Archive for April, 2014
On academics and their open letters : neo-imperialism from afar
A group of sixty odd academics in various UK institutions have decided to join the Indian electoral fray by posting an open letter to the “left” leaning Independent under the headline:
Letters: The idea of Modi in power fills us with dread
“As the people of India vote to elect their next government, we are deeply concerned at the implications of a Narendra Modi-led BJP government for democracy, pluralism and human rights in India.”
Concern is always nice. Concern about democracy, pluralism, and human rights are particularly nice to hear about. But when these concerns are raised by voice which are only selectively concerned, that troubles us. These academics are not concerned about continued Saudi rule and its impact on the middle East’s prospects for democracy, pluralism and human rights. They are completely silent about Palestinian ruling junta (that is what it is – because each one of them come solidly from military outfits, and once-dubbed-terrorist groups), or for China, or for Pakistan, or Afghanistan. But more of this at the end.
“Narendra Modi is embedded in the Hindu Nationalist movement, namely the RSS and other Sangh Parivar groups, with their history of inciting violence against minorities. Some of these groups stand accused in recent terrorist attacks against civilians.”
The slyness of academic evasiveness starts to reveal itself now. It is the same method by which so-called professional historians create new impressions of truth by weaving propositions into a narrative and creating a new narrative where propositions become blended into certainties. Note the smooth blending of “some” “stand accused”. At one smooth stroke, these academics of high integrity have made an “accusation” appear as “convicted”, and “some” is used to taint the “whole”.
By their logic, the Congress parivar (family) is embedded in a politics which has had very dubious roles, and sometimes outright bias in defacto protecting Muslim violence from Nehru’s time at power during the Partition, with selective targeting of alleged Hindu violence. Usually the Congress hides behind the legalistic excuse – again first used by Nehru to allow the Islamic violence in Noakhali, Bengal to continue while he personally and immediately intervened in Bihar where Muslims were at the receiving end – that when the Congress sees the victims as non-Muslim, non-Christians, it mumbles about law and order being a state prerogative. Whereas, when Muslims appear to be the target, Congress sees it as a union/federal/central issue. This was the cover under which Congress did not intervene in the genocide of Hindus of Jammu and Kashmir in the late 80’s because in this case it was the Muslims who were the perpetrators. The helplessness of the Hindu surviving refugees, was perhaps the root cause of the revival of the Hindutva” movement these academics so lambast – because many Hindus in the wider arena of India began to realize the selective bias of the Indian state under the Nehrus and the Congress in favour of whitewashing and allowing Islamist violence to thrive, especially if such violence was directed against Hindus.
The Congress is therefore imbedded in a movement, that has always protected Islamism and Islamist pretensions, and have at various times carried elements in its governments who are connected to or stand accused of rioting and communal hatred which amount to acts of terrorism.
“We recall the extreme violence by the Hindu Right in Gujarat in 2002 which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. This violence occurred under Modi’s rule, and senior government and police officials have provided testimony of his alleged role in encouraging or permitting it to occur.”
Recalling is a good thing, but if what happened before under a regime historically is proof of repeating the same then the Congress should be even more in the dock – for the Partition riots happened under the government of Jawaharlal Nehru, and ant-Sikh pogroms happened under Rajiv-Gandhi/Congress, and all the riots that happened before the BJP came first to power, with such spectacular ones as in Bhagalpur, were also under various Congress governments.
The academics think that by adding the word “extreme” to “violence” they can make a special case against Modi -as they perhaps feel, and rightly so, that “violence” has been the norm for anti-Hindu attacks by Islamists or Christianists too. Maybe for them those “other” violence are genuine expressions of grievances,
“Some of his close aides have been convicted for their involvement, and legal proceedings are ongoing in the Gujarat High Court which may result in Modi being indicted for his role. He has never apologised for hate speech or contemptuous comments about various groups – including Muslims, Christians, women and Dalits. His closest aide has been censured recently by India’s Election Commission for hate speech used in this election campaign.
“There is widespread agreement about the authoritarian nature of Modi’s rule in Gujarat, further evidenced by the recent sidelining of other senior figures within the BJP. This style of governance can only weaken Indian democracy. “
Different groups of people agree among themselves about different things. Concepts like “authoritarian” are so abstract, and inconcretizable, that tons of academic papers have tried to make academic careers out of hair-splitting over the very definition of “authoritarian”. Many communists are still dewy eyed over Stalin or Mao, and have “widespread agreement” among themselves over their most fortunate appearance on earth. Same goes for Hitler. Jews have “widespread agreement” in spite of a portion of Jewish origin academics hosted by various UK universities to the contrary – that existence of Israel is perfectly justified even at the cost of Palestinians. There is widespread agreement among large swathes of Muslims about the necessity and justifiability of historical violent genocidic jihad, and significant groups have “widespread agreement” among themselves about the benevolence of sex-slavery of the non-Muslim as part of jihad.
Typically when groups do not want to spell out the membership of the group, or are unsure about their numerical strength in proportion to the wider population – they turn to vagueness, or unpinnable conjectures -so that they can never be called out for lying or pretending, and claiming “widespread agreement” is one way of doing that.
The “widespread agreement” is among this tiny coterie of Indian origin academics – probably groomed and selected in the early days of their studenthood and careers by previous generations and peer groups of British interest serving academics, like the Marxist academics who desperately denied any role of triangular Atlantic slave trade in the kickstart of the British industrial revolution.
The curious bit is about somehow Modi being guilty of sidelining “senior” party members as proof of exceptional authoritarianism. All the Nehru-family members have sidelined senior party members to come to power. Does it not make them even more authoritarian already?
“Additionally, the Modi-BJP model of economic growth involves close linking of government with big business, generous transfer of public resources to the wealthy and powerful, and measures harmful to the poor.”
This is actually hilarious. For this is what actually has been happening since Margaret Thatcher in Britain, happened too even under Tony Blair, and has accelerated under Cameron. Do they want to say that all that has led UK down the drain? Or do they have not the courage to spell out those pearls of wisdom to the masters of their souls? It happens at even grander scale in China, where party-apparatchiks and their minions or progeny ruling over millions in their regional satrapys hog investments from a financial sector which is still centrally and nationally owned as well as managed. No, these academic’s can only open their mouth against the “Hindu” India, and the BJP and Narendra Modi. They have not open lettered even on the very entertaining case of Ukraine, where “right wing nationalists” have been on the rampage with alleged support of big biz and oligarchs who grew into tycoons with diversion of state investments. Naturally – since doing so is not in the current interests of the British ruling interests.
“A Modi victory would likely mean greater moral policing, especially of women, increased censorship and vigilantism, and more tensions with India’s neighbours.”
These academics never protested Muslim censorship, moral policing of women, vigilanteism in Indian Kerala, or Uttar Pradesh, or Bihar, or West Bengal, or Assam, or Christians doing exactly the same in Nagaland and Mizoram, and attempting to do the same in Manipur. They cannot mention anything about those other communities or religions or states, because they cannot afford to show these other ones in the same or worse light than the “Hindus” – then they lose the affection of the system.
Overall, then what does it show about such concerted concerns from such groups?
Let us go back to the very beginning again of their open letter. They are claiming that democracy, pluralism, human rights in a one specific distant nation, is going to be trumped if one man and his party or political alliance gets elected in a plural democracy which as yet respects human rights. One can see why they have been allowed to succeed as academics, because they can pretend an intellect which can be used to legitimize the complete lack of any logical capacity on issues that are of interest to a post-imperialist neo-imperialist state.
The west-European political dogma of the political class has now run into a fatal dilemma. They either have to accept that democracy and pluralism can be used, to subvert, overturn, or cover anti-democracy and non-pluralism – which makes themselves open to analysis as tow whether they had been doing and continue to do so themselves.
Or they have to find escape clauses that can be used selectively to target nations and regimes that they see as obstacles in the way of their agenda of global domination, within their dogma that still allows some mantle of legitimacy for their own systems.
The method being tried out in general for a couple of decades, is trying to enforce a so-called consensus or “widespread agreement”, on very vague and often duplicitous or contradictory criteria to judge if the “consensus” value system is being subverted or not. The west-European dogma thinks it has found an escape clause that can cover their selective neo-imperialist agenda – claim that a certain vague outline of democracy, pluralism and human rights exists – whose identification and verification lies solely in their own hands, which then justifies imperialist intervention in other nations, to overturn regimes, assassinate significant individuals, or economically and militarily destroy the fundamentals of that nation.
In order to find out in whose interests any self-proclaimed group of experts, academics, humanitarians, activists actually are acting for – we just need to check out what they remain silent on in contrast to what they choose to pick on. These open-letter academics do not criticize Hamas or Palestinian authority parts for their Jew-cleansing hate campaigns, torture, rape, murder, or that by the so-called freedom-fighters in Syria, or those in Kosovo and Croatia against Serbs in the 90’s, or the Bahraini state, or the Saudis, or Pakistan, or China, or western Ukraine, or Turkey, or Egypt, or even in their own backyard where the state ruthlessly cracks down with full state violence on peaceful protesters against economic destruction of the commoner.
Just compare their stances on these “other” stuff – and you can identify whom they work for, in whose interests.
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Studying Priyamvada Gopal : how to promote imperialism under an anti-fascist mask.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/14/narendra-modi-extremism-india
Priymavada Gopal’s opening piece in Guardian runs as follows:
Imagine this. A pogrom takes place in a foreign country targeting a minority group, say Christians, with hundreds brutally killed by rampaging mobs, many mutilated and raped, and foetuses removed from pregnant women. Thousands flee destroyed homes. The provincial leader on whose watch these events take place is a politician with open links to extremist Islamist organisations. Three holidaying British citizens are among the massacred. Allegations emerge that this politician’s language helped foment the massacres. With one of his cabinet jailed for her role in the pogroms he becomes the frontrunner to lead this increasingly powerful country. Would you worry?
Yes, is the likely answer, and so you should. In reality, the country is India, the extremists are Hindus, the 2002 Gujarat pogroms targeted Muslims, and the leader in question is Narendra Modi.
It is highly revealing to see how Gopal’s use of English carefully transforms, transmutes and transfers guilt and horror from a widely obvious violent religious movement to another with which she would otherwise have failed to establish any comparative basis. The violent scenario becomes her equation between two religious communities by which she can serve her dual purpose of reducing Jihadi guilt and responsibility on one hand, and raise the other community to the same violent status. “Removing foetuses” is an allegation that is typically dismissed by Indian “Thaparite” historians when they appear historically, as being carried out by Islamist mobs – as in the Moplah rebellion of the 1920’s or thr Partition riots.
In her hypothetical Islamic scenario, she does not equate “muslim” with “extremist”. In her follow on comment she makes that jump, subtly, and glibly – casually bracketing “Hindu” with “extremist”. But the most insidious and devious part of her argument lies in noting that she paints the “victim” in her scenario – as “Christian minority”. She did not say just any minority – for example Buddhist minorities, Sikh minorities and Hindu minorities are – and continue to be targets of Islamist attacks. But Gopal must only mention “Christian minorities”. She knows she is actually appealing to the Christian majoritarian audience of UK, trying to tickle their own underlying religiosity and religious anger and transfer it against the “Hindu”.
“As the candidate of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in current elections he does not dispute his or its links to the extremist Hindu network known as the Sangh Parivar.”
It is interesting to note the casual application of adjectives, which do not need to be, and are never qualified. Gopal thinks that extremist is such a well-defined term, that mere slapping it on anyone from such a high and undisputed authority as herself – is enough. Extremist in one school, one religion, one nation – become moderates, average, centrist in another school, religion, nation. Again Gopal is very careful in disjuncting “Muslim” from “extremist” – she reserves such joining to Muslim only by adding an “ist”, creating the linguistic illusion of the two being separate. No such kindnesses for the “Hindu” though. In the eyes of enemies of the Hindu, any assertiveness or protest or attempt at defining itself independently of self-appointed experts form outside – who however carry their own hidden religious agenda by criticizing religions/cultures selectively – is a criminal offense.
“Modi was a leading activist for its secretive and militaristic arm, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – whose founder expressed admiration for Hitler, ideologies of racial purity and the virtues of fascism. It is an organisation that, on a good day, looks like the British National party but can operate more like Nazi militias. Known for an authoritarian leadership style, Modi’s only expression of regret for the pogroms compared them to a car running over a puppy, while he labelled Muslim relief camps “baby-making factories”.”
Interestingly, the roots of the current Palestinian movement against Israel, and Jews – has its roots in a certain Grand Mufti of Palestine, who became a close associate, admirer of Hitler, and collaborator of the Nazis. This Grand Mufti had however been helped to get selected to his post by the dubious role of the then British administrator of Palestine. Does this make the British, Christians, current Palestinian movements, any better than the RSS? The Palestinian groups still express admiration for Hitler, for example http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=655
“Hitler awaited me. I said, ‘You’re the one who killed the Jews?’
He [Hitler] said: ‘Yes. I killed them so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world. And what I ask of you is to be resilient and patient, concerning the suffering that Palestine is experiencing at their hands.’
I said [to Hitler]: ‘Thanks for the advice.’ “ http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=655&doc_id=6029“Had Hitler won, Nazism would be an honor that people would be competing to belong to, and not a disgrace punishable by law. Churchill and Roosevelt were alcoholics, and in their youth were questioned more than once about brawls they started in bars, while Hitler hated alcohol and was not addicted to it. He used to go to sleep early and wake up early, and was very organized. These facts have been turned upside down as well, and Satan has been dressed with angels’ wings…”
“Palestinians whose first name is “Hitler”: Hitler Salah [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 28, 2005], Hitler Abu-Alrab [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2005], Hitler Mahmud Abu-Libda [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec.18, 2000.] Articles reflecting admiration for Hitler have appeared in both Fatah and Hamas newspapers.”
Millions go as aid and funds diverted for Palestinian movements from UK. Does Gopal lambast them similarly? no. Why not? Because doing so would not be in the interests of the core of the British establishment thinking– which still has its pro-Sunni, Wahabi, anti-Semitic bent of the early 20th century.
“Hindu extremism is rooted in a macho 20th-century response to British colonialism which mocked Hindu “effeminacy”. It is rarely scrutinised in the west, partly because Hinduism is stereotyped as gentle and non-violent in the image of Gandhi – who, ironically, was assassinated by an RSS activist – and benefits from the disproportionate attention given to Islamist violence, which enables other pernicious extremisms to slip under the radar.”
Gopal obviosuly covers up her glee at supposed “hindu effiminacy” just as newly enslaved woman in Islamic hands were often reported to be over-zealous to show her devotion to new masters by sharing in the mocking or humiliation of her own kin. Actually, Gopal’s shoddy scholarship and very poor or rather dishonest understanding of colonial history shows in her lack of reference to studies of militancy within the Hindu long before the British arrived, as in Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires By William R. Pinch published from within the very Cambridge that Gopal struts about.
“For all its anti-British rhetoric, Hindu nationalism played no significant role in either the freedom struggle or in creating the secular constitution of independent India. But over recent decades, the notion of Hindutva (Hindu-ness) has grown in force along with the unfettered capitalism it espouses: it is responsible for vicious attacks on Christians, murdering missionaries and calling for Muslims to choose between Pakistan and the graveyard. And any victory for a proponent of a nuclearised Hindu India where homosexuality remains criminalised will have consequences that will be felt well beyond the subcontinent, not least in multicultural Britain.”
As for pontificating on who played no significant role in freedom struggle : Gopal follows the cue of Congress favoured so-called professional historians who see political agenda in everyone else other than themselves. The latter served the dual purpose of reassuring the British that the threat of militancy or militancy itself among the Hindu having any role in the removal of the Brits – because the Brits have always been mortally scared of appearing to have been militarily or violently thrashed. It fed into their ancient paranoia of appearing weak before continental brothers. The other purpose was legitimizing the dynastic continuity of British Raj through the Nehruvian one, by projecting Nehru and Gandhi as the sole harbingers of Indian freedom – erasing and denigrating all other threads of Indian freedom struggle and its success. Such an agitprop and construction of the colonial-anti-colonial story served the purposes of all three players in that game – British imperialism, the north-Indian mullah-Hindu-elite collaborator class developing within the Sultanate-Mughal spectrum represented by Motilal and Jawaharlal, and the mercantile fledgling capitalists of India. Making Gandhi the sole victor, then was strategy of redefining the Hindu as passively accepting of all that is thrown against, tolerant of everything and everyone so that the extreme exclusivism, culture erasure memes of Christianity and Islam could continue unhindered even after their British patrons were gone from direct power. Gopal simply parrots the line.
Interestingly, and expectedly, Gopal shows her lack of integrity by not mentioning that the anti-homosexual laws were actually British laws imposed on Hindus – in deference to Islamic and Christian demands when the laws were being formalized for the Raj, and that the current strongest opposition against decriminalizing homosexuality comes from Muslim leadership in India. It is Hindus who have some traditional space for the third “gender”, not Muslims – some of whose voice have already promised alternatives under Islamic law for India. Gopal slyly makes an Islamic and Christian problem into a Hindu one, and then pitched it on her chosen target. When mentioning “vicious attacks” on Christian missionaries, she quietly avoids the role and effect of such missionaries on simple believing communities, the fraud and financial promises used to manipulate and win converts, and the attacks on and exclusion of Hindus by missionaries. When Hindu “missionaries” go for similar work – they are murdered too, and their activity is touted by the likes of Gopal as disruptive and therefore their murder somehow legitimate. Gopal has absorbed British ruling classes’ traditional duplicity rather well.
“The Gujarat pogroms took place after an unexplained fire on a train, which killed Hindu activists and was swiftly attributed by Modi to Islamic forces and Pakistan. Allegations remain that he deliberately prevented authorities from intervening. Contrary to claims, India’s supreme court has not issued him a “clean chit” but criticised him as a “modern-day Nero”.”
For Gopal – the “fire” is “unexplained”, not even unfortunate – or no commiseration expressed for those burned. Notwithstanding that the commission reports did not declare the fire “unexplained”, but rather suspicious. However, the suspicious reports were generated to make it appear that the burned passengers set fire to themselves – so that arson was so strongly suspected and secretly acknowledged by the anti-Hindu forces in the country and abroad – that they swung into action to pitch the blame on the “hindu” themselves. Gopal mentions allegations in a neat weave to create the impression that they were somehow not mere allegations but truths.
“Modi’s moral culpability was recognised by both Britain and the US in denying him a travel visa for several years. Britain has also been attempting, without success, to get justice for the three Britons – Saeed and Sakil Dawood, and Mohammed Aswat – who were chased, cornered and brutally killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, disgracefully, trumped by British corporate interests in India, many owned by British Indians, governmental links with Modi have been re-established. This rehabilitation is the result of hard lobbying by some Hindutva-friendly politicians and the many front organisations that operate in Britain. We are urged to focus on corporate-friendly Modi, the pogroms being a little mishap to be shrugged off.”
Gopal is at her ridiculous shamelessness best : the US/UK’s rejection of Modi somehow reinforces the guilt of Modi. Is she prepared to do the same for US/UK’s virtual rejection of Palestinian demands and accept that it proves Palestinian guilt? Or UK’s virtual clean chit to allow South American genocide criminals to move freely in UK shows their lack of guilt? Gopal claims to have been at the forefront of fighting fascism – but fails to recognize the reach, spread and power of fascism in the form of Islamism. She want to equate Islamism with Hindu reassertion – and this is where she reveals her secret agenda.
“We should note with concern that some charitable funds raised in Britain, including for the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, went to charities run by Hindu extremists who systematically foment hate. So too must we care about the “saffron pound” sent by long-distance Hindu “patriots” to fund extremism. But investigating Britain’s Hindu zealots doesn’t have the same political currency as pronouncements about getting “tough” on Islamic extremism.
A Modi victory will strengthen the arm of chauvinist forces in Britain, which have already had successes such as shutting down exhibitions, quashing caste discrimination laws, and withdrawing Royal Mail stamps. Under Modi there will be no progress on Kashmir, which will also have far-reaching violent consequences. In the face of a global resurgence of the right we must be alert to all its extremist forms. Britons committed to anti-fascism must not allow their country to abdicate morality.”
The weakest part of Gopals’ argument is however her failure to establish any strong connection between a Modi victory and negative consequences for UK home territories. Shutting down of exhibitions and withdrawal of stamps is far behind the political exigencies by which the London series bombings are related to the global fascist Islamist agenda. Hindu India has little to gain out of blackmailing a puny world player like the UK whose only influence can be exercised through its big-brother the USA. Islamists on the other hand have a lot depending on the UK and vice versa. Her most concrete argument is that of Modi will stall progress on “Kashmir”. Interestingly again, Gopal shows her real affiliations and commitments by dropping the word Jammu – and making one cause with the Islamist agenda of erasing the reality of Hindu and Buddhist Jammu and Ladakh. Since she thinks “Hindu” is against “Kashmir” she is already subscribed to the idea of an Islamist Kashmir – the dream of islamists, many of whom find a niche in her very UK – and against whom she has nothing to say. Not to speak of no Guardian article from her pen about the fascism unleashed by the valley Muslims on Hindu “Kashmiris”.
Gopals’ anti-fascism is very very selective – it only finds it in Hindu reassertion, not in Islamics, or christians, or in the actions of states in the west and its Islamist allies like the Saudis, around the globe and sometimes on their own home territories – which have amounted to and continue to be so – as fascist. So at the end of the day, her shrill cry of sky-is-falling and frantic appeal to the UK to intervene in Indian politics reveals her real motivations – serve the cause of imperialism under cover of anti-fascism – the same face used in Europe and the world since the end of WWII.
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