Just as ‘anti-Semitism’ is used to attack anti-Zionists so supporters of the Dalits and Kashmiri self-determination are accused of ‘Hinduphobi’
 |
| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greet during the India-Israel Business Summit in New Delhi on January 15, 2018. MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images |
Falter
told the meeting that he and his supporters would do all they could to help
eradicate the ‘duty’ on the
government to make Caste an aspect of race in the Equality Act of 2010. [UK Government
will repeal caste law] Lord Jitesh
Gadhia, a Tory Party donor, and Blackman then called for the need to learn from
the way the CAA had got the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
definition of antisemitism passed in the Labour Party.
What Blackman meant was that ‘Hinduphobia’ should be weaponised against opponents of Hindu racism in the same way as ‘anti-Semitism’ has been weaponised against opponents of Israel’s government.
The
meeting was not about Israel but India and a campaign to prevent the inclusion
of caste discrimination as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act.
Hindu chauvinists don’t even acknowledging the existence of caste
discrimination just as most Zionists don’t recognise anti-Arab racism in Israel.
Dalit (untouchable) organisations have long campaigned for a law against
caste-based discrimination. Eventually the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act
2013 imposed a 'duty' on the government to make caste an aspect of race in the
Equality Act only to abandon it in response to the claims of Hindu racists that
it would be ‘hinduphobic’. Ring a few
bells?
Just
as the IHRA has been used by racists against anti-racists, so ‘Hinduphobia’ is now
being weaponised against anyone who opposes the military occupation of Kashmir
and the pogroms against Muslims, Dalits and other minorities in India. The ‘logic’
behind the false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘hinduphobia’ is that if
you oppose their racist ethno nationalism it is because you oppose them as Jews
or Hindus not because you oppose racism. The supporters of Apartheid in South
Africa and British fascist groups used to make similar claims.
As
Amrit Wilson observed
with the election of Jeremy Corbyn the Hindu far-Right began to strengthen
their links to Israel’s supporters in Britain. The passing of a resolution at
the 2019 Conference calling for self-determination for Kashmir was the final
straw.
 |
Students protesting against the arrest of union president Kanhaiya Kumar at the JNU campus in February 2016. Photograph: Hindustan Times/Getty |
Narendra Modi, has been Prime Minister of India since 2014. His administration was complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots when around 2,000 Muslims died in pogroms and riots. Up till 2014 he was banned from entering the United States because of his role in the pogroms in Gujarat, where he was Chief Minister from 2001 to 2014.,
Modi
is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu
nationalist paramilitary group. The BJP is widely regarded
as the political arm of the RSS.
The RSS was founded
in 1925 by Keshav
Baliram Hedgewar. Some of the most prominent figures in the RSS deeply
admired Fascism and Nazism..
Senior RSS members
had direct links to both Mussolini and Hitler. The RSS admired the way
Mussolini and Hitler built a powerful economy and military under the banner of
patriotism and nationalism.
VD Savakar an early RSS leader approved of Hitler’s persecution of
Jews. In 1940 he said at a meeting, “Nazism
proved undeniably the savior of Germany."
The BJP was officially
formed in 1980 though 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 Keshav
Baliram Hedgewar, Mussolini, Hitler, 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.
Following
the BJP victory in the 2019 general election he revoked the special status of Jammu
and Kashmir. He also introduced the Citizenship Amendment Act, which
resulted in widespread protests across the country.
In Delhi this resulted in pogroms beginning on
23 February with Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Of the 53 people killed,
two-thirds were Muslims who were shot, slashed with repeated blows, or set on
fire. By mid-March many Muslims had remained missing.
Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, a byword for secularism
and liberalism in times past was attacked. Samanth Subramanian described
how the attack by 50-60 Hindu fascists was led by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya
Parishad (ABVP), the youth wing of the RSS.
 |
| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures during a rally |
Videos of the attacks leaked out through social media in real
time. The police were called, but they didn’t move to stop the violence.
Instead, a posse of policemen installed itself at JNU’s gate, allowing no one
in. Yogendra Yadav, a political activist, arrived at the gate at 9pm.
Ninety
minutes later, the attackers emerged, still masked and armed. Even then, the
police detained no one. Instead, they were permitted to walk away as if nothing
had happened. When Yadav’s colleague took photos, Yadav was set upon by a knot
of men, knocked down and kicked in the face. The police did nothing. Later,
from a video, Yadav identified a local ABVP official among those who had hit
him. In a statement, the ABVP blamed the attacks on “leftist goons,” but on television members admitted that the masked, armed men
and women on campus were part of the ABVP. Still, the Delhi police pressed no
charges. “The police gave the goons
cover, gave them free rein on campus,” Yadav said. A JNU professor went
further, claiming that: “The police are
complicit.”
The
onslaught on JNU marked the middle of a season of nationwide protest, provoked
by a new law. The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by parliament on 11
December 2019, provides a fast track to citizenship for refugees fleeing into
India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Refugees of every south Asian
faith are eligible – every faith, that is, except Islam. It is a policy that
fits neatly with the RSS and the BJP’s demonisation of Muslims, India’s largest
religious minority. To votaries of Hindutva, the country is best served if it
is expunged of Islam.
 |
| The "Hitlers Den" pool parlor in Nagpur, epicenter of Hindu nationalismCredit: Shrenik Rao/Madras Courier |
Professor Sumantra Bose wrote about how
India’s Hindu nationalists and the Israeli right
have a remarkable mutual affinity. Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed
Narendra Modi to Israel in 2017 with these words: “Prime minister Modi, we have been waiting for you for a long time,
almost 70 years … We view you as a kindred spirit.”
Shrenik Rao
wrote that:
“In 2004, when now-Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, school textbooks published by
the Gujarat State Board portrayed Hitler as a hero, and glorified fascism. The
tenth-grade social studies textbook had chapters entitled "Hitler, the
Supremo," and "Internal Achievements of Nazism."
A section on the "Ideology of Nazism" read:
"Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race."
The social studies textbook published by the state of
Tamil Nadu in 2011 included chapters praising Hitler’s "inspiring leadership" and "achievements." A poll conducted by the Times of India in 2002 found that 17
percent favoured Adolf Hitler as "the
kind of leader India ought to have."
See Shrenik Rao, Hitler’s Hindus: The Rise and Rise of
India’s Nazi-loving Nationalists,.
Tamil
Nadu, Times of India, Bal Thackeray, the leader of the Hindu chauvinist group Shiv
Sena, who on his death in 2012 was accorded a state funeral in Bombay, created
a brand of Hindu fascism which sought inspiration in Nazi genocide. “There is nothing wrong,” he said in an
interview in 1993 with Time magazine,
“if Muslims
are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany. If you take Mein Kampf and if you remove the word 'Jew' and put in the
word 'Muslim', that is what I believe in.”
Jews have lived in India for over a millennium without
problems. After Kristallnacht the Indian National Congress issued a declaration
against Hitler’s Germany. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru condemned
the Nazi treatment of Jews.
Speaking in 1939 in Calcutta, V. D. Savarkar,
an early mentor of the RSS and ideological godfather of Hindutva identified Indian Muslims as a potential traitorous people
“like the Jews in Germany.” Narendra
Modi has had a lifelong association with the RSS.
 |
Kashmiri youth protesting against India throw bricks and make fire to block traffic on a road in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. |
Savarkar spelt 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.”
There was no greater
admirer of Hitler and Mussolini than Savarkar. In a speech delivered in 1940 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.
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.
M.S. Golwalkar, who
was the leader of the RSS for over 30 years 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,”
… 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.
Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, has gone through
countless editions in India and has been a bestseller in the country for
decades. It is especially popular among businessmen who see it as a self-help
guide for how determination and strength can produce success.
Much of Nazi ideology
and imagery came from the symbols and history of ancient India – indeed, the swastika
was based on a Hindu symbol of strength and good fortune. The legendary myth of
the invasion of prehistoric India by the “Aryan” tribes would, centuries later,
provide Hitler with his notion of a “super master race” that was destined to
dominate the world.
 |
India’s Narendra Modi addressing the BJP campaign rally ahead of Delhi state elections in New Delhi earlier this year. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP |
Sumantra Bose explained
that there’s a “profound admiration of
generations of Hindu nationalists for Zionism.” Israel
provides them with a model nation state. For
Zionism it’s not a problem dealing with Hitler lovers as long as they love
Israel too.
Why
India’s Hindu nationalists worship Israel’s nation-state model’,
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.
 |
The swastika is an ancient Indian Hindu syymbol Photo: Reuters |
See Hindu Nationalist’s Historical Links to Nazism and Fascism
Amrit
Wilson explained
that since Modi came to power in 2004, he
Has unleashed an on-going Tsunami of hate with Muslims, Christians and Dalits being lynched and raped on the flimsiest of pretexts and sometimes for no reason other than their identity, with human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and dissenters, being attacked and in some cases, as with feminist journalist Gauri Lankesh, assassinated. Through all this the Hindutva forces have continued to glorify Modi in the communities of Indian origin in Britain.
These
are the forces that Keir Starmer sought
to appease when he declared that Kashmiri independence was a matter for the
India Government and he ripped up Labour Party policy no Kashmir. From Zionism to
Hindutva, there appears no form of bigotry that Sturmer is not prepared to make
concessions to.
See How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart
India’s
Alliance With Israel Is a Model for the World’s Illiberal Leaders
From arms deals
to occupation in Kashmir and the West Bank, Modi and Netanyahu increasingly
share the same ethnonationalist worldview.
By Somdeep Sen
| September 10, 2020, 5:02 AM
In late November 2019, there was widespread outrage
over a video of the Indian Consul-General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, in
which he suggested to a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus that India should follow
the Israeli model, and build settlements in the Kashmir Valley to secure the
return of Hindus. Kashmiri activists and journalists were shocked by his
apparent support for Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. But
this is only one of many recent examples of a growing political love affair
between India and Israel.
 |
| Nobody is too racist to keep company with Sturmer |
Ties between the two countries have not always been
this friendly. In October 1937, a decade before Indian independence from
British rule, the Indian National Congress passed a resolution that declared
its support for the Palestinian national movement. It assured “the Arabs of the solidarity of the Indian
People with them in their struggle for national freedom.” A year later,
Mahatma Gandhi wrote
that the “cry for the national home for
the Jews” in Palestine had little appeal for him. He added: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same
sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.”
Maintaining this position after independence, India
was one of only 13 countries—and one of only three non-Muslim countries—to vote
against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. India officially
recognized the State of Israel in 1950, but relations between the two countries
remained largely informal until the end of the Cold War. As one of the
architects of the Non-Aligned Movement, India’s official allegiance remained
with its Arab allies.
 |
Members of India’s Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at a rally near Hyderabad. Photograph: STR/AFP via Getty Images |
When United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine Cold
War Non-Aligned Movement, Israel, the United Kingdom, and France invaded Egypt
and sparked the Suez Crisis of 1956, India expressed its support for its
nonaligned ally, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, and its stance against
Western imperialism in the region. In 1974, India recognized the Palestine
Liberation Organization as the sole, legitimate representative of the
Palestinians; it was the first non-Arab country do so. Of course, Israel
enjoyed the strong support of the West while India had well-known political
leanings towards the Soviet Union, so the two countries almost inevitably found
themselves in opposing camps during the Cold War.
But with the fall of the Soviet Union, India embarked
on a process of economic liberalization that included a drastic reduction in
import tariffs and the removal of restrictions on foreign direct investment.
India also saw this as an opportunity to reposition itself in a new world
order, and in 1992 established formal diplomatic relations with Israel. As the
doors of its embassy opened in Tel Aviv, India cautiously built its relations
with Israel while maintaining its official commitment to the Palestinian cause.
Having already recognized the State of Palestine in
1988, India inaugurated its representative office in Gaza in 1996, which later
moved to Ramallah. India also consistently voted in favor of the Palestinian
position at the United Nations. This included the vote on the General Assembly
resolution against Israel’s separation wall in 2003, for Palestine’s full
membership of UNESCO in 2011, and for Palestine’s non-member observer status in
the U.N. General Assembly in 2012.
 |
| BJP supporters at a rally in New Delhi in December 2019. Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP via Getty Images |
At the same time, Indian-Israeli relations began to encompass a wide
array of economic, technological, and strategic partnerships. In 2006, the
Indian and Israeli agricultural ministries signed a Memorandum of Understanding,
leading to the Indo-Israeli
Agricultural Project which focused on increasing India’s agricultural
productivity and water use efficiency. Bilateral trade has also increased from
$200 million in 1992 to $5.84 billion in 2018. And, compared with the same
period in the previous year, Israeli goods and services exports
to India were up 4.6 percent in the first nine months of 2019.
However, the most significant facet of Indian-Israeli relations is a
robust security-defense cooperation. The foundations of this cooperation were
laid long before 1992. During the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the Israeli Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed
his “fullest sympathy and understanding”
and, on the request of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, supplied weapons to
India. India sourced Israeli weapons during the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and
1971. Since the early days of its establishment in 1968, the Research and
Analysis Wing—India’s external intelligence agency—has also maintained close
relations with Israel’s Mossad.
Israel has replaced Russia as India’s preferred
all-season weapons supplier. For instance, when India conducted nuclear weapons
tests in 1998, it faced international condemnation. But while the Clinton
administration imposed economic sanctions and banned the export of U.S. weapons
and military technology, Israel refrained from criticizing India. Instead, over
the years Israel worked on building its brand as a reliable, but apolitical,
partner. During the Kargil War in 1999, it supplied the Indian Air Force with
UAVs and surveillance systems. Israel also upgraded India’s aging, Soviet-era
MiG-21 fighter jets and supplied Laser Guided Bombs and 160-mm mortar shells.
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Security personnel patrol in Srinagar on February 11, during a one-day strike to mark the anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Maqbool Bhat's death. TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images |
Aug. 5 marks one year since Modi revoked Kashmir’s special status. But Kashmiris will be mostly cut off—high-speed internet has been shut off to the region once again.
Today, Israel is second
only to Russia as India’s largest weapons supplier. But while Russian supplies
fell by 47 percent in 2015-2019, weapons imports from Israel increased by 175
percent. India is also the largest buyer of Israeli weapons, buying 46
percent of Israel’s exports. Both countries are part of the Joint
Working Group on Counterterrorism and have signed agreements on mutual legal
assistance in criminal matters, cooperation in homeland security, protection of
classified material, and cybersecurity. Indian Police Service trainees visit
the Israel National Police Academy every year for training. The Indian Border
Security Force uses Israeli-developed smart fencing systems as well as radar
and surveillance technology in the volatile Kashmir valley.
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic, the Indian Ministry of Defense and
its Israeli counterpart are also collaborating on developing a rapid testing
system. And to this end, an Israeli delegation collected
20,000 samples from Indian COVID-19 patients in early August 2020.
India’s overtures toward Israel are no longer a low-key affair. It is
something that India’s government and many Indians celebrate. In 2008,
following the Mumbai attacks, Indian talking heads were already proposing the
Israeli approach to fighting terrorism. A poll conducted
by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 2009 showed that 58 percent of Indians supported
Israel and that India ranked above the United States (56 percent), Russia (52
percent), Mexico (50 percent), China (48 percent), and Italy (39 percent).
During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
2018 visit to India, his last evening in the country was marked by a special
event “Shalom Bollywood” attended by Indian film industry heavyweights. At the
event, Netanyahu declared, “We believe in
Bollywood. The world loves Bollywood. Israel loves Bollywood. We want Bollywood
in Israel. We are putting our money where our mouth is.” Drive—the
Indian version of Fast & Furious—was released in November 2019 on
Netflix; it is the first Hindi movie to be filmed in Israel. The scenes were
shot in Tel Aviv and partly funded by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and
the Ministry of Tourism, with the expectation that a positive portrayal of
Israel in Hindi films would boost tourism from India.
It wasn’t a coincidence that the Indian Consul General
in New York was speaking to a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus. The return of
exiled Hindus to Kashmir has long been central to the Hindu nationalist
political agenda. And for the Consul General, Israel serves as a model for the
way exiled people might reclaim their homeland. So, referring to the controversial revocation
of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution, Chakravorty
described the move as an attempt to protect Hindu culture in Kashmir—not unlike
the way Jewish people maintained their cultural identity in their years of
exile.
He went on to declare: “The Kashmiri culture, is the Indian culture, it is the Hindu culture.”
And it has been under the leadership of Hindu nationalist governments that
Indian-Israeli relations have blossomed, as a majority of the most important
diplomatic exchanges have taken place when the BJP has been in power in New
Delhi.
The electoral successes of the BJP have meant that
what was once a fringe Hindu nationalist love affair with Israel has now become
a matter of public policy.
Israel has always been popular among the Hindu right.
In 1967, the Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Jana Sangh reacted to the Six
Day War by drawing parallels between India and Israel. One of the founding
fathers of the paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization, RSS Madhav Sadashiv
Golwalkar, may have once expressed his sympathies for Nazi Germany. But the
present-day organization has repeatedly declared its support for efforts to
strengthen India’s ties with Israel.
In 2016, the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat voiced his
admiration for the Jewish state when he said,
“Israel was attacked by
surrounding Islamic countries on five occasions, but the Israeli people
repulsed their aggressions and extended their boundaries due to strong resolve
to save motherland.”
But the electoral successes of the BJP have meant that
what was once a fringe Hindu nationalist love affair with Israel has now become
a matter of public policy. Officially, India now considers Israel a strategic
partner as both countries—each under its right-wing leadership—position
themselves as bastions of progress and democracy while surrounded by hostile
Muslim nations. In this sense, they consider each other to be natural allies,
engaged in a historic struggle against terrorism and Islamic fundamentalist
forces.
It is no surprise then that StandWithUs, a pro-Israel
advocacy organization that publishes pamphlets in Hindi and the Israeli Consul
General for South India Dana Kursh, reacted to India passing the controversial
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by saying:
“India
as a sovereign nation has the right in enacting the CAA … India’s sovereignty
is to be respected and she knows how to protect her people.”
India, for its part, displayed the extent of its
alliance with Israel when in June 2019 it voted against granting Palestinians
consultative status in the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. Responding to
the vote—a historic shift in India’s usual, pro-Palestine voting record at the
U.N.— Netanyahu tweeted, “Thank you
@NarendraModi, thank you India, for your support and for standing with Israel
at the UN.”
Trade, cultural exchange, and strategic
partnerships—including the arms trade—are the building blocks of international
relations. But as India now openly expresses (and celebrates) its support for
Israel in international forums and Israel, in return, expresses its support for
India’s controversial laws and constitutional amendments, it is evident that
the India-Israel relationship is no longer purely a matter of realpolitik; it
is also being strengthened by a shared ideology.
The India-Israel
relationship is no longer purely a matter of realpolitik; it is also being
strengthened by a shared ideology.
The consequences of this are significant. India, and
its Hindu nationalist leadership, has found an ally that is willing to publicly
support its widely criticized and often draconian political moves. At the same
time Israel, has found an ally willing to cultivate a political, economic, and
strategic partnership irrespective of its conduct towards Palestinians.
It may be too early to assess the long-term impact of
such an alliance. Nonetheless, authoritarian leaders in Brazil, Russia,
Hungary, Azerbaijan, and the Philippines have also upgraded their diplomatic
relations with Netanyahu’s Israel. Today’s warm Indian-Israeli ties may soon
become a model for strongmen across the world—an alliance that combines
diplomatic cover in Washington with military support for populist leaders while
easing the consequences of their illiberal ways.
British
Indian groups condemn Kashmir protest on Diwali as 'Hinduphobia'
As
part of a counter-campaign, 100 British Indian groups said it had hired a
digital billboard vehicle to traverse London streets to spread the 'inclusive
and universal' message of the festival.
Published: 28th
October 2019
By PTI
LONDON: An umbrella group representing over 100
British Indian organisations on Sunday condemned the "Free Kashmir"
demonstration by pro-Pakistani groups, planned to coincide with Diwali, as an
act of Hinduphobia and racism.
As part of a counter-campaign, the group said it had
hired a digital billboard vehicle to traverse central London streets to spread
the "inclusive and universal" message of the festival.
"The fact
that this protest is occurring on the same day as Diwali is an act of
Hinduphobia and racism," notes a collective statement issued by the
groups.
"It
is equivalent to an antisemitic group demonstrating on the holy day of
Hannukkah or an anti-Muslim group demonstrating on Eid. This is why many
British Indian individuals and community groups are upset,"
it notes, welcoming London Mayor Sadiq Khan's call for
the protesters to cancel their plans.
"This
request was refused. The Pakistani demonstration is trying to divide people in
the UK, especially on religious grounds. Instead of the nuanced debate needed
on Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, they are inciting religious and ethnic hatred on
the streets of London by hijacking the festival of Diwali,"
the statement adds.
The message hit social media as a number of
pro-Pakistani and separatist groups plan to kick-start a march across
Parliament Street as part of the so-called "Free Kashmir" protest
held annually on October 27, as the "Black Day" when Indian troops
allegedly entered the then princely kingdom of Kashmir in 1947.
Following widespread concerns raised across the board,
including in the House of Commons, Scotland Yard had imposed strict
restrictions on the route of the march to deny permission for it to culminate
before the Indian High Commission in London.
The Metropolitan Police imposed the pre-event
conditions under Sections 12 and 14 of the UK Public Order Act, which refer to
preventing serious disruption to the community, and warned that failure to
adhere to the conditions could lead to arrest and prosecution.
"We understand that
this is a significant anniversary date for those protesting, and also recognise
this falls on the important Hindu festival of Diwali.
My intention on the day will
be to balance the rights of those protesting with those who may be affected by
it.
We will take all necessary
steps to prevent crime and disorder,"
said Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner
Matt Twist, the Gold Commander in charge of the policing operation.
Twist reiterated this message in a reply to
Pakistani-origin peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, who is one of the key organisers of
the protest and had called for the restrictions to be lifted in a letter to the
Met Police.
In his reply, Commander Twist said:
"To
be clear I have not in any way sought to ban the pro-Kashmiri protest. In order
to minimise serious disruption to the community, I have asked for the pre-event
conditions.
"This
has only been done to ensure we correctly balance the rights of those who want
to protest, with those in wider London who may be disproportionately affected
by the serious disruption it would cause."
The Indian High Commission in London had issued a
diplomatic "note verbale" seeking appropriate safety measures
following clashes involving similar protesters, which had caused damage to
India House on August 15 during Indian Independence Day celebrations.
The restricted route prevents the protesters from
assembly anywhere near the Indian mission in Aldwych and must culminate at
Trafalgar Square instead.
The organisers of the protest march, including groups
such Muslim Action Forum, World Muslim Federation, Pakistan Patriotic Front,
Overseas Pakistan Welfare Council, had expressed their anger at the
restrictions and even threatened court action.
According to the Met Police details on the permissions
sought for the proposed march, an estimated 5,000-10,000 protesters are
expected to turn out for the march from across the UK.
The London Mayor has pledged a "robust"
policing plan to deal with any violence or breaches of the strict conditions
imposed on the protesters.
The
Far-Right Is Going Global
An
unofficial visit by nationalist European leaders to Kashmir highlights the
solidarity of far-right movements across the globe.
In October 2019, 23 members of the European Parliament
(MEPs) visited Kashmir, just two months after the Indian government removed the
region’s special autonomous status. The trip sparked controversy when it was
revealed that most of the MEPs belonged to far-right political parties,
including France’s National Rally (formerly National Front) and Germany’s Alternative
für Deutschland (AfD). It wasn’t just the affiliations of these visitors that
drew attention: The MEPs had been granted access to Kashmir even as foreign
journalists and domestic politicians were barred access to the region, and the
Indian-administered government had imposed an internet shutdown since August.
This visit was the latest example of the growing ties
between the far-right in India and Europe, a connection that is rooted
primarily in a shared hostility toward immigrants and Muslims, and couched in
similar overarching nationalistic visions. Today, with the populist radical
right ascendant in India and in several European democracies, the far-right
agenda has been increasingly normalized and made a part of mainstream political
discourse.
The link between far-right ideologies in these regions
long predates the relatively recent rise of right-wing populist leaders. In the
1930s, Hindu nationalists collaborated with key figures in Fascist Italy and
Nazi Germany in order to help advance their extreme right-wing projects. In the
1930s, Hindu nationalists collaborated with key figures in Fascist Italy and
Nazi Germany in order to help advance their extreme right-wing projects. One of
the pioneers of Hindu nationalism, V.D. Savarkar, once wrote that India should
model its approach to its “Muslim problem” on that used by the Nazis to deal
with their “Jewish problem.”
Similarly, European ideologues like Savitri Devi (born in
France as Maximiani Portas) described Hitler as an incarnation of the Hindu god
Vishnu. Nearly four decades after she died, her ideology remains
popular among American white nationalists. The manifesto of Anders Behring
Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in 2011, also expressed
an affinity for the Hindu nationalist approach to Islam that highlights many
contemporary European attitudes toward Muslim immigrant populations.
“The only
positive thing about the Hindu right wing is that they dominate the streets.
They do not tolerate the current injustice and often riot and attack Muslims
when things get out of control, usually after the Muslims disrespect and degrade
Hinduism too much,”
Breivik wrote before bombing a government building in
Oslo and killing dozens of children at a summer camp.
“India
will continue to wither and die unless the Indian nationalists consolidate
properly and strike to win. It is essential that the European and Indian
resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible.
Our goals are more or less identical.”
More recently, Steve Bannon, the former White House
chief strategist and editor in chief of the far-right site Breitbart
News Network, had considered creating a Breitbart India in 2015 after Narendra Modi became
prime minister of India. Bannon has long admired
Modi, once calling him “a Trump before
Trump.” Meanwhile, European supporters of Modi and his nationalist message
include the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) Geert
Wilders.
The MEPs’ visit to Kashmir sheds light on the
solidarity of the global far-right. Although they were sent invitations on
behalf of Madi
Sharma, a Brussels-based entrepreneur and president of the NGO Women’s
Economic and Social Think Tank (WESTT), the visit itself was funded and
organized by an NGO registered in New Delhi called the International Institute
for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS)—a group that shares the same IP address as the obscure news website
New Delhi Times.
This website, in turn, is connected to a global
network of think tanks, companies, NGOs, and, significantly, over
265 local media outlets in 65 countries. EU DisinfoLab, which conducts research
on disinformation campaigns targeting European Union member states, recently concluded
that the media outlets tied to the New Delhi Times are attempting to
influence international institutions and elected representatives.
While the ideological leanings of the New
Delhi Times are unclear, its network of media outlets syndicate
content criticizing Pakistan’s role in Kashmir, and they regularly take
Islamophobic editorial stances. Although those positions are not unusual in the
Indian media landscape, it is rare for such outlets to lobby on a global scale.
Two notable websites in this network—EP Today and Times
of Geneva—maintain strong connections to NGOs and think tanks in
Brussels and Geneva, in effect serving as lobbying interests to the EU and the
United Nations.
Sharma promised invitees “a prestigious VIP meeting” with Modi in addition to their trip to
Kashmir. The MEPs stated that the purpose of the visit was to “gather
information” on the situation in Kashmir. Although the MEPs were
technically an unofficial delegation, they received clearance
not just to tour Kashmir, but also to meet with several senior members of the
Indian government and military. Government ministries have publicly stated that
they were not involved in arranging the visit, although it is unlikely that
such clearance could have been obtained without approval from high-level
authorities.
Before visiting Kashmir, the MEPs went to New Delhi to
meet Modi, who said
that the delegation would gain “a better
understanding of the cultural and religious diversity of the region.” While
in Kashmir, the European delegation went on a guided tour
through the capital of Srinagar before having lunch at the Indian Army
Headquarters, where they saw maps of supposed terrorist training camps in
Pakistan, where attacks in Kashmir are allegedly plotted.
Several MEPs, including far-right Czech MEP Tomas
Zdechovsky and National Rally MEP Thierry Mariani, later used social media
to share their experience meeting the prime minister; Mariani, for example, tweeted
in support of the Indian government’s policy in Kashmir. Mariani also told
reporters that “we stand with India in
its fight against terrorists,” while AfD MEP Lars Patrick Berg accused
the media of branding them “Muslim-hating
Nazis.” Both Mariani
and Berg
have called for stronger border security in the EU, linking migration to
potential Islamist terrorist attacks.
The Kashmir issue is a rallying
cry for much of Europe’s far-right. Europe’s nationalists share a deep
concern over Islamist extremism, as well as an overarching vision of national
strength. In many ways, they see Modi’s hardline stance in Kashmir as
indicative of their own aims.
 |
An Indian soldier questions a man on a street during a curfew in Srinagar on August 8, 2019. Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images |
The latest crisis in Kashmir began when Modi’s
government revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, thereby removing
Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomous status. Wilders openly tweeted
his support of the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy the day it was announced.
The British columnist Katie Hopkins also expressed
solidarity and has more recently
claimed that Hindus are the victims of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir.
The immediate pretext for Modi’s move was brewing
unrest in the region. An ongoing separatist insurgency has gripped Kashmir
since 1989, and Pakistan has played a substantial role supporting violent
separatist groups in the region. Islamist terrorist attacks remain an everyday
reality on the ground, and they have sometimes spilled over into India itself.
This includes
the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a
Pakistan-based Islamist group seeking Kashmiri unification with Pakistan,
launched a massive attack in Mumbai killing 164 people.
The situation continued to escalate in February 2019, when
Pakistan’s Air Force launched a series of airstrikes in Indian-controlled
Kashmir, leading to Indian retaliation. Periodic airstrikes have been conducted
intermittently since—arguably boosting Modi’s popularity with his base and
helping him win reelection last year.
Although the pretext for the constitutional change was
regional unrest, there are broader goals. Hindu nationalists have long sought
to expand India’s territorial reach into what was once British-controlled
India—including not only Kashmir but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other parts
of South Asia.
 |
An Indian policeman comes out from a jail in downtown Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 5. Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images
In much the same way that Hindu nationalists see
Islamist extremism as an existential threat to the nation, European far-right
figures often characterize extremist-inspired attacks as foreign threats, even
when the perpetrators are fellow citizens. Following the 2017 Westminster
attack in London, for example, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen called on
France to take “control”
of its borders, despite the fact that the attacker was a British-born Muslim
convert.
A few months later, the Manchester Arena bombing led
the far-right Hungarian Fidesz parliamentary leader Lajos Kósa to state that
“terrorism
doesn’t start with a ‘suicide bomber.’ It starts when terrorists illegally come
to Europe and many people actually assist them.”
The attacker in this case, too, had been born in the
United Kingdom to Libyan refugees, but far-right figures still used the attacks
to condemn Islamist extremism and promote their Islamophobic, anti-immigrant
agendas. Members of the South Asian diaspora living in Western countries have
also played their part in helping to promote a Hindu nationalist agenda through
lobbying
and fundraising for organizations based in India.
Although the visit of the MEPs was widely criticized
in the international community for flouting diplomatic norms, it signals a new
development in Indo-European relations: Far-right narratives have become part
of the global mainstream. The far-right in these two regions are learning from
each other, and their abilities to govern according to a shared ideological
agenda rooted in Islamophobia are evolving in parallel.
Although transnational bonds between nationalists may
seem counterintuitive, their visions are not necessarily contradictory, and
they may continue to complement each other so long as the Muslim “other”
remains their common enemy. If far-right nationalists have it their way, it is
likely that Indo-European relations will be reshaped along Islamophobic lines.
Eviane Leidig
is a researcher at the Center for Research on Extremism
at the University of Oslo. Twitter: @evianeleidig
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