Happy New Year 2024

Indian Church and Nation Building

 

Indian Church and Nation Building

By Madhu Chandra

India Christians set to celebrate the 1970 years of Christianity in India on 3 July 2021. Historically, Indian Christians observe the martyrdom day of St Thomas on 3rd July every year.

Christianity in India is as old as many other religions in India. It has existed in India from the very first century. Two historical accounts about the coming of St Thomas, one of twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. Churches in India believe St Thomas came to the southern part of India and established the first church in 52 AD and believed of being killed in 72 AD by the opponents of the gospel he was preaching to the people. 

The second historical account, James Kodangallur, in his book “First Voyage the Apostle Thomas to India” claims St. Thomas visited India during 43-44 AD before he came to South India. He travelled breadth and length from Afghanistan to North India. It also suggests his involvement in social activities during his first visit to India. This is exactly what the Church has been involved in national building ever since its birth in India and worldwide. 

As Indian Church celebrates the 1970 years of Christianity in the country, it will be worth making some of the contributions given by the Indian church toward nation-building. 

Christians in the Interest of National Defence 

Like all other communities, irrespective of religion, caste, or creed, the Indian church has contributed toward the national defence services. Two of them served as Chiefs of Naval Staff, one each, Air Chief of Indian Air Force and as Indian Chief of Army Staff.

Admiral Ronald Lynsdale Pereira was the first Indian Christian to serve as 10th Chief of Naval Staff from 1972 - 1982. He hails from the Kannur family of Kerala in South India. 

In his 39-year illustrious naval career, Pereira held prestigious appointments of Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet, Flag Officer Commanding Southern Naval Command, and the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command.

Oscar Stanley Dawson was the second Indian, served as 11th Chief of Naval Staff from 1982 to 1984. He comes from the Nadar community of Tamil Nadu in South India and was the recipient of both the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) and Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM). 

The Hindu in its outbreak news of Oscar Stanley Dawson's, says, "It was during Admiral Dawson's tenure as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command, at Kochi from March 1979 to February 1982, that the site for the future Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala was identified." 

He was the Director of Naval Operations during the India-Pakistan conflict in 1971, for which he was awarded the AVSM. During the latter half of his tenure as the Navy Chief, Admiral Dawson was also Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), and later, after retirement, he was assigned as Indian High Commissioner to New Zealand from 1985 to 1987. 

Then Admiral Denis Anthony La Fontaine served as 13th Air Chief Marshall of India from 1985 to 1988. He also hails from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He joined the IAF as a fighter pilot in 1950 and rose to become its 13th Chief in July 1985. 

He was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal (VSM), Ati-Vishisht Seval Medal, and Param-Vishisht Seva Medal during his illustrious career. 

General Sunith Francis Rodrigues served as India's army chief of staff for three years term in 1990. The first Christian to head the world´s fourth-largest army, General Rodrigues is from the western coastal state of Goa, studied at Bombay´s Jesuit-run Saint Xavier´s High School. 

He joined the National Defence Academy in 1949 and was commissioned in 1952. In 1972 he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for distinguished service during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal for his distinguished service of the most exceptional order on Jan. 26, 1989. 

Impact on Secular Idea of India 

The idea of India was invented by Mahatma Gandhi through the influences of Rabindranath Tagore, explored by Jawaharlal Nehru, and later redefined by B. R. Ambedkar. The idea of India, according to the founding fathers mentioned above is a secular state and democratic nation. 

Indian Churches had a role in making India a secular state and democratic country. The campaign against the Sati system and female infanticide led by William Carey and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, a reformer influenced by Christian missionaries is the landmark of Indian churches' role in making India a secular state and democratic nation. 

A few of those who influenced Indian reformers who played a vital role in making India a secular state and democratic nation are Friedrich Schwartz of German missionary at Tranquebar, who influence Tulsi Raja, and Muslim ruler Hyder Ali. 

CF Andrews another missionary has a close influence upon India by his identification with Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore. Bishop Waskon Pickett, an American Methodist Bishop associated with Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr B R Ambedkar, and Indira Gandhi. 

When Gandhi was assassinated, it was Bishop Pickett was conducted the first memorial service in the Lucknow Methodist Church. He also took part in sorting out national problems when there were community clashes between Sikhs and Hindus. Bishop Pickett was a close friend of Dr B. R. Ambedkar the father of the Indian Constitution and messiah of Dalit emancipation. Dr Radha Krishnan praised Bishop Pickett in 1969 for the impact of Indian Christians on national influence and participation. 

Impact on Indian Education 

Exceptional is the educational contribution by pioneering missionaries. Long before, Governments established schools; it was Christian missions that started mission schools. The educational contribution of Indian churches is a household icon of every Indian. 

American missionaries compiled and published the earliest grammars and dictionaries of Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, and Manipuri. Missionaries gave an enormous boost to mass education and we have a legacy of it in the whole nation.

Impact on Women's Education 

Culturally, among Indian societies, women were considered not for education. Any girl having the ability to read and write was practically confined to nautch girls and not for respectable women. Despite local disbelief and pessimism, the missionaries believed that the girls could be educated and transformed. 

The first school for girls in the whole of India was established at Tranquebar in 1707 by missionaries. Mannah Marshman opened a school for girls at Serampore in 1800 and Miss Isabella Thoburn started a women's college on her veranda at Lucknow in 1870 and it became the first women's college in the whole of Asia. 

Ida Scudder, a missionary to South India founded Vellore Christian Medical College in 1900 to train women as doctors and nurses, and men are admitted only in 1947. 

In conclusion, while celebrating the 1970 years of Christianity in India, Indian Christians are very much a part of Indian society from the first century. Christians gave all that they could in terms of nation-building and they shall continue to do the same. 

Many Indian church leaders have called to rethink the mission and its service within the context of the challenge faced by the nation. Some of the challenges are the attack on Indian secularism, the rise of fascism, caste apartheid, anti-Christian and minority policies, human trafficking. Last, not least, the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. The need for healthcare infrastructure is reckoned and forecast of the challenges faced with unemployment amid high inflation. 

Madhu Chandra is a Hyderabad-based freelancer and former spokesperson of the North East Helpline.

--

Arambam Saroj Nalini Parratt: Manipur’s First Theologian, First Woman BA, MA

 

Arambam Saroj Nalini Parratt: Manipur’s First Theologian, First Woman BA, MA

By Madhu Chandra

Arambam Saroj Nalini Parratt is well known among the scholars in North East India, yet unknown to the theological students of the same region. Yet she was the first, who did Bachelor of Divinity from London University during the 1950s.

Saroj was born at the Meino Leirak of Imphal, the state capital of Manipur on June 2, 1933. Her father Ibohal Arambam was a well-known educationalist and worked as an offer posted at Jiribam during the war. Saroj began her schooling there and later went to Haflong in Assam for high school. After the completion of high school, Saroj went to Kolkata for college and became the first woman BA and MA graduate from Manipur.

She had Naga Christian friends while studying at Kolkata and came come connection to the Christian faith. She embraced Christianity and look baptism from Walter Corlett, who was then the minister at Lower Circular Road, Kolkata. Walter Corlett served in Manipur during wartime.

Christian faith became a prominent factor in Saroj's life and went to London for theological studies at the beginning of the 1950s and became the first person from Manipur, completed a Bachelor of Divinity. Manipur, like the rest of North East India, has a tradition of marking the name of pioneering individuals in any field, particularly among the churches. Yet, the name of Saroj needs to enter into history as the first theologian of Manipur. As per the work done by Saroj and defining the exact definition of the theologian, Saroj will be a lesser qualification to be named as a theologian, but she is the first person from the state of Manipur, completed Bachelor of Divinity, which is as a theological study.

After completing her theological study at London University, she married John Parratt and had three daughters. Saroj and John wanted to come back to Manipur and work but did not work the place and while going through the frustration, they decided to work in the developing nations and went to Nigeria for work. Saroj worked as a tutor of philosophy at the University of Ile-lfe, while John enrolled in doctorate study at the Australian National University. Later Saroj enrolled in the Ph.D. program under the Department of Asian Studies at the same university. Their student took longer and went to Papua-New Guinea for fieldwork. Later, she came to Manipur in 1972 for field research and she completed her doctorate within the following three years.

Professor Suniti Kumar Chatterji, one of Saroj’s examiner of the work, was interested in North East India and helped Saroj to publish her thesis as a book by Firma KLM, Kolkata in 1980. The publication of Saroj’s thesis as a book became an important step for her life and later her work became inspire the young scholar of Manipur.

Saroj taught in African countries including the universities of Malawi and Botswana from 1975 to 1990. She wrote many articles on the Islam of Botswana and the Christian women of Tswana and many of them were published in different periodicals.

Though Saroj could not come back to her birthplace and work and ended up in the developing countries, working for years, far away from her homeland, yet she never gave up her dreams and passion for Manipur. She was passionate about the Meitei, her ethnic group in North-East India. She came very often to Manipur for her passionate fieldwork. Later developed a close relationship with Manipur University.

She was appointed as an honorary visiting professor there in 2001. She along with John wrote several research papers and presented them in the seminars conducted by Manipur University, many of them were published in the local papers. Saroj’s two main books are 'Queen Empress vs. Tikendrajit, the Anglo-Manipuri Conflict 1891’ and ‘The Pleasing of Gods: Meitei Lai Haraoba’ published by Vikas, New Delhi.

Saroj and John left Botswana in 2000, came to England, and settled at Carsiles and she continued her work on Manipur until she went to be with Jesus on January 3, 2009.

Before leaving Botswana, Saroj had a desire to translate Cheithārol Kumbaba, the important royal chronicle of Manipur into English. She came to Manipur and had an opportunity to meet the Amāibas and Amāibees, the scholars of the Meitei religion. She could collect a photocopy of Cheithārol Kumbaba, the Royal Chronicle, originally written in ancient Meitei script. Saroj mastered the Meitei script within a short time that she used later in her translation of the royal chronicle of Manipur.

Saroj got an opportunity to work as an honorary fellow of the Institute of Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing of The University of Birmingham, began the translation of the Cheithārol Kumbaba, and continued the work until she breathed the last. After completing the first volume of the translation, the Royal Asiatic Society sponsored The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur: the Cheitharol Kumpapa and published in 2005 by Routledge.

By then, Saroj had developed a terminal illness, and she completed the first draft of the second volume a week before she passed away. John completed later volume 2 and 3, from the work left by Saroj. The translated version of Cheithārol Kumbaba has opened a way wide for future scholars.

Christians in Manipur have not recognized the work of Saroj. It will be a pride for the Christians in Manipur with the fact that Saroj as a Christian, being the first theologian and first woman, completed BA and MA did the translation work of the important historical account of Manipur.

Saroj Nalini Arambam Parratt has earned well known among North-East India and yet to be known among the Christians about the work she and her husband did for the mongoloid people.

Unlike the Christian theologians of the stand, there is no historical record of her involvement in the mission. Having said this, in one of the trips for fieldwork in 1989, she went to different Meitei churches and met them. By then I was posted at Dimapur, Nagaland, and went to Wangjing Mission compound for a month-long program. During the program, Saroj visited the Wangjing Mission compound and she wept after seeing so many new Meitei Christians, she has never seen. Since then, until she breathed last, I had closed exchanges of correspondence and had several discussions on the issues related to Manipur, particularly Meitei Christians. She had a desire to see many Meitei Christians go for higher studies.

Her books are listed at the end of the article, which is widely available online and in shops in Manipur. One the piece, she wrote “The Early Meitei Christians” and presented it in a seminar conducted by Manipur University in 2004, which was published in the local newspaper and its online version was available at kanglaonline.com for a long time but disappeared now. With permission from Saroj, I translated it into Manipuri and it is available on social media and became questionable who was the first Christian in Manipur.

In the article, she has mentioned her finding of early Meitei Christians from the oral resources of the people who lived with those first Christians, which is not found in the work of the theological scholars from Manipur.

Saroj identified the two first Christians of Manipur. Angom Kaboklei from the royal family was one of the queens of Tripura king. Maharaja Birchandra Manikya had many wives including three Meitei women. Kaboklei was the third Meitei wife of Maharaja Birchandra Maikya. Kaboklei became a Christian at Sylhet, which is part of Bangladesh now after she met a missionary in 1894, the year the first missionary to Manipur, William Pettigrew arrived in Manipur. She became a widow after maharaja Birchandra Maikya expired in 1896. Thereafter Kaboklei came to Manipur as a Christian and worked with the few early Christians of Manipur in those early years.

The second first Christian, Saroj mentioned in her work was Angom Porom Singh from Phayeng, who became Christian in 1896, two years after Pettigrew come to Manipur. The historians, yet no attempt done on the finding of Kaboklei consider Angom Porom Singh the first Christian in Manipur. These two individuals are the first Christians of Manipur, who became Christian first; the scholars will need to dig down the history, rather than quoting and requoting from the ones written without much research.  

Works done by Saroj: 1. The Religion of Manipur (Calcutta 1980). 2. The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur, original text, translation, and notes vol. 1 (London and Delhi 2005). 3. The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur, original text, translation, and notes vol. 2 (Delhi 2009). 4. The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur, original text, translation, and notes vol. 3 (Delhi, forthcoming).

Works did with John: 1. Queen-Empress vs. Tikendrajit, the Anglo-Manipur Conflict of 1891 (Delhi 1992). 2. The Pleasing of the Gods, Meetei Lai Haraoba (Delhi 1997).

Madhu Chandra is a Hyderabad based freelancer and former spokesperson of North East Helpline, Delhi.

--

Tablighi Jamait Congregation and Coronavirus Pandemic

IMEDA Research Centre

Tablighi Jamait Congregation and Coronavirus Pandemic

The Tablighi Jamait congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin at a time when the menace of Corona virus loomed large must have been avoided. Already many sacred places around the world and masjids were closed for prayers. This is grave lapse on the part of the Jamait and they must accept the negligence, which posed great risk to health and life not only to their own followers but to the country as a whole. However, as the factual details are emerging, we see that the Markaz authorities realized their mistake and took all the precautions as per the lock down guidelines and also sought help from the administration for the evacuation.

While there is grave mistake on the part of the Markaz authorities, the lapses on the part of the administration can not be condoned. Had the police and other authorities acted swiftly and in time much of the situation could have been prevented from deterioration. It is highly unfair to blame only the organizers, as the media trial is currently undergoing, while no other officer or agency responsible is fixed for their lapses.

There are similar instances in many places in the country around the same period where government authorities acted in time and rescued the people, but Markaz is being singled out for media blast. Wildly targeting the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat congregation will do more harm than good at a time when each and every one of them needs to be identified and put into a quarantine as per the government specified norms. We appeal to all sections of the national and regional media to report objectively so that the country can benefit from it in its struggle to fight this great calamity, instead of creating hate and division and dissensions among people. In this hour of national crisis, it is important that objective and scientific methods are deployed to fight Covid-19, that does not differentiate between religions, nationalities and class as it attacks millions of people around the world without any identity differentiation. India will not be able to drive Covid-19 out by being divided, but only through national solidarity and scientific planning and execution. Here we must appreciate the call given by the Hon’ble Prime Minister to the religious leaders of all faith for prayers. Hope the motivated media takes lessons from the PM’s call and focuses on real issues and educate people to fight the threat of Covid19, instead of promoting the fight against each other by giving particular colour to the crisis.

We also categorically state that we stand fully behind behind our Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in this fight to save the country, and are leaving no stone unturned to support his call.

Sincerely Yours

Signed by

1. Dr. M. J Khan, Chairman, Indian Minorities Economic Development Agency,

2. Kamal Faruqui, Ex Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission,

3. Shahid Siddiqui, Editor, Nai Duniya and ex MP

4. M. M. Ansari, former Member, UGC and Kashmir Committee

5. Ibrahim Ahmad, Chief Editor, Cyber Media Group,

6. Dr. Tajawar Mohammed Khan, Principal Nursing School, Bhopal,

7. Ramish Siddiqui, President, Overseas Recruiting Agencies of India

8. Gulrez Alam, Executive Director, IB Group, Raipur

9. Sathar Shameer, President, Startup Business Group, Chennai

10. Dr. Makibur Rahman, Professor of Economics, Guwahati

11. Rahil Khan, President, Liberty Oils, Mumbai,

12. Yusuf Ansari, Editor Salam India News,

13. Hilal Naqvi, Professor, Economics, Lucknow University

14. Dr. Nuzhat Hussain, Medico and Social Worker, Lucknow

15. Amina Sherwani, Film Maker and Social Worker, Gurgaon

16. M. Q. Syed, Founder Director, Imamia Shia Chamber of Commerce, Mumbai

17. Feroz Ghazi, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

18. Basheer Ahmad, former Secretary, Governemnt of Tamil Nadu, Chennai

19. Asif Khan, Convener AMU Old Boys Associaiton, Lucknow,

20. Tariq Hasib, President, Easyvisa Tours

21. Dr. Meeraj Vakil Siddiqui, President, Rural Business Network, Nagpur

22. Majid Khan, Editor, Muslim Today

23. Arshad Siddiqui, President, Red Crescent Society, Mumbai

24. M. Sabir, MD, Manisha Biotech P. Ltd., Hyderabad

25. Khalid Ansari, Director, Indian Institute of Natural Resource Management

INDIAN MINORITIES ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

306, Rohit House, Tolstoy Road, New Delhi-110001

Email: info@imeda.in, Contact No. 011-43595456, Website: www.imeda.in

Joseph D'Souza: Why religious liberty is the most pressing issue facing our world today | Fox News

Joseph D'Souza: Why religious liberty is the most pressing issue facing our world today Rev. Joseph D'Souza By Rev. Joseph D'Souza | Fox News Fox News Flash top headlines for July 16 Fox News Flash top headlines for July 15 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com This week, hundreds of foreign officials, human rights activists and NGO leaders will gather in Washingtonto discuss what many of us believe is the most pressing issue in the world today: religious liberty. It’s the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, an initiative the State Department launched last year to address the growing threat against religious liberty across the world. The ministerial is a timely effort: more than seven in 10 people in the world live in countries with high restrictions or hostilities against religion. Having been an advocate for religious liberty for decades, I am encouraged the State Department is prioritizing defending this most basic human right. The ministerial is an opportunity to recalibrate bilateral relations between nations, which for too long have been driven by economic interests at the expense of human rights. For example, despite its long and well-documented history of human rights abuses and curtailment of religious freedom, Saudi Arabia still remains in America’s good graces. I have written before about how the Saudi Kingdom has provided millions of dollars to fund mosques overseas – including in the West – while at the same time denying religious liberty to Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and other faith groups who live in the country. The disastrous conflict in Yemen combined with the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident and Washington Post columnist, seems to have finally prodded Congress to put pressure on President Trump to reevaluate America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Yet this doesn’t necessarily mean cutting all diplomatic relations or forsaking one of America’s key allies in the Middle East. A viable solution is including international reciprocal religious freedom laws in bilateral relations. A few years ago Rep. Dave Brat, Va., introduced in Congress the Religious Freedom International Reciprocity Enhancement Act. The bill would prohibit foreign nationals from other countries that repress religious freedom to fund the promotion of a religion. In other words, if Saudi Arabia wanted to build mosques or send money to promote Islamic Wahhabism, it would have to allow churches to be built in the Kingdom. More than seven in 10 people in the world live in countries with high restrictions or hostilities against religion. Unfortunately, Rep. Brat’s act seems to have gotten stuck and forgotten in Congress. It’s been three years since the act was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, and we haven’t heard an update since. When the West allows its foreign policy to be driven by only economic interests it loses its ability to hold other nations accountable. China is currently running what might be the largest internment camps in the world. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang have been sent to “re-education camps” to stomp out their religious identities. Yet many Muslim nations have remained mute on the issue. In particular, Saudi Arabia – the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites – has not condemned China. In fact, according to media reports, in a recent visit to China, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said, “We respect and support China’s rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security.” Although the Saudi prince did not mention the Uighurs, some have interpreted his words as an implicit approval of China’s repression campaign in Xinjiang. The fact that China is Saudi Arabia’s biggest trade partner might give anyone enough reason to believe so. As Prince Salman’s recent example shows, human rights has become an unpleasant topic that is best avoided or left for diplomats to work out behind scenes. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Our leaders need to understand religious freedom is actually good for business. Economists who have studied the relationship between economics and religious liberty have pointed that countries benefit when there’s religious liberty in their societies. “Economic freedom and religious freedom are thus mutually complementary, suggesting that countries with religious freedom have a comparative advantage for adapting to new economic opportunities,” writes Carmel Chiswick, research professor of economics at George Washington University. The reverse is also true: religious intolerance is not good for business. Brian J. Grim, who co-authored an academic article on the impact of religious freedom on economy, says, “Religious hostilities and restrictions create climates that can drive away local and foreign investment, undermine sustainable development, and disrupt huge sectors of economies.” Grim also notes that the oppressive and violent environment created by religious intolerance causes young entrepreneurs to leave their home countries and take their talents elsewhere. Thus curtailment of the right of faith robs a country of its economic future. As government and civil society leaders gather in Washington this week, my hope is that the Ministerial will help put religious liberty and human rights at the top of our foreign relations agendas. If we want to live in free, prosperous and peaceful societies, we must defend and promote the fundamental right of faith of every individual. Most Rev. Joseph D’Souza is a Christian theologian, author and human and civil rights activist. He is the founder of Dignity Freedom Network, an organization that advocates for and delivers humanitarian aid to the marginalized and outcastes of South Asia. He is archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India and serves as the president of the All India Christian Council. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/joseph-dsouza-religious-liberty-ministerial-pompeo-washington#

Why Akhilesh Yadav’s 'doodhwala' vs Modi’s 'chaiwala' rhetoric offers hope in a post-Hindu caste world -#MadhuChandra

Doodhwala is the biggest challenge for Chaiwala says Pro Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd Inbox Madhu Chandra Apr 27, 2019, 9:48 AM (1 day ago) Finally, dignity of trade: Why Akhilesh Yadav’s 'doodhwala' vs Modi’s 'chaiwala' rhetoric offers hope in a post-Hindu caste world Tejaswi Yadav calling Modi 'nakli OBC' and Akhilesh calling himself a real 'doodhwala' shows India is finally shaking off the shame associated with caste and talking about the nobility of labour. The 2019 Lok Sabha elections have opened up many new chapters in our political discourse. In the run-up to the 2014 national elections, when Narendra Modi started raking up the issue of caste and occupation, which was not in consonance with Hindu principles, neither his opponents, nor his Brahminic Hindutva patron, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), realised he was apparently doing it for votes. modi-690_042519012312.jpgBreaking from the old: Modi has repeatedly raised his OBC status. It has worked politically. (Source: Reuters) The RSS-BJP in a way backed his claim of the Other Backward Class (OBC) status and the ‘chaiwala’ background — in reality, as I see it, the RSS has been against OBCs and work involving labour all along. Their main plank has been Hindutva-driven cultural nationalism. It was in essence Brahminic culture and civilisation that started with the writing of the Vedas and Upanishads and developed over a period with the writing of the Ramayana and Mahabharat. The RSS/BJP work to protect Varnadharma — but never talk about the caste background of its members. The Varnadharma order established by the Hindu texts was seen as divine and just. Any public discourse that challenges the Brahminic order is seen as un-Hindu. Though Modi started an ostensibly un-Hindu discourse for votes, the RSS and BJP allowed it and went along with it. Modi, in some sense, superiorised his legal (if not social) OBC background by asserting his chaiwala background — which, in Hindu dharma, is considered mean work. The RSS-BJP allowed it for political expediency. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would never have spoken such language because he came from the Sanathan Brahmin background. While addressing the Bania (trader) community on April 19, Modi reportedly said: “Gandhiji called himself a Bania with pride. But the naamdars of the Congress brand all the businessmen as chor. Today’s Congress doesn’t know about history. The naamdars don’t know about the traders’ contribution to the progress of the country.” Modi, thus, identifies himself with the Bania community. Attacking 'Harvard educational culture', Modi said he comes from a 'hardworking' background. Though Modi’s family does not stand testimony for all that he is claiming, his claims have attracted many political retorts. A fitting and honest reply to Modi’s discourse of caste and occupation came from former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh, president of the Samajwadi Party, said, “If Modi is a chaiwala, I am a doodhwala”. akhi-690_042519012415.jpgStirring it up: Akhilesh Yadav called himself 'doodhwala' in response to Modi's 'chaiwala' claims. (Source: PTI) It is a known fact that without doodh, there is no chai — and Yadavs historically, as I said in Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution, are ‘meat and milk economists’. The buffalo, cow and bull, sheep and goat-based economy, which is the mainstay of the agrarian system, was built by Yadavs and Pals (Kurumas, Kurubas, Dhangars, Bhagales and others who are the main sheep and goat raisers) all over India. Akhilesh hit the nail on its head by asserting his caste’s contribution to the cultural economy — as against the one-time chai-selling job of PM Modi. His community, called Modh-Ganchi, was not a professionally chai-selling one. It is actually a sect of the Gujarati Bania community whose main occupation is oil selling. It is a business community and it was never part of the historical Shudras. That is the reason why he connects himself with Mahatma Gandhi, as he said in his autobiography, “The Gandhis belong to the Bania caste and seem to have been originally grocers.” Though the Banias had agrarian roots, they left that occupation in the post-Gupta period in the 5th century AD. This discourse, however, has its own positive dimension. https://www.dailyo.in/lite/politics/hindu-india-hindutva-obc-narendra-modi-akhilesh-yadav-tejaswi-yadav-chaiwala-doodhwala-caste-politics-rss-lok-sabha-2019/story/1/30447.html

From Christchurch to India: How India’s RSS Inspires White Nationalist Violence in World — by Pieter Friedrich — April 4, 2019

From Christchurch to India: How India’s RSS Inspires White Nationalist Violence in World — by Pieter Friedrich — April 4, 2019 White Nationalist Terrorism “I have read the writings of Dylan Roof and many others, but only really took true inspiration from Knight Justiciar Breivik,” says Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old white Australian terrorist who gunned down 50 Muslims in New Zealand on March 15, 2019. Roof is the white man who gunned down nine black Christians in South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Anders Breivik (who refers to himself as “Knight Justiciar,” which basically means a knight who administers justice) is the white man who murdered 69 Norwegians (mostly children) at the island of Utøya after killing eight people in a bombing of government buildings in Oslo, Norway on July 22, 2011. Including Tarrant, all three terrorists wrote manifestos insisting that white people are facing a cataclysmic replacement by non-white people which requires them to organize to resist the supposed onslaught on white society. All three men — to one degree of linguistic refinement or another — identified the cause of this alleged apocalypse as an increasingly egalitarian global perspective which proposes that people of all races and religions can, and should, live peaceably in a multicultural society. “As an American, we are taught to accept living in the melting pot,” complained Roof. He was horrified that this teaching coincides with a conclusion that “black and other minorities have just as much right to be here as we do, since we are all immigrants.” Yet, he argues, white people “are, in fact, superior” to all these others. Claiming that “white culture is world culture” and “has been adopted by everyone in the world,” he insisted there is a need to “protect the white race” from pollution by other races or cultures. Roof, who was only 22 when he penned his 5-page manifesto, apparently didn’t realize the idea he was railing against is known as“multiculturalism” — the idea that a peaceful society can accommodate people who live life in radically different ways. Breivik, who was 32 when he waged his campaign of terror in Norway, knew enough to identify his target as multiculturalism. He hated it. His chief bogeyman, though, was not black people but Islam. He spoke of his “fight against multiculturalism and the Islamisation of Europe.” Echoing Breivik, Tarrant also denounced the idea of “a multicultural, egalitarian nation” and expressed his fear that Islam (a religion currently followed by just over one percent of New Zealanders and less than three percent in his native Australia) “will grow to replace other peoples and faiths.” The Ideological Framework These self-anointed crusaders for an ethno-nationalist vision of a “pure” society — a vision which, in Breivik’s words, focuses on “saving the racially distinctive character of the Aryans” — didn’t materialize from a void. These Aryan storm troopers were created by a long line of fear-mongering polemicists whose words are being put into action. While shadowy internet forums are often accused of fostering white nationalist violence (which they do), the terrorists are bred and mentally groomed by a far more developed ideological framework. A prime example is Breivik, whose 1,500 page manifesto contains not only his own writings but also extensive excerpts from books and copies of newspaper articles by far-right writers who mirrored his fear and hatred of multiculturalism. American author Robert Spencer, for instance, received over 60 mentions in Breivik’s manifesto. The founder of “Jihad Watch,” he was banned from entering the United Kingdom in 2014 because of his remarks about Islam. As quoted by Breivik, Spencer claims that Islam “mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose of establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society” and that this is the goal of “millions of Muslims in the West and around the world.” While Breivik deeply admired Spencer, he was far more fascinated by Norwegian blogger Peder Jensen, who writes under the pseudonym “Fjordman” — often for The Brussels Journal. The Brussels Journal was founded in 2005 by Belgian journalist Paul Beliën. One of its central themes is that multiculturalism is an existential threat to Western society. “Europe willingly opened the door to the Muslims, not just by allowing large-scale immigration on an unprecedented level, but also by encouraging the newcomers to retain their culture,” asserts Beliën (as quoted by Breivik). He concludes, “It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion.” Jensen repeats the same theme, declaring, “Multiculturalism is not about tolerance or diversity. It is an anti-Western hate ideology designed to dismantle Western civilization.” In his mind, the greatest threat posed by multiculturalism is that, as Beliën phrased it, it has “opened the door to the Muslims.” Jensen views opening that door as suicidal because, he says, “Islam cannot be reformed or reconciled with our way of life.” He sees a dormant terrorist inside every Muslim. “There is no moderate Islam,” he says. “There can be moderate Muslims, but they can turn into Jihadists tomorrow or they can lie to deceive the infidels, which is widely practiced in Islam. There is no way for us to know.” Thus, as quoted by Breivik, Jensen insists on dealing with Islam through “separation and containment.” Such terms are vague and open to broad interpretation. Does “separation” mean segregating Muslims in ghettos or establishing Jim Crow style segregation laws? Does “containment” mean restriction of civic rights or establishment of concentration camps? Such phrases can, in fact, be interpreted as calls for more immediate and aggressive action. Perhaps that is exactly what Jensen wants. He suggests the West should look to the East for examples of how to treat Muslims. “If we had the humility to listen to the advice of the Hindus of India or even our Christian cousins in south-eastern Europe, we wouldn’t be in as much trouble as we are now,” he writes. South-eastern Europe is synonymous with the Balkans. The region, once dominated by the now defunct country of Yugoslavia, gave the world the term “Balkanization,” which describes the breakup of a larger region into smaller, mutually hostile groups. That process was notably illustrated by the Yugoslav Wars of 1991 to 2001. The “Christian cousins” to which Jensen refers are the Eastern Orthodox Christian Serbs, the largest of three major ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia. While all three groups, including the Roman Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks, committed atrocities against each other during the decade of conflict, Serbian nationalists notoriously engaged in ethnic cleansing of Croats and Bosniaks from 1992 to 1995. In 1995, Serbs staged a genocide of Bosniaks under the orders of Radovan Karadžić, who was then president of the newly-formed Serbian Republic. The killings, centered in the town of Srebrenica, claimed the lives of nearly 8,400 Bosniak men and boys at the hands of Karadžić’s Serbian forces. The victims were bound, blindfolded, lined up, shot, and buried in mass graves. On March 24, 2016, an international criminal court sentenced Karadžić to 40 years in prison, a sentence which was increased to life on March 20, 2019. While Tarrant drove to Al-Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand to begin his massacre, live-streaming as he went, he listened to a song called “Karadžić, Lead Your Serbs” (also known as “Serbia Strong”) which ominously declares, “The wolves are coming.” Tarrant’s inspiration, Breivik, listed Karadžić as one of just seven living people he wants to meet. Praising him, Breivik wrote, “For his efforts to rid Serbia of Islam, he will always be considered and remembered as an honorable Crusader and a European war hero.” Jensen’s reference to “the Hindus of India” is abusively broad, as it’s entirely inaccurate to suggest that all Indian Hindus advise mistreatment of Muslims (just as it’s incorrect to attribute mistreatment of Bosniaks to all Balkan Christians). However, it’s obvious which “Hindus” Jensen means considering that his writings frequently reference fellow Brussels Journalcontributor Koenraad Elst, a Belgian Orientalist who is considered an apologist for Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), as well as K.S. Lal, an historian affiliated with the Hindu nationalist paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS’s Ideology “Hindutva” is a term coined by V.D. Savarkar in 1923 (the same year that Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch tried to seize power in Munich, Germany by marching 2,000 Nazis into the city center). Savarkar developed Hindutva into a religious nationalist political ideology eerily similar to white nationalism. An attorney, he called for the Indian subcontinent to be turned into an ethno-state of Hindus, for Hindus, and only for Hindus. “India must be a Hindu land, reserved for the Hindus,” he wrote. Claiming that being Indian meant being Hindu, he insisted, “We are Indians because we are Hindus and vice versa.” In his mind, all non-Hindus in India (especially, but not only, Muslims) were foreigners who should be treated as a threat to society. Like Jensen, who claims that Islam cannot be “reconciled with our way of life,” Savarkar stated, “The Moslems remained Moslems first, Moslems last, and Indians never.” Jensen asserts that even “moderate” Muslims “can turn into Jihadists tomorrow,” a sentiment which resonated with Savarkar. He called Muslims “dangerous to our Hindu nation” and insisted that, “We must watch [the Muslim minority] in all its actions with the greatest distrust possible.” Long before Breivik articulated his vision of a purified Aryan ethno-state, Savarkar called for a final solution to Islam in India. “If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslims… will have to play the part of German Jews,” he warned. In 1925 (the same year that Hitler published Mein Kampf), K.B. Hedgewar formed the RSS with the goal of bringing Savarkar’s vision into reality. Hedgewar, a doctor who insisted on calling the Indian subcontinent “Hindustan,” stated, “The Sangh wants to put in reality the words ‘Hindustan of Hindus.’ Hindustan is a country of Hindus. Like other nations of other people (eg. Germany of Germans), this is a nation of Hindu people.” Convinced that Hindu society faced “daily onslaughts by outsiders,” he declared, “It is to fulfill this duty of protecting the Hindu society that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has come into existence.” The RSS adopted a uniform of khaki shorts, a white shirt, and a black cap. RSS members began meeting weekly or even daily to train with lathis — bamboo staffs, sometimes bound with metal rings, which are widely used by South Asian police — and learn the doctrines of Hindutva. Only Hindu men were allowed to join. By 1927, Hedgewar’s mentor and RSS co-founder — a doctor named B.S. Moonje — described the RSS as an institution which could produce “the military regeneration of the Hindus” and unify the people in line with “the idea of fascism.” When Hedgewar died, a biologist named M.S. Golwalkar replaced him as head of the RSS. Like Savarkar and Hedgewar, Golwalkar believed that being Indian meant being Hindu. So he wrote, “Only the Hindu has been living here as the child of this soil.” Just in case his reader misunderstood his intentions, he also phrased it another way: “We repeat: in Hindustan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation.” Golwalkar thought that the only true Indian “patriots” were people who aspired to “glorify the Hindu race and Nation,” claiming, “All others are… traitors and enemiesto the National cause.” He called it “treason” for an Indian to convert away from Hinduism, writing, “It is not merely a case of change of faith, but a change even in national identity. What else is it, if not treason, to join the camp of the enemy?” In 1935, the Nazis began redefining “national identity” in Germany when they passed the Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of citizenship and banning relationships between Germans and Jews. This was followed in 1938 by Kristallnacht, the first Nazi pogrom against Jews. Sharing his view on these precursors to the Holocaust, Savarkar stated, “A nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in Germany? They being in minority were driven out.” In 1939, as the Second World War broke out in Europe with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland the Nazis invaded Poland, Golwalkar detailed the RSS’s vision for an ethno-state: “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 ideas 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 into 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.” Declaring that “our Race Spirit has once again roused itself,” he compared this new racial consciousness to that washing over Nazi Germany. “The ancient Race Spirit, which prompted the Germanic tribes to over-run the whole of Europe, has re-risen in modern Germany.” Denouncing Judaism as “an intolerant faith,” 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.” He concluded that Germany had set a good example by showing how it was supposedly “impossible” for different “races and cultures” to be “assimilated into one united whole.” Thus, Golwalkar proclaimed the Nazi policy towards the Jews as “a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.” From the days of Hitler’s first attempted coup in 1923, and throughout his rise to power, Golwalkar, Hedgewar, and Savarkar all drew parallels between their goals and Germany’s. In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Norway, and the Netherlands. The Battle of Britain, in which the Nazis tried bombing the United Kingdom into submission, occupied the rest of that year. Despite the ongoing bloodshed, Savarkar (having already praised the Nazis for driving out the Jews) concluded in 1940: “Nazism proved undeniably the savior of Germany under the set of circumstances Germany was placed.” The Nazis were defeated, but the RSS has metastasized across India, swelling to an estimated six million or more members in the 21st century. From its early days, the group has devoted itself to putting into action the words of hatred which provide its ideological foundation. They have done this with a fervor sometimes even surpassing that of Karadžić’s Serbian death squads. Although Jensen vaguely praises the Islamophobic advice of “the Hindus of India,” Breivik was much more specific. He praised “the policy of right-wing Hindu nationalism (or Hindutva) which seeks to make the Indian state into a ‘Hindu nation’” and noted that this agenda is promoted by the RSS and its “political arm,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “They dominate the streets… and often riot and attack Muslims,” he explained. The RSS does, indeed, dominate the streets. Stepping to the beat of a marching band, columns of hundreds or even thousands of RSS members regularly parade through the streets of India’s cities, towns, and villages. Neatly uniformed and armed with lathis, they often perform intricate maneuvers. Gathering for special rallies at massive parade grounds, tens of thousands at a time turn out to drill with militaristic rigor. They salute a saffron flag, do yoga, chant slogans, and perform weapons exercises beneath the glare of the blazing hot Indian sun. RSS leaders watching from the high stages invariably stand in front of large — often garlanded — pictures of Golwalkar and Hedgewar. When the pomp and circumstance ends, the RSS also often (as Breivik noted) attacks Muslims — or other minorities. One of the most horrific (and least explored) incidents was in 1947, when RSS cadres participated in ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Kashmir just two weeks before control of the region was ceded to the newly-formed Republic of India. Figures vary, but historians believe up to 100,000 Muslims were massacred. The RSS (and its many subsidiaries) has since been linked to many other major incidents of anti-minority violence all across India. These include the 1969 Gujarat Riots (400+ Muslims killed), which occurred a few months after Golwalkar demanded a Hindu Nation at a three-day rally near the state’s capital, Ahmedabad. That was followed by the 1970 Bhiwandi Riots in Maharashtra (190+ Muslims killed), the 1983 Nellie Massacre in Assam (2,200+ Bengali Muslims killed), the 1984 Sikh Genocide in Delhi (3,000+ Sikhs killed), the 1985 Gujarat Riots (hundreds of Muslims killed), the 1987 Meerut Riots in Uttar Pradesh (hundreds of Muslims killed), the 1989 Bhagalpur Riots in Bihar (900+ Muslims killed), the 1992 nationwide riots following the Babri Mosque destruction (2,000+ Muslims killed), the 2002 Gujarat Pogrom (2,000+ Muslims killed), the 2008 Odisha Pogrom (100+ Christians killed), and countless other smaller-scale incidents. These pogroms, massacres, and riots don’t include hundreds of other incidents of more targeted violence such as assassinations, lynchings, bombings, beatings, and general intimidation. Such violence led the United Nations to warn in 1997 about the rise of “Hindu extremism” within the ranks of “ultra-nationalist” groups likes the RSS and its political arm, the BJP. Human Rights Watch warned, in 1999, that the RSS was responsible for violence against Christians and again, in 2002, that it was responsible for violence against Muslims. In 2005, the U.S. State Department named the RSS as an “extremist” group “implicated in incidents of violence and discrimination against Christians and Muslims.” In 2007, then U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford explained that “the traditional muscle power of the BJP has always been the RSS.” In 2018, the CIA classified the RSS as a nationalist political pressure group. Intersections: White Nationalism and Hindu Nationalism As the RSS pushes its violent supremacist agenda in India, white supremacy is rising in the West. An April 2018 report by Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, warned about a massive resurgence of groups which embrace Nazi and neo-Nazi ideology. These groups, she said, “Believe a war between races is imminent and thus seek to train and arm themselves in their quest for victory.” Citing the example of Breivik, she added, “The killer clearly affiliated himself with neo-Nazi ideology, and his gruesome attack, whose victims included many white Norwegians, demonstrates clearly why neo-Nazism is a threat to nations as a whole, and not just to those racial and ethnic groups that are its direct target.” In August 2018, Achiume further warned that “resurgent nationalist populism” is leading to “the spread and mainstreaming of messages of intolerance that had typically been confined to marginal, extremist platforms.” She cited India as an example. “In India, the election of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been linked to incidents of violence against members of Dalit, Muslim, tribal and Christian communities. Reports document the use of inflammatory remarks by BJP leaders against minority groups, and the rise of vigilantism targeting Muslims and Dalits.” This wave of extremism caught Anders Breivik’s imagination. Expressing support for “Indian nationalists in general,” Breivik stated: “Our goals are more or less identical.” Referring to “cultural Marxists” (a term he used interchangeably with “multiculturalists”), he claimed, “Hindu nationalists in general are suffering from the same persecution by the Indian cultural Marxists as their European cousins.” He advised the RSS to “consolidate properly and strike to win.” Although he praised them for dominating the streets, he advised that they spend less time “attacking the Muslims” and instead “actively seek the overthrow of the cultural Marxist government.” In conclusion, he declared, “It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible.” Some of the leading white nationalist publishing houses in Europe and America are attempting to do just that, either by distributing books which promote the RSS’s ideology or by actually meeting directly with the RSS and the BJP to discuss collaboration. One of those is San Francisco-based Counter-Currents Publishing, which claims to represent the North American New Right. Its newest title is The White Nationalist Manifesto. Authors it publishes posthumously include Julius Evola (one title) and Savitri Devi (four titles). Julius Evola, born in Italy, died in 1974. Active during World War II, he published a magazine from Rome called Blood and Spirit. His writings influenced Mussolini’s doctrine of racism, inspiring an Italian flavored fascism attempting to distinguish itself from Nazism. By 1934 (a year after Hitler seized power in Germany), British historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke reports that Evola was “finding Italian Fascism too compromising” and “began to seek recognition in the Third Reich.” Evola lived out World War II publishing books and articles through Nazi outlets and working as a recruiter for the Nazi paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS). Goodrick-Clarke says his “ideal was the Indo-Aryan tradition, where hierarchy, caste, authority, and stateruled supreme over the material aspects of life.” He was enamored with India’s caste system, where everyone was born into an assigned position. Convinced there was an ancient “Aryan conquest of India” he identified with “the Nordic, light-skinned Aryan conquerors of India.” Savitri Devi, born a French citizen, died in 1982, was cremated, and reportedly had her ashes enshrined beside those of American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell. In correspondence with Rockwell, she said she hoped for the day when “a healthy, pure-blooded, racially-conscious, proud, and ruthless Aryan minority would become the sole ruling power in America.” In 1932 (a year before Hitler seized power), Devi traveled to India, where she wrote and published A Warning to the Hindus. Published just seven years after the RSS was founded, the book’s foreword is by G.D. Savarkar (V.D. Savarkar’s brother), who joined Hedgewar and Moonje as a co-founder of the RSS. In the acknowledgments, Devi credits Moonje as well as V.D. Savarkar as inspirations. Clearly referencing the RSS, she praises “the vast youth movement started by Dr. Moonje” as a “Hindu militia.” Devi advanced V.D. Savarkar’s thesis of Hindutva — that India is a Hindu Nation, of Hindu people, and only for Hindu people. She claimed that Hindu society “is India itself,” called Hinduism “the national religion of India,” and suggested that Hindus should tell non-Hindus: “We represent India; not you. Therefore India is ours, not yours.” She urged Hindus “to recover, along with their national consciousness, their military virtues of old; to re-become a military race.” The method, she said, “should be the organisation of the young men, in pledge-bound military-like batches, with Hindu nationalism as their only ideal.” She lived out World War II publishing books and pro-Hitler magazines in India. Devi says she worked as a traveling lecture promoting Hindu nationalism alongside Nazism. “I… had to travel all over Bengal, Bihar, and Assam, lecturing in Bengali mostly in Bengal and Assam, lecturing in Hindi in Bihar,” she explained in 1978. “I was allowed to sprinkle my lectures with other things, especially with quotations from Mein Kampf, as much as I liked.” After the war, she traveled to Germany, where she was arrested and briefly imprisoned for distributing Nazi propaganda. “Her writings first came to prominence among the American neo-Nazis,” says Goodrick-Clarke. “Such universal Nazism offers a powerful mythic rationale for resistance to colored immigration in the predominantly white nations of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.” The man responsible for curating Counter-Currents’s catalogue is Book Editor John Morgan, Previously, Morgan was Editor-in-Chief of Budapest-based Arktos Media, which he co-founded with Swedish white nationalist Daniel Friberg in 2009. Arktos, which claims to represent the European New Right, has published approximately 200 titles. Some of their newest titles include The Real Right Returns, A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders, and Excessive Immigration: And Britain’s Colorful Dystopian Sunset. Other titles include approximately a dozen books by Julius Evola. The company’s base of operations, from 2010 to 2014, was India.“It was good to be in a place where daily life is still for the most part an expression of the traditional spirit rather than a liberal one,” says Morgan. In early 2014, says Friberg, “I personally had enough of the Third World and decided to move our main operations back to our own civilization, Europe.” Before leaving India, however, Friberg organized meetings with leaders of the RSS and the BJP to discuss ways they could collaborate. In October 2013, Arktos reported that Friberg and the company’s Chief Marketing Officer “paid the Hindu Traditional-Conservative party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an official visit.” They met with Karnataka State BJP General Secretary Arvind Limbavali and Organizing Secretary B.L. Santhosh (who later joined the national party leadership). “Topics discussed included similarities and possibilities of cooperation between traditionalist and conservative movements in Europe and Asia,” reported Arktos. They also talked about “future book projects.” Morgan wasn’t present at that meeting because, on the same day, he was in Washington, D.C. to speak at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute (NPI). Earlier that year, NPI President Richard Spencer was described by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League as a “leader” in American white supremacist circles. He later rose to infamy for organizing the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA. In November 2013, Arktos published The Dharma Manifesto by Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya (otherwise known as Frank Morales) a white American convert to Hinduism. Morgan, who wrote the foreword, claimed that the book was not promoting “Hindu nationalism,’ or Hindutva as it is known in some quarters in India, which gave rise to political parties and groups in India such as the BJP and the RSS.” The reason, he explained was because, “although the Hindu nationalists are right… the politics they have practiced has been insufficient to bring about any genuine change in Indian society.” Nevertheless, Morales dwells at length on Hindu nationalism. He asserts that the RSS is “reactionary” when it should be “revolutionary.” He criticizes the group at length, but differs mostly with the tactics rather than the ideology. “The uniformed paramilitary formations, martial aesthetic, stress on character development, an egalitarian ethos combined with a rigid hierarchical structure, and much of the general patriotic rhetoric of the RSS was directly appropriated from the newly-emerging nationalist movements that were sweeping the European continent during the 1920s,” writes Morales. He criticizes the RSS for having “very few innovative ideas” and not knowing “how to successfully engage in politics either electorally (not until the 1980s) or in terms of mass mobilization (other than by borrowing heavily from the paramilitary structure developed by their European counterparts).” Detailing a plan of action, Morales suggests that the RSS should “construct an elite political vanguard capable of leading the people by their own spiritual example.” They also need to “develop the philosophical maturity to engage in the nuanced ideological struggle necessary to win power” and “begin the hard work of engaging in real politics in the real world.” Insisting that the RSS must become “a revolutionary movement,” he presents a 10-point program of course correction for Hindu nationalists who “truly wish to transform their nation of India for the better.” First and foremost, he says the RSS should, “Annihilate the immediate existential threat from Communist terrorists, Islamic Jihadists, and Christian missionaries.” They should then encourage children to become “warriors and leaders” instead of IT professionals, “revive the Kshatriya (warrior) spirit,” and “re-Aryanize, re-Vedicize, and re-spiritualize” Indian culture. In December 2013, Arktos followed up publication of Morales’s book with “successful meetings with the national spokesperson of the grassroots Hindu nationalist organization RSS, Ram Madhav, as well as Ravi Shankar Prasad, the deputy leader of India’s largest right-wing party, the BJP.” The company reported: “Arktos intends to become the Indian Right’s gateway to the Western world.” Their actions and stated goal indicated they were heeding Breivik’s call for nationalists in India and the West to “learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible.” In 2016, Morgan split from Arktos and joined Counter-Currents — a more overtly white nationalist publisher. The following year, Friberg partnered with Richard Spencer to launch AltRight.com, a website which serves as a publishing platform for Spencer’s NPI think-tank. In a video manifesto featured by both organizations, Spencer declares his vision. “We’re often told that being an American, or Britain, or German, or any European nationality, is about being dedicated to a collection of abstractions and buzz-words,” he says. “Democracy. Freedom. Tolerance. Multiculturalism. But a nation based on freedom is just another place to go shopping. It’s a country for everyone, and thus a country for no one.” Claiming that whites have become rootless wanderers with no sense of identity, he states, “Who are we? We aren’t just white. White is a checkbox on a census form. We are part of the peoples, history, spirit, and civilization of Europe.” After launching AltRight.com in January 2017, Spencer began working to “dominate the streets” in America in a manner reminiscent of the RSS. On a night in May 2017, he led a group of torch-bearing white nationalists through the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. They chanted “blood and soil” — a slogan originated by the Nazis — as Spencer spoke, declaring, “What brings us together is that we are white. We are a people. We will not be replaced.” Three months later, in August, he again led a torch-lit rally of hundreds who marched through the University of Virginia campus. The following day, as Spencer organized a “Unite the Right” rally, he was joined by Friberg. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder with demonstrators clad in body armor and helmets, carrying rifles, and waving Nazi flags. David Duke, the infamous former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), also attended along with a host of other prominent white nationalist figures. The rally devolved into violence before it began. A KKK leader fired a pistol at the feet of a black man who was counter-protesting. A gang of six hunted down another black counter-protestor and brutally beat him in a parking garage (three were later convicted for the assault). One 20-year-old white man, known for openly talking about his love for Hitler, drove over 500 miles to attend the rally. While there, he rammed his vehicle into a group of counter-protestors, killing one. He was later convicted of first-degree murder. Conclusion: Examine, Expose, and Oppose Supremacism Whether it’s smaller-scale attacks like in Charlottesville or massacres like in Norway and New Zealand, the ideology of white nationalism is manifesting in real world violence around the globe. The same motivating spirit of identitarianism, xenophobia, and supremacy is rising in organized form — and at a shocking pace — in Poland, the Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, the Philippines, and India. People who are concerned for peace need to understand that white nationalist terrorists don’t just manifest from a void, but are cultivated to accept and propagate a politics of hate. Tarrant, the terrorist in New Zealand, confirmed that his attack was not an isolated incident when he named Breivik as his inspiration. Breivik, meanwhile, pointed to the RSS as one of his own inspirations. Peace-loving people must stand vigilant as these stormtroopers of hatred — who stole so many lives at the Al-Noor Mosque, the Linwood Islamic Centre, the Oak Creek Gurdwara, the Tree of Life Synagogue, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and so many other places — are seeking alliances and collaborations with supremacist movements on a global scale. The seeds of hatred that lead these people to commit murder start small. The hatred begins long before the violence begins. It starts with indifference to the plight of one’s fellow human beings, progresses into minimization of the sufferings of other people, and escalates into veiled racism, open discrimination, and eventually open calls for violence against anyone who is different. We have to dig out those seeds before they are sown. One of the first steps to doing so is education. That requires examining nationalist ideologies, tracing how they connect to each other, exposing them at a global level, and then standing firmly in solidarity, unity, and love with all people who want a peaceful society where freedom, equality, and justice are the only things which reign supreme. Pieter Friedrich is a South Asian Affairs Analyst who resides in California. He is the co-author of Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent. Discover more by him at pieterfriedrich.net. https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/04/from-christchurch-to-india-how-indias-rss-inspires-white-nationalist-violence/

#QaidKePare #VoicesOfWomenPrisoners

" When people demand rights, they are heckled, incriminated against and imprisoned but those who main, lynch, murder, commit crimes against marginalised and minorities they are allowed to go scott free" " In prisons, inmates are not even provided basic facilities. We are not talking about hardened criminals here. Even those who are undertrails are treated without compassion or basic human understanding. Pregnant women are forced to deliver their babies without proper medical care and menstruating women are expected to do their own jugaad in order to clean themselves up. Is this progress? Is this humanity?" "Cops who manage prisoners want ten to fifteen times the cost of a provision if requested for. How does the state expect prisoners to pay for basic amenities when they are imprisoned illegally without being given bail?" #QaidKePare #CitizensForJusticeAndPeace #VoicesOfWomenPrisoners #AIUFWP #DelhiSolidarityGroup #122ndDeathAnniversaryOfKrantijyotiSavitribaiPhule #MarathiPatrakarSangh #TeestaSetalvad #FlaviaAgnes

#AsiaSocietyElectionSeriesDiscussion #MDamodaran #YashwantSinha #KumarKetkar #ChintanChandrachud #RamaBijapurkar

Defending Institutions to Defend Democracy | India Elections Series - Part II | Nehru Centre, Mumbai | Wednesday, February 27th, 6:30 PM #AsiaSocietyElectionSeriesDiscussion #MDamodaran #YashwantSinha #KumarKetkar #ChintanChandrachud #RamaBijapurkar @ #NehruCenter #JuggernautPublications #JohnsonThomas Defending Institutions to Defend Democracy Wednesday, 27th February 2019, 6:30 PM (L - R) Kumar Ketkar, M Damodaran, Yashwant Sinha, Rama Bijapurkar, Chintan Chandrachud (L - R) Kumar Ketkar, M Damodaran, Yashwant Sinha, Rama Bijapurkar, Chintan Chandrachud In his last speech to the Constituent Assembly in 1949, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, propounded several strictures to the people of India to sustain the hard-fought and newly won, independence and democracy. While quoting John Stuart Mill, he cautioned the people “not to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with the power which enables him to subvert their institutions.” India’s democracy is its most important appeal, not only amongst Indians but foreign investors and nations wanting to partner with India and Indian corporations. For democracy to thrive, it is essential that the national institutions uphold the values of the constitution and continue to function as independent bodies of investigation and inquiry. Institutional autonomy is, however, not devoid of accountability. It requires a consultative and collaborative approach with the government. From the proclamation of Emergency by late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in June 1975 that lasted for 19 months, and the sweeping changes brought by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1977, the creation of the National Advisory Council in 2004 that undermined the status of the Union Cabinet as the advisor to the Prime Minister, to the recent reports of questionable employment growth data, there have been instances of ruling political parties interfering with the authority of institutions. Parties forming the central government, are often inclined to let the relentless electoral cycles impact policy decisions. How can national institutions stay faithful to their mandates while reflecting flexibility in dealing with current challenges? Join us for a discussion on the responsibility of the government in respecting the independence of our democratic institutions with Yashwant Sinha, former Minister of Defence and External Affairs, Kumar Ketkar, veteran journalist and Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, M Damodaran, former Chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India, and Chintan Chandrachud, Associate at Quinn Emanuel, London moderated by Rama Bijapurkar, independent management consultant. This is the second programme in our India Elections Series, wherein we will be discussing the themes of governance, leadership, and institutions in the run-up to the General Elections. Yashwant Sinha Yashwant Sinha is a former Union Minister of Finance and External Affairs. He has steered the country out of several crises, including the East Asian Crisis of 1997 and the sanctions that the US and other countries imposed on India in 1998 after the nuclear tests. He was a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party before he quit in April 2018. In 2015, he was awarded Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, the highest civilian distinction of France. Kumar Ketkar Kumar Ketkar is a veteran journalist and a sitting Member of Parliament of the Indian National Congress in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra. He has been writing for leading newspapers and participated as a panelist on prominent news channels. In the past, he has reported major international events like the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, from Moscow, the unification of Germany in 1990, etc. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2001. M Damodaran M Damodaran has held a number of important positions in the Central and State Governments and in India’s financial sector, including Chairman, Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), where he introduced improved corporate governance practices, Chairman, Unit Trust of India (UTI), Chairman, Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), where he successfully led the turnaround efforts, and Chief Secretary, Government of Tripura. Chintan Chandrachud Chintan Chandrachud is an associate in Quinn Emanuel’s London office. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation, tax litigation, and international arbitration. He writes for the Indian Express and The Hindu and is the author of "Balanced Constitutionalism: Courts and Legislatures in India and the United Kingdom" (Oxford University Press 2017). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge on the subject of judicial review in India and the United Kingdom. He also holds graduate degrees from Oxford and Yale. Rama Bijapurkar Rama Bijapurkar is an independent management consultant, a visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and co-founder of think tank and fact tank People Research on India’s Consumer Economy and Citizen Environment, which provides “people level” data and insights for use in business strategy and public policy (www.ice360.in). Rama has served on the boards of several of India’s blue-chip companies, including ICICI Bank, National Payment Corporation of India, Bharat Petroleum, Crisil, Infosys etc.

INDIA ELECTION SERIES: PART I Young Turks on the Political Turf

INDIA ELECTION SERIES: PART I DISCUSSION Young Turks on the Political Turf Wednesday, February 20, 6:30 pm A panel discussion was held with Jayant Chaudhary, Milind Deora, Praful Patel, Shaina NC and Priya Sahgal on the future of India’s political landscape and the emergence of a new generation of leaders. As many as 130 million first-time voters, more than the population of Japan will go to polls due by May. A 2016 survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung asked more than 6,100 respondents to nominate the most important issue facing India, and 18% said jobs and unemployment, about 12% said economic inequality and 9% said corruption. India, a country with more than half of the population below the age of 25, a literacy rate of 74% and the highest number of Facebook users at 300 million, is more vocal, more ambitious and more aware than its previous election. Indians want fresher ideas, better solutions and quicker actions. While the countdown to the 2019 general elections has witnessed a proliferation of comebacks, splits and new partnerships; it has also seen the emergence of a new generation of leaders and challengers across party lines who for now seem to offer a youthful and different approach to political life. Whether they are descendants of political dynasties, bureaucrats leaving civil services for politics or newcomers with professional backgrounds, the next generation of India’s leaders are working hard to change public perception about politics. From reaching out to their electorates through social media platforms like Twitter to pushing policy solutions for structured development, this relatively young group of politicians or the ‘under-55’ leaders club, symbolizes new hope and gumption. What kind of politics will these ‘new leaders’ embody? How will they shift focus to core development and employment issues? Will they be able to refrain from realpolitik? What do the prospective alliances for upcoming elections look like? Join us as we discuss the future of India’s political landscape and the emergence of a new generation of leaders. In conversation will be Jayant Chaudhary, National Vice-President, Rashtriya Lokdal; Milind Deora, Former Member of Parliament, Indian National Congress; Praful Patel, Member of Parliament, Nationalist Congress Party as moderator; Shaina NC, Spokesperson, Bharatiya Janata Party and Priya Sahgal, Senior Executive Editor at NewsX and Author of The Contenders. This is the first programme in our India Elections Series, wherein we will be discussing the themes of governance, leadership, and institutions in the run-up to the General Elections. Jayant Chaudhary has served as a Member of Parliament in the 15th Lok Sabha. He contested the 2009 General Election from Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. He is currently the National Vice-President of the Rashtriya Lokdal. He was the Co-chair of the FICCI Indo-British Forum of Parliamentarians and member of the Indo-Venezuela Parliamentary Friendship Group. Jayant did his undergraduate studies from Shri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, and in 2002 completed an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Milind Deora entered the Lok Sabha in 2004 as a member of the Indian National Congress. He has held various positions in Parliamentary Committees on Defence, Civil Aviation, Estimates, Urban Development and Information Technology. He has also served as India’s Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology and Shipping. Prior to entering politics, Milind worked in the private sector in the United States and India and set up one of India's first digital public-private partnerships to provide economically underprivileged students free access to Information Technology-enabled education. Praful Patel is currently a Rajya Sabha member from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). A former cabinet minister during the Manmohan Singh led UPA government, he was first the Civil Aviation Minister and later on the Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises. An industrialist cum politician, Patel was known as a progressive and pro-reforms face of the UPA cabinet. A BCom graduate from the University of Mumbai, Patel was initially with the Congress but left along with Sharad Pawar in 1999. Since then he has emerged as a dominant voice in the NCP, especially in its dealings with the Centre. Shaina NC serves as a member of the national executive council and spokesperson of the Bhartiya Janata Party in Maharashtra. Shaina currently holds the position of Treasurer of the BJP in Maharashtra, the first woman to receive this position. She is also an Indian fashion designer and social worker. Shaina is involved in social work through charity fashion shows and two NGOs, 'I Love Mumbai' and 'Giants International'. Priya Sahgal is the senior executive editor at NewsX channel, where she anchors two political shows: ‘The Roundtable’ & ‘Cover Story'. A political journalist for nearly three decades, Priya has worked at Sunday, Outlook and India Today. She is also a political columnist for The Sunday Guardian. Her forte is explanatory journalism; the tone of her shows conversational and analytical, not confrontational. Her book, The Contenders, profiles 16 GenNext politicians and captures a potentially transformative moment in Indian politics. Venue Hall of Culture, Nehru Centre, Worli, Mumbai, 400018 Time: 6:30 p.m.

Can Secularism Build a Civilization?

Can Secularism Build a Civilization? By CP Op-Ed Contributor Joseph D'Souza| Tue 26 Jun 2018 7:21 EDT Dr. Joseph D'Souza is the Moderating Bishop of the Good Shepherd Church and Associated Ministries of India. Last week, I attended the 2018 Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem. Around 2,000 archbishops, bishops and Anglican church leaders from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia came together to pray and consider the future of the global Anglican church. It was the largest international gathering of Anglican leaders in over 50 years — yet there was one conspicuous absence: the 105th archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev. Justin Welby. Welby's absence is the result of the Anglican church's struggle with an issue that has become the leading cause for disagreement in Christianity: same-sex marriage. It's the reason why hundreds of Anglican bishops in the southern hemisphere — who hold on to the traditional biblical view of marriage — have strongly differed with many of their more liberal counterparts in the West. Still, as important as it might be, the issue of same-sex marriage is only the tip of the iceberg. At heart, the real question Christians all over the world must answer today is whether or not they will hold on to the authority of Scripture and the gospel the church has historically believed in. As an outsider, I've observed how the West — and America specifically — has been steadily inching toward secularism, which is the absence of God in life. The meteoric rise of the religiously unaffiliated over the past few decades combined with social changes such as the legalization of same-sex marriage across all 50 states and the emergence of forced tolerance have augured the end of a "Christian" America. Though it might still be some time away, the American church is now facing the crude reality many Christians across the southern hemisphere know well: becoming a minority religion. Here's the thing though — this is nothing new for Christians. From the very beginning, Christianity has been well acquainted with being a minority. Jesus gave the first believers — about 120 disciples — the job of changing the world. This small community believed Jesus and took him at his word, which was no easy task. The cultural problems and challenges they confronted were similar, if not greater, to ours. They had to contend with the widespread breakdown of the family structure, serious moral decline, a hedonistic lifestyle and religious fundamentalism of its day. If you want to see what real moral decline looks like, open a book on first-century Rome and read about the unbridled paganism, rampant sexual immorality, infanticide and slavery of the Roman Empire. Yet, even when facing such overwhelming odds, the early church did not lose their vision of the Kingdom of God. The early Christians painstakingly developed a counterculture within a hostile environment dominated by despotic Roman emperors such as Nero, who was bent on eradicating this start-up religious movement. No matter who was Caesar in Rome, they honored Jesus Christ as Lord of all. They believed in the resurrection, and in his second coming. And no matter what the culture around them said, they remained committed to the truth in the God-inspired Scriptures, especially when it pertained to issues such as the biblical definition of marriage. They believed the Kingdom of God that Jesus had inaugurated was Spirit-empowered. So, when people accused the early Christians of turning the world upside down, it wasn't a cliché. They were living upside-down lives in a society that was putting immense pressure on them to conform to the culture. Contrary to the short-sightedness that plagues many Western churches today, the early Christians had a long view of the Kingdom of God, and a holistic understanding of Christian discipleship. Their obedience literally changed the world and the flow of history. Coming from a region in the world where Christians face dire persecution, I am disheartened to see such a large group of Christians in the West passively accept the decline of the church and its life-changing impact on society. I find it puzzling when the concept of a post-Christian Europe or United States is stated as an inevitable reality, when history knows that by and large Christianity built the modern West and paved the way for the individual democratic rights they enjoy today. Yes, secularism might be the new religion on the block, but we can't forget it hasn't proved it can build a civilization or a culture capable of holding society together over generations. This is because secularism neither cares for the family unity nor the divine. The civilizations that have survived over millennia — from China to India, the Middle East and the Judeo-Christian world — hold a strong belief in God, no matter which deity they believe in. They know meeting the need of the spiritual is a given factor of life. And these cultures by the same token believe in the traditional family unit as the foundation of society. The tragedy of the Western world is thinking it can survive without its Judeo-Christian foundation, without a commitment to God or the traditional family unit. So, what's the answer for Christians in the West today? It's simple: get back to your roots. Get back to your roots in the timeless gospel of Jesus. Cultural movements come and go. The Kingdom of God will continue forever. Be compassionate to those struggling with same-sex attraction and reject homophobia; Jesus loves them intensely and knows how to minister to them. But stay true to the radical, holistic calling of following Jesus. Jesus' time-tested formula for finding life and happiness is to lose it all for him. It has delivered throughout the centuries more than any other formula, and still delivers today. Most Rev. Joseph D'Souza is the archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church and Associated Ministries of India. He also serves as the president of the All India Christian Council. He is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his work as a human rights activist.