Indian Right has no American Friends

Indo-US relation – Hobson’s choice

Today I write this, after listening to a speech by Tulsi Gabbard, US Congresswoman representing Democratic Party. She was in news during Modi ji’s visit to US for handing over her personal copy of Bhagwat Gita as a gift. It was a touching gesture and most in India were ecstatic by that single act . Today,  she spoke what she thought was right, from her heart in Manthana Platform, Mythic Society, Bangalore.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard arriving at Manthana Bangalore

India has many Liberal parties, they are CPI, CPI-M, CPI-ML, SP, JDU, BJD, RJD, AIADMK, DMK, NCP and a plethora of others. All of them believe in large government, public spending, government knows best attitude, speaks about equality without a clue and all their leaders are evidently well off and often affluent in personal lives. However, they never tire of protecting the poor, in sheer one-upmanship, indulging in naked appeasement to Muslim populace. The Ex-PM Man Mohan Singh said once that the Muslims have the first right to the fruits of Indian economy. He never explained the rationale and the reason remains a mystery till date. Indian democracy died that day.

Indian Right is often a confusing constituency. I think I should describe Indian Right as one which has, in addition to all the left ideologies, also has some right ideologies sprinkled on. What makes it stand out as one in India is, few internal organizations that speak their minds, an essential Right Wing characteristic. It is conservative, Nationalistic, two hallmarks of Right politics. At the same time, I have to concede that, being a political party, it cannot jettison all the policies of the predecessors at one go and is making effort to steer it from the economic mess the Liberal parties of India have left the country in. Indian Right is essentially a Nationalistic party and not being apologetic about it with a strong cultural root as Hindus. These two are lacking in the left and liberal parties in various degrees. 

Perhaps, I was one of the few, if not the only one, to find it jarring to see a Liberal Democrat Tulsi being showered love and affection by a Right Wing organization. Congresswoman Tulsi is the first Hindu to have reached thus far in American politics certainly influences the affection shown to her. The cynical me, told me that a vegetarian cow can always lunge at vegetarian me. Certain commonalities do not matter. 

There are many similarities between Democrats and the liberal Indian National Congress. I always suspected that, as many INC leaders and ideologists are elite and western educated, American Democratic politics found its expression in India through them. 

Both parties are left to the center. In both parties there are unabashed adorers of leaders like Stalin. Both parties pushed for Marxification of education. The history of India was written purely on Marxian view and nationalist views were simply given a shabby burial. Both party leaders were modernists, in the sense, thought that rejection of conventional wisdom is a sure sign of intelligence. Both parties bought votes on immigrant votes. Both parties attended to vote bank politics. If it was ‘racism’ that Democrats used as an abuse of the political opponent to make them cringe, it was the word ‘communal’ that INC used in India. Both parties gave sops to bribe a portion of the voters to further own political agenda. Both parties have strong support from media. In fact as in the case of the US, there is blood relationship between people in power and journalists. Both parties are extremely confrontational. In India, there are additional dimensions of corruption and nepotism which manifested without fear of being punished adds an unique flavor.

If at all any Indian party can be close to Democrats, it is Indian National Congress. BJP has nothing in common with Democrat. It does not stand for big government. BJP is for private investment, very nationalistic, protective of borders, respectful of Army and Police personnel who are martyred, never conceding with its arch enemy, Pakistan, religious core constituting the guiding force for the political party, accommodative, has many leaders with personal integrity and public probity, with no friends in Media, a little clumsy in public discourse and has fringe elements who indulge in violence and abhorrent behaviour. It is not that the Left does not have it, for example, CPI-ML kills people in hundreds but has the admiration of the media for their intellectual sex-appeal, hence never condemned without qualifications. 

It may appear that BJP is a natural ally of Republicans, given both parties have common political ideologies. This was the topic of discussion between myself and Rushette today on twitter.

Question from American Right

However, for India Right wing, there are no friends here also. 

The American Right has a core Christian constituency which has a special interest in India and its poverty politics. The Christian Churches from US, a solid supporters of American right is engaged in the business of aggressive, militant and combatant proselytizing in India. The method adapted runs like this. Anyone from India can register himself as an agent and has to show as proof that a prayer house has been built to render prayer service to local population. This act gets rewarded by the Christian Right in $ of donation which is a big deal in India. With this, the agent goes on to invest in larger church and pays money for appearing in the church, which helps him/her to show larger population, which in turn gets more funding. The payout is based on number of people showing up in the church with special incentive for the converted. India, at the time of her Independence, was a poor country, after British stole her wealth in totality. With the advancement in healthcare, increased life expectancy, there are many poor in the society and this is the harvest American Christian Right is attracted to, as flies to putrid meat.  Additionally, the financial support to education and medical help are offered to lure the weak and defenseless.

In the last decade the amount of money pumped in by Christians is to the tune of INR 100,000 crores (1 crore = 10 million) With about 2% of the population being Christian, this is brutal money power. With the Indian National Congress in power, especially with Sonia Gandhi, there were wholesale conversions happening all around the country as village fair. People who retired from heading Security organizations in India have confirmed these charges. 

The cost of one soul harvest is said to be USD 3300.  This is while the Hindus were not allowed to get access to Temple wealth which could have been put to create a support system for the Hindus. The temples and its resources were usurped by atheist political classes. As for the wealth belonging to Hindu temples, it can dwarf Vatican many times over.

That is the reason the American Right is in direct confrontation with Indian Right. Indian Right can never do business with American Right without compromising its National and Cultural identity, core values for Indian Right. 

It is a parody that those who convert the poor people of Indian are Liberal ideological inspirations indeed. The Pastors are often undistinguishable from a local Marxian ideologist, rousing the poor to rise against the evil Brahminical order (equivalent of White in US context) and to embrace Christ. They teach convoluted History to show that South Indians were actually people of Christ, based on notions already laid to waste by tectonic plate theory. They offer money for education and medicine. They dress like Hindu Godmen. They use Hindu symbols. The compose prayers imitating Hindu ones. All these are done with a view to trick the poor and uninformed Indians into believing that Christianity is same as Hinduism.

Most of the Educational Institutions in India were in the hands of evangelists at the time of Independence. So was the medicine. Schools and Hospitals are rich mines for conversions. American preachers are allowed access to children in Christian run schools to conduct proselytizing. The Joshua Project makes it a point to insult local culture and tradition. The Church explicitly tells those traveling with a view to proselytize, to lie at the immigration. Good Christian role model indeed. Most of these sites block Indian IP and have to be accessed otherwise. It means that they know what they do is criminal and wrong, yet do it. This is the constituency that is central to American Right.

Lie is central to Christian activities in India

Money plays a major part in luring people to change their religion. This is backed by American Right and is detested by Indian Right. The original ban on Modi’s visit to US was based on ‘religious intolerance’, in plain English, he banned proselytizing Industry in Gujarat, where he was the Chief Minister. The ban was a punishment for that affront to American Christian Right.

There are Nationalistic organizations who bring back the converted and this has also been going on, if not in equal numbers. However, this year such an act drew a comment from US government. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/448171/monitoring-reports-mass-conversion-india.html

If American Christians rationalize their proselytizing activities citing poverty, India also can make incendiary observations on American situation on ‘racism’ and ‘genocide of the blacks  and native Indians’ and other politically pregnant possibilities. There have been various studies conducted that have proven that the people uprooted from their cultural roots are a devastated lot. Indian Hindus are huge in number. By splitting the society only miseries are being multiplied for a long time, with no definite win in the near future. With Hindu insurgence those who converted by the lure of the evangelists will be orphaned in their own cultural backyards.

 There are no friends for Indian Right in the US.While it is compelled to oppose Republicans as a matter of self preservation, it tolerates Liberals as danger Liberals pose do not impact Indian directly. If there are no friends in American Right it is because in it US has bellicose, self righteous, pompous cultural Tzars in the name of Christians.  It is a shame that intolerance within American Right is the reason it is not able to build bridge with Indians. But a fact that cannot be wished away. 

dwimidha@gmail.com