Many have written about an imminent ethnic cleansing in Kashmir. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe has noted, "the question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism." As a Palestinian and Kashmiri there is little escape from the violence of the colonial machine.
Hindutva ideology
Hindutva ideology is defined amorphously as Hindu cultural nationalism, or "the essence of being Hindu." Hindutva ideology demands the assertion of India's national identity as a Hindu state. It demands that India's minorities - numbering about 150 million Muslims and several million Christians, among others -reconfigure their beliefs, espousing Hindu values and considering themselves part of an overarching Hindu culture.
In 2015, the vice-president of the Hindutva organization All India Hindu Assembly (Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha or ABHM in Hindi) Sadhvi Deva Thakur said that the population growth of Muslims and Christians in India need to be controlled by forcibly sterilizing them. "The population of Muslims and Christians is growing day by day. To rein in this, Centre will have to impose emergency , and Muslims and Christians will have to be forced to undergo sterilisation so that they can't increase their numbers
Sadhvi Deva Thakur also urged Hindus to have more children to increase their population. Ruling Bhartia Janta Party MP (member of parliament) Sakshi Maharaj said that every Hindu woman must have four children. "The time has come when a Hindu woman must produce at least four children in order to protect Hindu religion."
Zainab Ramahi sees Hindutva and Zionism as the two faces of the same coin.
The long-term aim is a Hindutva version of Israel
Not surprisingly, Achin Vanaik, the author of The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India and The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism , says the long-term aim is a Hindutva version of Israel.
Writing in June 2019 in The Wire, Vanaik argued that the longer-term aim is a Hindutva version of Israel. Some observers, such as Christopher Jaffrelot, have recognised this. But they have accepted the dangerously misleading term "ethnic democracy" coined by Professor Sammy Smooha to rationalize and basically provide an excuse for Israel's existence as a Jewish state with formalized second class citizenship for its Arab Palestinian population.
So yes, "ethnic democracy" means there are undemocratic features in Israel, but overall it can pass off as a democracy; a view supported by many pro-Israel liberals and of course by many Western and other governments keen to consolidate relations with the apartheid and therefore anti-democratic state of Israel. It should not be forgotten that apartheid South Africa was held by many Western democracies to be the only democracy in Southern Africa even as they lamented its treatment of non-whites as second class.
A Hindu Rashtra will be a fundamentally undemocratic state and society but with various democratic features certainly for the religious majority and even extending somewhat beyond. But like Israel, which does not have a caste system requiring internal structures supporting ruthless repression by upper castes, it will not be a democracy, according to Vanaik who is also a former fellow of the Transnational Institute.
No matter which party in Israel comes to power through the electoral process - whether it is considered Left, Right or centrist - this will not change the fundamental character of Israel as a Jewish state. Hindutva too will strive to create a similar political reality no matter which other party ascends to New Delhi.
For both the Israeli and Indian political classes, "land is more important than the people". Brutality over a deeply alienated people will reign. While Israel can offer varying degrees of autonomy - always retractable - in place of the international law obligation to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and even contemplate annexation of larger and larger swathes of this land, the BJP will seek to eliminate the two articles of the constitution that give legal expression to J&K's accession - Section 35A and 370.
Second, Israel has the 'right of return' for Jews all over the world as an integral part of its citizenship law. Similarly, the BJP is pursuing through the Citizenship Amendment Bill the initiation of a similar 'right of return' for non-Muslim Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Afghans and may eventually expand this to include persons of 'Indic' religions from outside the South Asian region too.
"There is, of course, one basic difference between these two viciously exclusivist and undemocratic projects. Zionism is happy to ride piggyback on current Islamophobia. However, its fundamental enemy is not Islam but Palestinians - regardless of whether they are atheists, Muslims or Christians. It is, therefore, a more tolerant religious state. For Hindutva, however, anti-Muslimness is foundational and the Hindu Rashtra will be an intolerant religious state," Vanaik concluded.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
