly were, where they lived, where they came from, or what became of them. Some scholars (particularly in India) debunk the “Aryan invasion of India” theory entirely.
But it should be noted that some consider Iran and the Iranian peoples as being the “true Aryans.” Indeed, one of the Shah of Iran’s many titles was “Light of the Aryans.”
Moreover, the term “Indo-Aryan” is intimately tied to “Indo-European” (yet another controversial topic).
The very idea of an Indo-European language (and, by extension, race) was proposed after German linguists and philologists, including August Schleicher, discovered that many words in Sanskrit (the language of ancient India) were startlingly similar to words in German, English and other “western” languages.
Regardless of the tenuous link between the ancient Indians and the Germans (and the pseudo-science related to the study of the Aryans), Maximiani bought the dubious theories wholeheartedly. She viewed Hinduism and Nazism as one in the same, with no inherent contradictions.
Indeed, like Hitler (and the ancient Hindus), she espoused the beauty and values of the natural world, championing ecology, vegetarianism, animal rights and (above all) pagan mysticism.
She was highly learned – having earned two Masters Degrees and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Lyon in France. In Greece, among the ancient ruins, she discovered the swastika – leading to her belief that the ancient Greeks were Aryans.
Maximiani travelled all over Europe and the Near East during her youth, including a visit to British Palestine in 1929, where she saw first-hand the conflicts between Palestinians and Jewish settlers (an experience that likely deepened her anti-Semitism).
But it was not until she went to India (which she regarded as the origin of pure Aryan civilization) in 1932 that her life changed forever.
Her immersion in Indian Hindu culture was total. She studied Bengali and Hindi at Rabindranath Tagore’s prestigious Shanti Niketan school.
She changed her name to Savitri Devi (which roughly translates to Sun goddess in Sanskrit); and she gave her full support to the Indian Hindu nationalist/independence movement against Britain. She also advocated vehemently against both Christianity and Islam.
In 1940, living in Calcutta, she married Dr. Asit Krishna Mukherji, a Bengali Brahmin who edited the pro-German newspaper New Mercury and fully embraced National Socialism. (Although Mukherji apparently married her only to prevent her from being deported and remained chaste, Savitri reportedly was sexually-liberated, having many affairs with both men and women).
Savitri was also in close touch Indian nationalists, most notably Subhash Chandra Bose (also known as ‘Netaji’) who later received help from Nazi Germany.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler was widely admired in India – largely because he was viewed as anti-British – that is, before the full horrors of the Holocaust were revealed.
After World War II. Savitri’s adoration of Hitler and Nazism only increased – she continued writing essays and books; and travelled all over post-Third Reich Europe. In Germany, she was arrested and briefly imprisoned for publishing pro-Nazi leaflets.
She moved widely across Europe, Middle East, Britain and even the U.S., meeting with neo-Nazi adherents everywhere and becoming sort of a ‘grand dame’ for unrepentant Hitler-admirers. She might also have been one of the first Holocaust deniers – the belief that the Nazi’s extermination of the Jews was a lie.
She wrote many texts and books (mostly dense, wordy and incomprehensible tracts) which found an audience with Nazi sympathizers around the world after the fall of the Third Reich.
Although Savitri was clearly eccentric (and probably a crackpot) she had legions of admirers – including the Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano, Italian far-right winger Claudio Mutti; and Revilo Oliver, a notorious American neo-Nazi, among others.
In the 1970s, she returned to India to live in New Delhi on her deceased husband’s pension. She died in 1982 in England.
The British author Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote a highly acclaimed book about her entitled Hitler’s Priestess. Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism.
8. The second side of the program further develops the Nazi/Hindu/“Aryan” philosophy, excerpting FTR #172, providing more information about Savitri Devi.
A Nazi mystic and ideologue named Savitri Devi (nee Maximiani Portas) is an icon to contemporary Nazi elements and her philosophy overlaps, and has been accepted by, certain elements of both Green and New Age philosophy. This broadcast sets forth both the history and the philosophy of Savitri Devi.
Strongly influenced by Hindu (and specifically Brahmin) culture, Savitri Devi saw the caste system of India and the mythology of the Bhagavad Gita as confirming the Nazi occult philosophy of the so-called “Aryan” origins of the German people. (The program does not detail her actual philosophy which is, past a point, mystical and fundamentally irrationalist in nature. The point of the broadcast is to illustrate the potential appeal of Nazi occultism to New Agers and eco-activists.)
Beginning with analysis of the appeal of Hitler and Nazism for the upper castes of Hindu society, the program underscores the manner in which the Third Reich exploited the anti-colonial sentiment of people in the Third World in an attempt to convert them to the Nazi cause. This anti-colonial sentiment, the racism of the caste system and the Nazis’ use of the swastika (a holy Hindu symbol) led many Hindus to view Hitler as an Avatar (a divine spirit). This Hindu sympathy for Hitler ultimately led to the formation of an Indian Legion that fought alongside the Wehrmacht, as well as the RSS (an Indian fascist organization). The Indian Legion was the brainchild of a militant Indian nationalist turned Axis spy and fascist named Subhas Chandra Bose, nicknamed “The Duce of Bengal”.
The program highlights the Third Reich’s use of anti-colonial sentiment and anti-Semitism to win Arabs over to the Nazi cause. (It should be noted that Hitler’s racism has engendered contempt on the part of his followers toward both Indians and Arabs, a fact often overlooked by Indian and Arab Nazi apologists, to their own detriment.) Devi’s profound connections to post-war Nazi luminaries Hans Ulrich Rudel and Otto Skorzeny led to her enshrinement as a major philosophical pillar of contemporary Nazism. (Both Rudel and Skorzeny became leaders of what Mr. Emory calls “the Underground Reich”.)
Devi was connected to both American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell and William Pierce, the leader of the National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries.
Banking with Bin Laden
The BJP is pissed about reports of the FISA court giving permission to spy on it, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hezbollah affiliate, and the Pakistan Peoples Party. And now the BJP wants a no-spy agreement of its own:
Modi just announced that foreign firms will be allowed to own up to 49% of India’s defense firms, although Indians will still be required to maintain management control over the firms. It’s part of a bid to cut down on India’s defense imports while also being part of Modi’s general mandate to get India in synch with the new normal of selling off one’s nation to the global loan shark-opoly as a means of establishing economic resilience. It’s a very counter-intuitive strategy, and if the initial responses are any indication of how successful India’s new plan will be at attracting foreign investments, it’s also “disappointing” and just “a first tiny step in the right direction”:
John Kerry’s visit to India as most of the world was focused on the slaughter in Gaza.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2014/08/05/Is-India-becoming-the-next-U-S-outpost-.html
“Another Indian NGO that Sinha and Omidyar Network funded was caught in 2012 illegally influencing members of India’s parliament on the country’s tight e‑commerce laws. India’s top security agency at the time denounced the NGO as “detrimental to national security,” accused it of providing cover for “foreign” intelligence agencies to infiltrate India’s government — and stripped it of its registration.
After that scandal, the co-founder of the beleaguered NGO, CV Mudhakar, was hired by Omidyar Network India’s director of investments in…“government transparency.””
Yep:
“Aside from authorizing weapons purchases, the government has loosened restrictions on procurement from defense manufacturers affected by graft allegations, and made it easier for private companies to maintain military equipment.” Uh oh:
Modi is unviiling his new ‘totally not Thatcherite *wink*’ reforms to the Indian economy and safety net. This isn’t going to be a complete human disaster or anything. The market shall provide for all:
The writing is on the wall:
Yep, the writing is on the wall and it was probably written by someone that simultaneously hates the poor while viewing them as super-humans that just need a kick in the pants to unleash their super-powers. That’s what to expect when you read that economists (who tend to hate the poor) are chattering about how “structural reforms” (austerity for the poor and tax cuts for the rich) as the only thing that can improve the Indian economy and lives of poor Indians. And with a Modi government those are exactly the kinds of reforms we should expect.
But at least you hear comments like this:
So it could be worse. Arvind Panagariya could be planning a Thatcherite revolution that guts India’s safety net while selling off state assets to connected oligarchs. Which he says he isn’t planning on doing. At least, not immediately:
As Arun Jaitley, now India’s minister of finance, pledged at the time:
And as Arvind Panagariya was pushing for last year:
So presumably all that “asset creation” from the infrastructure stimulus programs (that likely center around privatizations) is going to permanently alleviate Indian poverty in the future. Not immediate, mind you, but eventually. Also, screw the poor and their rural roads and irrigation ponds. Deregulations will provide those services if they are truly of value. Praying to the free market gods. That’s the plan for India.
Although this Thatcherite revolution does raise the question of what happens when the stimulus programs end and everything is privatized and the welfare and food subsidy programs are all gone?
Oh yeah. That’s right. More “asset creation”.
“I would like to address the problem frontally in the interest of the poorest of the poor. For him land acquisition for industries may be the priority, for me it is homesteads for the homeless … policies which accrue direct benefit for the poor rather than in the name of development taking a circuitous route to benefit the poor. Whether that happens is so questionable – development for whom and at what cost?”
Uh uh. It’s sounds like some of Modi’s non-billionaire coalition partners are having a long-overdue existential crisis:
While it’s never really a great sign to suddenly realize that the guy you elected to fix the economy is really just planning on rigging it in favor of the billionaires, you gotta give credit where credit’s due: at least some of India’s conservatives are experiencing an existential crisis about Modi at all. Better late than never. It could be worse!
The ‘bad old days’ are back by demand. Or, rather, will be back after the the Modi government demands a pro-child labor amendment to the Child Labour Prohibition Act:
Yes, you read that right:
Yep, all these child laborers are just being nurtured in “a spirit of entrepreneurship” in their “family enterprises”. Presumably, when they grow up they’ll be able to apply all of those invaluable skills they learn in the factories (instead of whatever they learned in school) and...start their own child-laboring enterprises! In other words, perpetuating the child-labor pyramid scheme is probably the best case scenario for these kids. Imagine that.
“The market” wants the unions busted in India and easier employee firings or it just might take its ball and go home. At least, that’s the Modi government’s sales pitch for the new labor laws that will bust unions and make it easier to fire people:
Wow, those current labor laws sure sound harsh. Or, at least, they would (not really) if they were applied to more than a fraction of workers:
Yes, a whole 8 percent of India’s manufacturing workers have a formal employment contract and 84 percent of India’s manufacturers were already small enough to avoid requesting the government permission to lay off workers.
Whatever will India’s manufacturers do without those union-busting reforms? Well, they could try consulting some different economists about the best types of reforms. That would probably be for the best. Especially since the guy that’s apparently brains behind this plan, Manish Sabharwal, owns a company that supplies contract workers for companies that want to skirt India’s labor laws:
Well, now that Mr. Sabharwal’s proposal is coming to fruition, we’ll find out if busting unions and making it easier to fire people somehow results in more formally employed workers. Especially since, as the article pointed out, the contract workers his company provides tend to get half the pay of their formally employed counterparts and no benefits. A race to the bottom lift all boats, after all. Really!
And regarding the desire to catch up with China, with an economy that’s 32 percent manufacturing instead of 16 percent in India, let’s just say that, in terms of realistically catching up to China in the manufacturing arena, labor policies probably aren’t going to be the major issue.
Related to the proposed overhaul of India’s labor laws to foster easier firings/union busting, note the new changes to India’s bankruptcy laws: creditors are going to get to appoint their own management teams for a “stressed” company and do whatever is deemed necessary to get the company back into profitability:
Well, this is probably going to be more effective at enabling the recovery of bad debts than the current system, but it’s not really clear that handing over more corporate control to the bankers is going to be a good thing given the new laws designed to facilitate mass firings.
And now that India is has made taking over an Indian company easier than ever it’s going to be very interesting to see how much foreign interest there is in lending to India. Especially if India’s central bank allows Indian company to engage in unlimited borrowing from foreign lenders like the government wants:
Oh boy:
Yes, the Modi government is recommending that India companies be allowed to borrow from anyone in the world, at any interest rate, for any purpose, and apparently in any foreign currency. And if the loan goes bad (or the rupee just drops a lot relative to the borrowed currency), those foreign lenders get to take over management!
So it’s definitely looking like a wave of foreign takeovers could be in store for India’s economy if the government’s proposed foreign lending changes are eventually put into place. And since the proposed rules would allow India’s companies to spend those loans on apparently anything, it’s going to be very interesting to see how many of those loans to India’s companies end up getting spent in India.
Narendra Modi recently ‘dropped the masked’ somewhat regarding his ties to the RSS during a recent meeting between Modi and his cabinet and the RSS bosses where his government was ‘reviewed’. As far as mask-dropping goes, it wasn’t exactly a revelation to find out that the RSS calls the shots in the Modi government. What was rather surprising, however, was the particular shot the RSS appeared to be hinting at during media appearances following the meeting: Unifying India and Pakistan. And this is all happening at a time when India’s army chief touted the Indian armed force’s readiness for a ‘swift, short war’ with Pakistan.:
And this is why the Doomsday Clock is probably running a little behind at the moment:
Tick...tick...tick...tick...
Check out out: Modi’s government is setting up a new institution that will be tasked with round-the-clock monitoring of blogs, web portals of TV channels and newspapers, and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, among others. All comments and threads will be analyzed and history, along with a psychological profile, of each poster will be assessed for possible subversiveness and radicalism. And when deemed necessary, counter-messages will be inserted into the threads to quell a possible snowballing of negative public opinion.
How exactly this initiative is supposed to quell the negative opinions generated by overt in-your-face Big Brother-tactics is unclear, but one thing is for sure: Thanks to the existence of this program and the fact that it’s being done in a highly public manner, there’s going to be no shortage of online negative opinion to quell:
“They said the objective is to come up with “instant counters” on social media to plug resentment triggered by news items so that personal opinions do not snowball into public protests and threaten law and order.”
You have to wonder how effective an agency dedicated to ‘plugging resentment triggered by news items’ is going to be at reducing resentment when the very existence of the agency is bound to generate even more resentment and all pro-government comments are just going to be assumed to be government-paid trolls.
Oh well...it appears the
beatingspublic opinion management will continue until morale improves. The beatings will also presumably continue.@Pterrafractyl–
I don’t imagine we’ll be hearing any complaints about this from Citizen Omidyar, our Silicon Valley libertarian mogul who funds fascism and coups d’etat in his spare time.
Best,
Dave
It looks like the man who went on a shooting spree in Houston was a half-Indian neo-Nazi lawyer. While, sadly, far-right extremist attacks aren’t nearly as rare as they should be these days, a half-Indian neo-Nazi lawyer going on a shooting spree fortunately isn’t very typical:
“Law enforcement sources said the shooter was wearing what appeared to be an antique German uniform with swastikas on it.”
It sounds like the guy was closet Nazi sympathizer depressed over his failing law practice and decided to commit suicide by killing a bunch of strangers while wearing his Nazi uniform and waiting for the police to show up and kill him. So while he apparently wasn’t the greatest lawyer, he certainly embraced the murderous nihilism of the Nazi philosophy quite effectively. Unfortunately for everyone else.
Modi Elevates Mob Violence Provacateur as Likely Successor. Of Course.
If you thought Narendra Modi is a scary far-right nut job with a propensity to unleash sectarian violence for political gain, check out the guy he just elevated to the status of ‘front-runner to replace Modi’: Yogi Adityanath, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from Uttar Praddesh who is best known for encouraging vigilante death squads against Muslims. He hails from the Gorakhnath Temple, whose head priest was arrested for encourage Hindu militants to kill Mahatma Gandhi only days before he was shot. And his successor helped spark one of the worst religious riots in India’s recent history after encouraging Hindu mobs to tear down a 16th-century mosque and build a temple there in 1992. Oh, and it appears that India’s cable news stations just can’t get enough of the guy.
So it’s like the worst characteristics of Modi, amplified, meshed with the worst characteristics of Donald Trump. That’s the pedigree of the one of front-runners to replace Modi...thanks to Modi giving this guy his political blessings:
“Few decisions in Indian politics matter more than the selection of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, because the post is seen as a springboard for future prime ministers. At the age of 45, the diminutive, baby-faced Adityanath is receiving the kind of career-making attention that projects an Indian politician toward higher office.”
Yep, Modi just put a violent theocratic fascist on a “spring for future prime ministers”. And now Adityanath is poised to fulfill his calling: merging politics and religion for the purpose of instigating militant Hindu mob violence and terrorizing India’s Muslims:
And now he’s on the political fast track to replace Modi...as long as he’s not too militant and doesn’t unleash too much violence from his followers, apparently. Will they be able to ‘behave’ themselves long enough for Adityanath to actually replace Modi in the 2024 elections? It’s not going to be easy...because his followers really, really, really want to kill Muslims:
“Along with the wheat, small insects will get crushed.” And those “small insects” are India’s Muslims in the minds of Adityanath hardcore followers. And Modi just did one of the biggest thing he could to mainstream the guy. Of course.
Here’s something to keep in mind as Narendra Modi, the BJP, and Modi’s fascist RSS allies continue to consolidate their grip on power: Consolidating that grip on power is going to require the Hind Nationalist BJP party to do something that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to a right-wing conservative party in a traditionally caste-based society: appealing to the very poor. In this case the “untouchables” the Dalits, who understandably aren’t traditionally in the BJP target audience. And as the following article notes, if Modi wants to not only get reelected but also lead the BJP to a take over of the congress so he to fully implement his far-right agenda he’s going to have to figure out how to get that Dalit vote. Something the BJP is unfortunately getting better at:
“Caste, in short, remains perhaps the single most influential factor in Indian politics despite rapid modernization of the world’s largest democracy, as proven in the latest presidential contest. And Narendra Modi, who won a landslide victory by widening the party’s appeal beyond the orthodox Hindu class, is sure to milk it for all it’s worth.”
Yes, dealing with traditional caste-based inequalities remains a top issue for India, so even the far-right, which tends to exalt in inequality and rigid hierarchies, is going to have to effectively appeal to the Dalits and other traditionally disempowered minorities, which the BJP appears to be figuring out how to do:
So it’s going to be interesting to see if the BJP can continue making inroads into the Dalit electorate. As tragically baffling as it is when the very poor vote for far-right strong-men types, it happens. Convincing people to make bad decision is a far-right specialty, after all.
And as the following piece about the recent assassination of Indian journalist-turned-activist Gauri Lankesh suggests, the Dalit vote isn’ts just a top prize for a party like the BJP. It’s the kind of prize the far-right will kill for:
“Ms. Lankesh was also an effective political organizer with the ability to bring together social and political groups — Dalits, indigenous tribals, leftists, Muslims and others — opposed to the Hindu nationalist attempts to transform India into a country primarily for the Hindus.”
An effective political organizer who appeared to have the ability to bridge a key divide between the Dalits and the rest of the non-Hindu nationalist segments of Indian society gets gunned down. And she was just latest activist who possessed that ability to bridge divides to be assassinated in exactly the same manner in recent years:
Organizers against religious superstitions, idol worship among Hindus, and a Communist community organizer and columnist were all gunned down in exactly the same way: an assassin on a motorbike. Also note that preliminary analysis of the bullets used to kill Lankesh indicate it was the same gun used to kill M M Kalburgi two years ago. It’s a reminder that killing reason is one of the primary tools of fascism, either by spreading really bad misleading ideas or literally killing people like these organizers. And a more general reminder of the far-right’s willingness to employ political violence when it can’t get its way via the ballot box.
It’s also possible that this assassination will backfire and create a climate of fear over Hindu nationalist violence and actually drives Dalit voters away from the BJP. If that happens it’s going to be interesting to see what the BJP does next to win the those votes. We’ll see.
Following up on the assassination of Gauri Lankesh and the larger Hindu nationalist assassination campaign taking place in India against left-wing organizers who demonstrate a capacity for bridging the divide between the Dalits and various left-wing movements, it’s worth looking at one of the other techniques the BJP appears to be using to win the votes of the Dalits and other low-caste voting demographics that Narendra Modi needs to win reelection and take control of the parliament: electronic voting machine rigging. As we’re going to see, the shock victories of the BJP in places like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand included some rather shocking voting patterns. Like the BJP, a party led a Modi who has been openly flirting with endorsing Hindu-on-Muslim violence throughout his career, winning in majority Muslim districts in Uttar Pradesh. Or a BJP official posting his voting result predictions on Facebook before the election in Uttarakhand which shocking accuracy. And then there’s the subsequent “Hackathon challenge” that the Modi government arrange to quell these concerns but merely exacerbated them by being a joke.
But first, let’s take a look a the kind of challenges Modi’s BJP was facing in Uttar Pradesh, and the importance of the Dalit vote there for his electoral future and the success of his far-right agenda
“The one who becomes the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh gets to be the most powerful political leader after the prime minister.”
As we can see, a victory in Uttar Pradesh is is a massive political prize. A prize that the BJP won in 2014 when it swept the state in the general election. But a repeat is going to be a lot harder given all the anti-Dalit or anti-Muslim attacks by Modi’s Hindu nationalist base (in particular the “cow vigilante” movement), so the BJP is responding. With lots of lots of pro-Dalit theatrics:
And even the fascist RSS is getting in on the Dalit love theatrics:
But despite that, the BJP was still clearly feeling quite threatened by Mayawati, the “Dalit Queen” heading into this year’s state elections in Uttar Pradesh. So how did the BJP do? Shockingly well, winning 69 of the 85 seats. So well that, in addition to winning over the Dalit vote, and despite not making a similar pro-Muslim outreach campaign like the BJP has done for the Dalits, the BJP even managed to win Muslim-dominated seats too. It was the kind of shocking victory for the BJP that left many scratching asking if the vote was tampered with, which is very possible given the use of electronic voting machines in that election:
“Alleging that there was massive rigging of voting machines in the state to favour the BJP, the BSP chief said, “Most votes in Muslim majority constituencies have gone to the BJP. This makes it clear that the voting machines were manipulated.””
Yeah, Modi winning in majority Muslim districts is rather suspicious. And it’s hard to put it past a far-right to rig the vote if that’s an option and they think they can get away with it. We are talking about a fundamentally far-right, authoritarian movement that views poor people as a resource to be controlled and managed, after all. Stealing the vote should be expected if it’s an option.
And that was just in Uttar Pradesh. Then there was the state election in Uttarakhand, where the BJP got 56 out of 70 seats. Alone that kind of overwhelming result would be rather surprising. But when you factor in that the electronic voting machines were apparently swapped at the last minute, against protocol, and that the aide to the BJP spokesperson for one of the districts, Vikasnagara, managed to guess with stunning accuracy the village-level results where electronic voting machines were used, the BJP’s stunning sweep quickly went from surprising to suspicious:
“Alleging tampering of EVMs, the Congress candidates have submitted “circumstantial evidence” to claim that the EVMs allotted at many booths were not the ones that were used during voting. The six constituencies are Rajpur Road, BHEL Ranipur, Raipur, Mussoorie, Pratapnagar and Haridwar Rural. Barring Pratapnagar, all the other seats are in the two districts of Dehradun and Haridwar. While a voter has filed the petition in Haridwar Rural — where former Chief Minister Harish Rawat was defeated by a BJP candidate — all other petitions have been filed by Congress candidates.”
Electronic voting machines swapped out at the last minute before wave victory. Yeah, that’s suspicious:
And then a BJP manages to almost guess the results in advance:
And that’s just Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
So how is the government responding to these charges? Well, the Election Commission of India (ECI) came up with a interesting scheme: a “Hackathon”, where 49 parties were invited to attempt to hack a selection of voting machines in order to prove their case. It’s not the worst idea to help address the issue, unless, of course, the rules are set up to make the whole thing a farce. Which, of course, is exactly what happened:
“The EC is basically saying—you can test the machine for all possible keystrokes but we won’t give you enough time. And you can try and tamper with it using over-the-air communication devices such as cell phones and Bluetooth but we won’t give you enough time to figure out what the communication protocol between the two can be.”
Yep, it’s a “Hackathon”, where the participants aren’t actually given the time or technical information on these machines required to realistically hack them. Instead, a team of three people from each participating party gets a few hours to try and hack a machine without any of that necessary info, which is a joke since the concern isn’t that people without any technical information about the machines might hack them. It’s concerns that machines are vulnerable to hacking by officials (or private sector people with that people working with those officials) who do have that technical information. And no foreign experts were allowed, another bizarre restriction not reflective of real-world conditions:
“Of course! How can we allow foreign experts? The facts that we still procure the chips used in EVMs from Japan and the USA, and that the code that is flashed in the chips is not a facility that is available in India till date, are irrelevant. Also, we export these EVMs to great democracies of the world like Nepal, Namibia, Botswana and Kenya. Any foreign expert, if they actually want to lay their hands on the machine can get them from there, but it will be blasphemy if we allow them to do so on Indian soil.”
First, it’s worth noting thatUS scientist demonstrated that they could hack into Indian electronic voting machines back in 2010.
Also note that when you read about Indian EVMs getting exported to nations like Kenya, Kenya just happens to be mired in an electronic voting machine tampering scandal at the moment. It would be interesting to learn the origins of the machines in question.
And note the important point made above about how India implements the
“Now let’s see what VVPAT does as of now and what it should be doing. Currently, the VVPAT, which is basically a printer, prints out a slip with the name and election symbol of the candidate that the voter voted for. The slip is visible for seven seconds to the voter post which it falls into a box. The slips only serve the purpose of assuring the voter that their vote went to the right candidate. It doesn’t have any ramifications for the ultimate electoral result.”
The voter-verified paper trail doesn’t actually serve any purpose in the recount. It’s an important point to make because, as we’re about to see, after the “Hackathon” farce took place, the head of the Election Comission declare that the Hackathon results, combined with India’s plans to use VVPAT machines in all future elections, means that this is a “close issue”.
So how did the “Hackathon” turn out? Well, out of the 49 parties invited to attend, only two participated, the National Congress Party (NCP) and Communist Party of India (CPM). But they didn’t actually end up trying to hack the machines, citing a number of additional irregularities. Including the fact that the machines they were invited to hack were the same kinds of machines used in the elections they were disputing:
“Chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi told reporters later that with the EVM challenge now done and with 100% use of VVPAT machines in all future polls, the issue of tamperability “stands closed”. Also mentioning the Uttarakhand HC order restraining political parties and others from criticising the use of EVMs in recent state polls till all poll petitions are disposed of, Zaidi said that in the event of any party violating the order, the “EC will take an appropriate decision”.”
Case closed! Apparently. Despite the fact that the electronic voting machines they were asked to hack (while adhering to the absurd rules) weren’t the voting machines in question:
So is the issue actually resolved at this point, at least in terms of formally resolving the legal challenges? Nope, but don’t talk about it anyway. That was the ruling of the Uttarakhand High Court when it ruled that the Hackathon could proceed the day before it took place following a series of challenges saying the Hackathon threatened their petitions to challenge these vote results. Specifically, the court issued a ruling that restrains “all recognised national political parties, recognised state political parties, other political parties, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and individuals from criticising the use of EVMs in the recently conducted elections…even by approaching the electronic media, press, radio, Facebook, Twitter… till decision of the election petitions”. And this gag order was apparently issued “in the larger public interest”:
““In the larger public interest,” the division bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Sharad Kumar Sharma said, “restrain all recognised national political parties, recognised state political parties, other political parties, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and individuals from criticising the use of EVMs in the recently conducted elections…even by approaching the electronic media, press, radio, Facebook, Twitter… till decision of the election petitions.””
Now, that gag order was issued on June 3rd. Is it still in place today, three and a half months later? Yep, after the Indian Supreme Court stayed the ruling
“The Supreme Court on Friday stayed an Uttarakhand High Court order issuing a blanket ban on political parties, non-governmental organisations and citizens from criticising electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in elections to five State Assemblies this year.”
Yep, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the ruling that bans pretty much anyone from questioning all those highly questionable election results. A ban that appears to include mentioning these suspicions on pretty much any medium:
So that’s all part of how the BJP appears to be winning, and winning big, in states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand: rigging the vote and then having the courts ban any mention of it.
Here’s the latest ominous political news coming out of India: according to a new poll out of Indian voters, a majority of Indians support now military rule and even more support a central authority who can operated without checks and balances:
“A majority of Indians, 53 percent, support military rule, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last week. India is one of only four countries that has a majority in favor of a military government, the American think tank said. Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Africa are the other three.”
And note how it isn’t just military rule that a majority of polled Indians were backing. They also appeared to back an autocratic system in general, with a single individual with unchecked powers:
So as Modi makes further moves to consolidate power, those moves are probably going to have strong public backing. Especially with BJP voters:
And, of course, one of the factors that appears to be driving this growing embrace of authoritarianism is a dissatisfaction with the outcomes of democratic governance and a feeling like a strong-man is needed to ‘get things done’:
So the worse India’s governance gets, the more Indians just want a dictator to ‘fix’ things. Gee, what lessons are the oligarchs backing the BJP take from polls like this.