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India's Election: The Next Prime Minister Is A Dangerous Man
The New Republic ^ | May 16, 2014 | Isaac Chotiner

Posted on 05/17/2014 1:40:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The results of India's election, which are rapidly appearing today, seem to show a huge win for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A victory had been expected, but this looks like a massive landslide. The next prime minister is almost certain to be Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, a state in western India. He is known for his economic agenda, which is seen to be relatively business-friendly (expect stocks to react very positively to the news), and his controversial brand of Hinduism. Modi's ideology is certainly going to be important over the next several years, but his worrying personality might end up mattering more. It may be time to bring back an old slogan: over the next five years in India, the personal will be political, and probably not in a good way.

It's easy to describe Modi to people who have never heard him speak, or read about his past. He is a depressingly familiar type. He is secretive; he is vindictive; he has creepily authoritarian tendencies (a woman in Gujarat was placed under surveillance by Modi for months in a controversy that somehow didn't seem to register with voters); he ricochets between aggression and self-pity in a manner familiar to anyone who has heard nationalists of any stripe; and he is simply incapable of sounding broad-minded. During the 2002 Gujarat riots, hundreds of people (mostly Muslims) were killed in communal violence on Modi's watch. (This is why he has been denied a United States visa for many years.) The extent of Modi's role in spurring on the horrors has been extensively debated; suffice it to say that he once said his only regret about the mass murders was that he didn't handle the media well enough.

Modi is also known for his close ties to unsavory, right-wing Hindu fanatics, notably in the Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh (RSS), which he joined when he was very young. Arguably Modi's closest confidante is Amit Shah, who has been accused of numerous crimes, including murder, and whose attitude to Muslims might be euphemistically described as unwelcoming. (He likes to talk about "appeasement" of Muslims and said this election was about "taking revenge" on them.)

For more on Modi's personality, I encourage everyone to read Vinod Jose's brilliant profile of him from 2010, which gets at the way he deals with dissent, and takes a disturbing trip through Modi's psyche. (The dizzying summary: this is how a fascist person thinks.) The biggest question thus may be the degree to which India's institutions and democratic checks and balances can contain Modi's worst tendencies. It's possible that Modi himself will moderate in office, but moderation usually refers to ideology; Modi may simply be incapable of keeping his worst instincts under control. Indian society has shown a disturbing willingness to disregard freedoms of speech and expression, and the country's institutions are often weak in defending these encroachments. (See here for a good example.) Modi has never shown any interest in civil liberties; nor has he made the slightest positive noises about the communal violence that still frequently afflicts the country.

On a policy level, Modi's has presided over strong economic growth in Gujarat, although his state has not done as well on various social development indicators. Still, the combination of corruption and inefficiency in the national government and within the Congress Party seems to have led many Indian voters to embrace the so-called "Gujarat Model." (Texas, with its economic growth and lagging welfare indicators, is a very rough but not entirely inapt comparison.)

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

The election results also display the depths to which the ruling Congress Party has fallen after being led for over a decade by a weak prime minister, Manmohan Singh. The central campaigning role of Rahul Gandhi, the heir to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty (whose mother still controls the Party, and limited Singh's maneuverabilty), didn't do much good either; Congress was soundly defeated and Rahul appears to many observers (and voters) as someone who combines inanition and intellectual lightness. If dynastic politics takes any sort of blow, the election will at least have accomplished something positive.


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: bjp; congressparty; demagogicparty; dhimmicrats; gujarat; india; indiaelection; isaacchotiner; islam; manmohansingh; memebuilding; modi; muslims; narendramodi; newrepublic; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; rahulgandhi; rop; tnr
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To: MBT ARJUN; steve86
A FReeper named for a tank?

Not too many of those around here ....

Wonder if steve86's wife is Moslem .... like Grover Norquist's. (And soon, George Clooney's, if the deal holds up.)

101 posted on 05/19/2014 5:19:27 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: little jeremiah
In fact, it is said that St. Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, went to India, and there have been some Christians in India for about 2000 years, well before the Portuguese.

Hi, lj. As I may have mentioned before, my sister married a doctor from Bombay .... they did two weddings, one over there and one here in the States. Over in India, they got married in his mother's church, which is precisely that Christian community of which you speak. The priest's vestments were white and he wore a tall white crown or "trash-can" headdress very similar to the Maronite Catholics' (the Indian community there also is in communion with Rome), and the ceremony was in Syriac (successor language to Aramaic, about 300 years younger), Hindi, and English. The doctor's father's ascending line were Church of India, or Anglican.

The Thomasine (my made-up word) communion in India is about 20% of the Indian Christian population, the rest being either Roman Catholic (missionized through Goa) or Anglican.

The Portuguese priests who served in Goa brought back the first Sanskrit grammars in Western languages; they recognized the similarities to Greek, and so did Western scholars. The discovery kicked off the study of philology and linguistics.

All the languages of the world are now thought to be related, and Greek, Sanskrit, and both the Romance and Germanic families, as well as the Baltic and Slavic languages, are all part of the Indo-European family, which began on the north shore of the Black Sea in what is now the Ukraine and Moldova.

102 posted on 05/19/2014 5:30:17 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: steve86

What link is that? Is that what the BJP says about itself or others say about it?


103 posted on 05/19/2014 7:16:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: steve86

Oh, so the Vatican Insider says the BJP is like that. One language? Which one? Hindi, Oriya, Bengali, Telagu, other? Don’t make me laugh.


104 posted on 05/19/2014 7:18:23 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah

Hindi.

I recognize the names of the others from my wife using the terms and from streamed Indian TV.


105 posted on 05/19/2014 7:20:32 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Sherman Logan

in my humble opinion, the PLO still is to some extent nationalist rather than Moslem in orientation. Of course, terrorism is terrorism. The 1930 to 1949 Jewish groups fighting the British in the Palestine Mandate were democratic to some who would be labelled terrorists. In the Tamil LTTE case their cause was never spouted as religious but Dravida.


106 posted on 05/19/2014 11:23:39 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: steve86; Maneesh; INVAR

Sorry, but you can transfer money quite easily with banking systems to India. Why send checks? A Money order can do it — I’ve never heard of anyone sending checks from the US to India


107 posted on 05/19/2014 11:25:21 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: steve86; Maneesh; INVAR
Most of India is very safe for Christians to openly practice their religion. The persecutions that have occurred either tend to be caste and economics tinged as in Orissa or reactions to various non-Catholic missionaries passing pamphlets calling Hindu gods as demons.

Goa, Bombay, Tamil Nadu etc. all have lots of Christians who live alongside their neighbors, there would be no problems

In Bombay there are enclosed buildings where they will not allow a Moslem to buy a house, but Christians are ok -- Christians don't slaughter and cut up goats and cows in the building

108 posted on 05/19/2014 11:27:43 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

They were not personal checks, they were bank checks, equivalent to cashier’s checks. I do not know where they were cashed. The recipient family did not have a bank account. Now, with the help of the one friendly Hindu teller, they have a bank account and receive bank wires from my wife.


109 posted on 05/19/2014 11:27:44 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Cronos

They were not personal checks, they were bank checks, equivalent to cashier’s checks. I do not know where they were cashed. The recipient family did not have a bank account. Now, with the help of the one friendly Hindu teller, they have a bank account and receive bank wires from my wife.


110 posted on 05/19/2014 11:27:44 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Cronos

In Mumbai is exactly where my SIL is harassed by her Hindu neighbors.


111 posted on 05/19/2014 11:29:02 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Maneesh; philly-d-kidder
I agree with Maneesh.

Hindus have a deep hatred for Islam, due to 800+ years of persecution, but there is nothing like that for Christianity.

On the contrast, Christians are part of the landscape -- most go to Catholic schools or colleges or hospitals, they have Christian friends who nowadays have Indian rather than Western names, and the British were not big promotors of Christianity so it does not come as "the religion of the conquerors"

Hindus cannot be riled up by the BJP with the slogan "let's attack Christians" -- but say "let's attack Moslems" and you'd get a following. Even the most rabid Hindus find it hard to work up the ire to attack Churchs

People on FR must realise that Hinduism, while very different from Christianity, is an ally against Islam.

112 posted on 05/19/2014 11:31:09 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

You need to read up on the emboldening that the Hindutva proponents are feeling just like Holder’s people do here.


113 posted on 05/19/2014 11:31:42 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Maneesh; Steelfish
Steel -- Hinduism and Islam are not comparable in terms of "bad" -- we may disagree with their beliefs, but in their actions of persecutions, they are completely different.

"Age of enlightenment" is a nice term bandied about for French anti-religiosity. that's let to the militant atheists in the US. So India escaping that is fine.

Women in Hindu India are not treated the same as women in Iceland, but that depends on which parts of India -- there are myriad cultures from the patriarchal to the matriarchal in India

114 posted on 05/19/2014 11:33:35 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Maneesh; plain talk; 2ndDivisionVet
Maneesh -- your answer was too simplistic india has a parliamentary government, so there is no direct election of the Head of State. Many parties run for the elections (I think nearly 90 this time) and the votes are generally divided

until the late 70s the dominant party was the Indian national Congress -- a party of Gandhi and Nehru which presided over Indian independence. It was left of centre but then veered heavily left in the 70s (after Nixon threatened India with the USS Enterprise).

From the 80s onwards there have been different parties -- most are based on socialism, then on casteism, and now there are many regional parties -- remember that India is a continent, not a country, a place with at least 30 to 50 different "nations", so the "regional parties" rule over "states" that are countries in terms of separate languages, culture, even religion

At the top, in the late 90s there turned out to be 4 "coalitions" of parties:

  1. One around the Congress which started off in the 90s trumpeting it's role in liberalising the Indian economy, then veered heavily to socialism and now had only two planks "we are the party of the Gandhi family" and "we are secular" (the latter is not particularly true -- I'll explain later
  2. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party -- indian people's party), a right of centre, pro-business, but also pro-Hindu religion and culture party that grew out of the RSS, a party set up in the 20s to protect Hindu culture from foreign (mostly Moslem) influence -- this party actually supported British rule in the 30s and early 40s
  3. The left, a bunch of communist parties that have utterly lost their appeal -- they are replaced by Maoist in central India who don't care for elections but look for a violent overthrow of the states of Chatisgarh
  4. a bunch of others, mostly caste based who want to get their "lower castes" more affirmative action. These have been discredited in the past 2 decades as being highly, highly corrupt

So, for the current elections the only options were 1 and 2. But the Congress had run out of ideas after 10 years of rule. Arguably it ran out of ideas in the first 2 years. AFter that it had coalitions and had to pander to various allies of the moment from groups 3 and 4

Plus, it was led and projected as it's prime ministerial candidate, Rahul Gandhi -- a well-meaning guy, who had no qualifications besides being born right. And Indians it seemed are not fools to elect an Obama-wannabe

The BJP on the other hand had a strong candidate -- a former chief minister (de facto "president" in US terms) of the nation of Gujarat.

Gujaratis are known to be good at business and Modi enabled hte state to have a 10% year on year growth with pro-business, anti-corruption and pro-infrastructure policies

in addition, he was from a lower (not lowest) caste, not the Brahmins who normally run the BJP (like Vajpayee or Advani) and very decisive

The Congress had been relegated to supporting Moslems, cynically as it's other bases eroded. They played on non-religiou Moslem fears of the RSS, but cynically. The Congress calls itself secular but it used and uses religion to further its corrupt rule -- case in point the Babri Masjid -- instead of resolving the issue, it let it fester for political purposes

---------

Modi was the best choice for any Hindu -- most Hindus I know would hesitate if there was a choice between a "Hindu from the BJP" and a "HIndu non-BJP" who were both as good as Modi. But in this case, R Gandhi was a useless choice

For a Christian there was a slight dilemma due to the BJP's links with the RSS, but that has died down recently and as I pointed in a post above, the RSS realises that whipping up anti-Christian sentiment doesn't work, leave alone win elections

For a Moslem, if you were religious, then the Congress. if you were corrupt (which tend to be Islamic in India), then the Congress. If you were an Ahmaddiya or Bohri or Ismaili Moslem, then you would be torn, very torn

115 posted on 05/19/2014 11:52:34 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: MBT ARJUN; steve86

I gotta agree with MBT. Steve — the threat to Christians in Bombay are from Moslems. The former Christian dominated districts of Mazagoan and Bandra have been bought over by Moslems and Christians chased out.


116 posted on 05/19/2014 11:54:09 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: IndianChief; steve86
IC -- you are correct about the checks -- I find that very weird when you have western union and international money transfers

secondly The only Christians not welcomed by the BJP -- to be specific, the vociferous ones. No members of a majority community like to have large conversion ceremonies where their community leaves. Small conversions are fine. Even large ones as long as they don't go about saying Hindu gods are demons -- it's a bit irritating to hear that.

Catholic priests have been converting people one by one by the simple act of living like Christ and preaching. For that, there is no issue

117 posted on 05/19/2014 11:57:08 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: IndianChief; steve86

There is no “Hindu Shariah law” - the laws of Manu are not even obeyed by most Hindus. Hinduism is a meta-religion which allows various thoughts.


118 posted on 05/19/2014 11:57:52 PM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Steelfish; Maneesh
Steel -- let's go through the charges you state, one by one:

  1. Hindu atrocities: you've brought up posts from 2008. Yes, that was in Orissa, one "nation" in the federation of India. Yet in other places Christianity thrives and in fact spread. Even in Orissa, read the facts, this was religious but also heavily due to politics especially affirmative action and class bias. the trigger was caused by Maoists killing a Hindu leader and letting Christians get blamed
  2. the filth of the Ganges culture -- if you mean the filth of the Ganga, that's an environment issue, yes. If you mean the culture -- can you explain?
  3. a religion with instituionalized casteism -- yes, but that's dying out now.

119 posted on 05/20/2014 12:11:45 AM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

The PLO has only been even loosely Muslim in political orientation in the past few years. It had many Christian and openly atheist leaders for years, alongside Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Hamas was founded in no small part to give Sunni purists a political place to go.


120 posted on 05/20/2014 12:14:39 AM PDT by only1percent
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