Modi’s India: A civilisational and geopolitical shift
By Susantha Goonatilake
(Courtesy of Daily News)
The USA had refused to give Modi a visa. And after Modi’s victory, Obama changed his colours and invited Modi to visit the US. It was like “kissing the hand that cannot be cut.” The visa ban was on allegations of religious intolerance and specifically the Gujarat riots on which courts found Modi not guilty. US, the human rights policeman has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Probably the ban was the result of selective campaigning by the usual foreign NGO spies, US using human rights as a tool. The US had not banned leaders of Saudi Arabia, one of the most intolerant countries in the world. Neither have they banned Iraq’s Maliki, a Shia who is persecuting the Sunnis.
The election result was called a second coming of Indian Independence. A parallel metaphor in Sri Lanka could be “1956” with some changes. With only one sixth of the BJP seats, the Congress that proxy-invaded Sri Lanka got a huge drubbing. The Dalit party, Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati got no seats, although after the BJP and Congress, it had the largest share of votes in India. Muslims comprise 14 per cent of the Indian population. But the new parliament had the least Muslim members since 1952 while there was not even a single Muslim MP from the BJP. Routing the left, Mamata Bannerjee regional party in West Bengal won. And in Tamil Nadu, the chauvinist AIDMK of Jayalalitha replaced the equally chauvinist DMK. The LTTE ally in Tamil Nadu, Vaiko of the MDMK got a humiliating defeat, in spite of being in an electoral alliance with the BJP. BJP commentator Subramanian Swamy, said that Vaiko brought the BJP down in Tamil Nadu.
The left in the form of the CPM was decimated in West Bengal and Kerala, its usual strongholds. The CPM West Bengal governments had been critical of the broad Hindu-Indic position of the BJP. They could have solved absolute poverty of West Bengal as Sri Lanka had done. But they left it partly to Mother Teresa, ignoring the more extensive work done by the Hindu Ramakrishna Mission.
Karl Marx speaking of Christianity writing of religion being “the opium of the masses” would have been amused. So would Christopher Hitchens, a more recent left commentator who in books and lectures exposed the “criminality behind Mother Teresa”.
The election has brought in civilisational issues in the form of Modi, who’s BJP, we should mention has also baggage in the form of breaking down the Babri mosque which was built on a destroyed temple. The parallel in the case of Sri Lanka, would be demolishing all those churches which were built by the Portuguese on destroyed Buddhist temples.
Civilisational issues
Civilisational issues have been argued globally by both the West and the East from presumably right and left political positions. In the USA, under a mask of separation of state and religion, politicians of both major parties have to publicly demonstrate their bible toting and quoting positions. The “Moral Majority”, the “National Association of Evangelicals”, and self-styled “Faith-based Initiatives” have been part of the “God strategy” in American presidential politics. In the case of Europe and its European union, there is a hidden and not so hidden Christian bias, although its population is increasingly becoming post-Christian in attitude. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has increasingly turned to Orthodox Christianity as a binding mechanism. China, which has essentially abandoned its Marxist orientation increasingly implies its civilisational continuity mainly Confucian, but also partly Buddhist. Modi with its “Hindu” and Indic (which is a broader category) is implicitly pushing this line, a contrast to the non-civilisational position of the Sonia-dominated Congress.
In a devastating U-tube video (titled “Biography of Rahul Gandhi exposed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy”) which every Sri Lanka should download and see, explosive questions have been raised on the Italian Sonia and Rahul. These cover a gamut from false birth certificates to billions of dollars in secret Swiss accounts and to connections with LTTE smuggling operations. After the Congress’s devastating defeat, Sonia and Rahul did a Ranil Wickremesinghe and did not resign, relegating the Congress to years of non-electability as has Ranil done for the UNP.
Modi in a bold and surprising move described by Subramanian Swamy as “a Modi masterstroke”, invited all the SAARC leaders for his swearing-in. The most important would be the invitation to Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan. Mahinda Rajapaksa was one of the first to accept the invitation. Leaders of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal are scheduled to attend. The leader of Bangladesh after attending a Shanghai Cooperation summit is on an official visit to Japan and she will be represented in the swearing in ceremony by the Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament.
The last time Mahinda Rajapaksa visited India was on a nonofficial capacity for a foundation laying ceremony for a Sanchi University of Buddhist-Indic Studies. Vaiko, the LTTE devotee and his supporters were arrested there for demonstrating against Rajapaksa. Vaiko was this week protesting the invitation to MR for the swearing in. Even a personal visit by Vaiko to key BJP leaders could not change this MR invitation.
Indian Central government
All the other Tamil Nadu racist parties, among them Jayalalitha’s AIDMK and Karunanidhi’s DMK opposed the MR invitation. The Tamil Nadu BJP and Congress supported the invitation. But not so surprisingly, D. Raja, the Tamil National Secretary of the virtually dead Communist Party of India (CPI) objected strongly. Tamil Nadu racist parties had virtually separated themselves from the rest of the country. This provides support for the thesis of Rajiv Malhotra in his bestselling book Breaking India that an alliance of Dravidian and Christian influences were conspiring to break up India. (Malhotra wanted me to review the book, but seeing some gross distortions on Sri Lanka. I refused. He said that the distortions were due to his Indian Tamil assistant and that he would change it in the next edition. I do not know whether he has.)
But foreign affairs are a matter for the Indian Central government, not for individual Indian states. Swamy pointed out that apart from Bhutan, all other neighbours were against India and these invitations could bring a change. He also said that India herself was accused of human rights violations.
He went further and said in a statement. “India must enter into constructive dialogue with Sri Lanka and on counter-terror strategy in the sub-continent, particularly in view of the fact that many Pakistani trained Islamic fundamentalists from Sri Lanka are sneaking into India to carry out terrorist attack in Tamil Nadu”. At last week’s anniversary of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination by the LTTE, Swamy lauded the Sri Lanka government for “completely wiping out” the LTTE. After the invitations to SAARC countries and echoing Swamy, Ashok Singhal, the leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad VHP blamed the previous Indian governments for allowing relations with Nepal and Sri Lanka turn sour. He emphasized “Nepal and Sri Lanka didn’t drift away (from India), we created rifts… we widened the gaps. It is time to bridge those.”
Ten years ago Singhal had called the LTTE “the armed wing of the Christians”.
Shanghai Conference
Swamy tipped to be an important minister in the new BJP government called for close cooperation between India and Sri Lanka. He pointed out that India’s lack of friendly relations has resulted in China cozying up to Sri Lanka.
To underscore this geopolitical point, last week at the Shanghai Conference, President Xi Jinping assured President MR of “strengthening strategic partnerships” and promised that Beijing will be beside us financially and diplomatically.
Meanwhile in Sri Lanka, all those racist Tamil parties who had once abdicated any responsibility by declaring the LTTE as “sole representatives” of the Tamils were again painting themselves into a corner. The Northern Provincial Chief Minister Wigneswaran turned down the President’s invitation to accompany him to New Delhi. Wigneswaran living in multi-ethnic Colombo and having close Sinhalese relatives had chosen the isolationist, racist path. Pity, that he cannot read the new writing on the geopolitical wall. And if his chauvinist AIDMK buddy Jayalalithaa too does not attend, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sri Lankan sovereignty would be smiling.
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