You don’t have to be like the media. You can be better. Every Indian isn’t a Hindu nationalist, and many of us detest the nationalists. Gandhi was even killed by a Hindu nationalist, but you won’t hear Modi talking about that.
Indians who were born outside of India to Indian parents are very critical of the Hindu nationalists. We’ve grown up alongside Muslims and been friends with them. We feel solidarity with them as fellow brown people. And we’re utterly appalled with what’s going on in India.
Don’t lump us together. We’re among the harshest critics of Modi’s fascist regime, and what India has become. We were raised with traditional Indian values by our parents and the broader Indian community in our homes. India over the last few decades has become unrecognizable to our parents and fallen considerably to moral decay.
From my limited view, it appears Modi & the Hindu Nationalists are more or less (American) right-wing extremists comparable to Trumpers. Is this accurate at all?
Modi’s party is inspired from RSS which was inspired by nazism so even worse. Unfortunately the number of these people are way too high. There are centrists too that don’t make anything better.
I’m American as well, born in the US. So unfortunately I don’t know a lot more than you about the national mood or how popular the Hindu nationalists and BJP (their party) actually are.
With that said, yes, I would say that’s accurate. They’re a mix of the Republicans/American far right and Israel’s conservatives and Netanyahu. The BJP leadership has called Muslims an infestation and blamed them for all of India’s issues. They’ve demanded ancestral papers for Muslims to prove their citizenship, and there has been wanton police violence against Muslims that reminds me of settlers in Israel and Palestinians.
If we were to establish a scale of fascism and the far right, where Hitler and the Nazis are the absolute highest on the scale, I would put Republicans at the bottom; the BJP and Hindu nationalists are higher than them, and Israel is even higher than them. I think they’d all be the same if they weren’t held back by the law or oppositional parties.
I hope that helps. My worry is that the right wing extremists are more popular in India than they are in the US.
My mom brings it up from time to time. It’s important to recognize I think that the zealots in power today belong to the same ideology, and they were pissed at Gandhi because he wanted a united, secular India.
Honestly, it’s something more people should know about. Granted, I don’t know a ton of Indian history but I probably still know more about India than most Americans (I know Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state but don’t ask me to point it out on a map).
I can hardly say I’m an expert myself. No one can be well versed in the modern history of every country, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s just good to look up when there are events going on in that country.
You don’t have to be like the media. You can be better. Every Indian isn’t a Hindu nationalist, and many of us detest the nationalists. Gandhi was even killed by a Hindu nationalist, but you won’t hear Modi talking about that.
Indians who were born outside of India to Indian parents are very critical of the Hindu nationalists. We’ve grown up alongside Muslims and been friends with them. We feel solidarity with them as fellow brown people. And we’re utterly appalled with what’s going on in India.
Don’t lump us together. We’re among the harshest critics of Modi’s fascist regime, and what India has become. We were raised with traditional Indian values by our parents and the broader Indian community in our homes. India over the last few decades has become unrecognizable to our parents and fallen considerably to moral decay.
So to give us Americans some insight…
From my limited view, it appears Modi & the Hindu Nationalists are more or less (American) right-wing extremists comparable to Trumpers. Is this accurate at all?
Modi’s party is inspired from RSS which was inspired by nazism so even worse. Unfortunately the number of these people are way too high. There are centrists too that don’t make anything better.
I’m American as well, born in the US. So unfortunately I don’t know a lot more than you about the national mood or how popular the Hindu nationalists and BJP (their party) actually are.
With that said, yes, I would say that’s accurate. They’re a mix of the Republicans/American far right and Israel’s conservatives and Netanyahu. The BJP leadership has called Muslims an infestation and blamed them for all of India’s issues. They’ve demanded ancestral papers for Muslims to prove their citizenship, and there has been wanton police violence against Muslims that reminds me of settlers in Israel and Palestinians.
If we were to establish a scale of fascism and the far right, where Hitler and the Nazis are the absolute highest on the scale, I would put Republicans at the bottom; the BJP and Hindu nationalists are higher than them, and Israel is even higher than them. I think they’d all be the same if they weren’t held back by the law or oppositional parties.
I hope that helps. My worry is that the right wing extremists are more popular in India than they are in the US.
I honestly never realized (or forgot?) that Gandhi was killed by a Hindu nationalist.
My mom brings it up from time to time. It’s important to recognize I think that the zealots in power today belong to the same ideology, and they were pissed at Gandhi because he wanted a united, secular India.
Honestly, it’s something more people should know about. Granted, I don’t know a ton of Indian history but I probably still know more about India than most Americans (I know Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state but don’t ask me to point it out on a map).
I can hardly say I’m an expert myself. No one can be well versed in the modern history of every country, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s just good to look up when there are events going on in that country.