“Triumph of the Will”: Narendra Modi, the RSS and the “Big Lie” propaganda technique

By Jai Singh

Previous articles in this series: “Narendra Modi and the rise of India’s neo-fascist Far-Right”, and “Nazism and Narendra Modi: The ideological influence on India’s next Prime Minister”.

India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (“BJP”) and its neo-Nazi paramilitary “ideological fountainhead”, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (“RSS”). Modi is efficiently streamlining India’s new national government along with discussing a range of issues with senior ministers, as the “Modi Administration” begins in earnest. In terms of South Asia’s regional stability, progress and prosperity, Modi’s recent outreach towards neighbouring Pakistan’s government is encouraging; time will tell if his intentions are sincere. The same applies to Modi’s much-vaunted “development” plans.

Modi has also confirmed a series of meetings with international leaders during the next few months; he is planning to visit the United States (including a meeting with US President Barack Obama personally), Japan, Brazil, Australia, Bhutan, Nepal, and the ASEAN-India and East Asia summits. Modi will also attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September. Interestingly, Modi has not arranged to visit any countries in Europe.

Nevertheless, a series of problems have already arisen, which provides a revealing insight into the nature of Modi’s regime:

(i) For example, as recently summarised in the Hindustan Times, (a) an RSS national executive member has called for India’s intelligence agencies to terminate their investigations of multiple RSS terrorist attacks, (b) senior members of Modi’s new national government are calling for the termination of affirmative action initiatives for India’s religious minorities, with the new Minister for Minority Affairs making the bizarre claim that Muslims are not a minority in India despite the fact that they are only 14% of the total population, and (c) it turns out that Modi’s newly-appointed education minister falsified her own educational qualifications in affidavits.

(ii) Modi’s national government is recklessly endangering India’s national security by allowing 100% Foreign Direct Investment in the Defence sector. (India is the biggest weapons importer in the world, currently 75% from Russia, 7% from the United States, and 6% from Israel; details via The Economist here).

(iii) The Indian Express has exposed the fact that a leaked new report by India’s Intelligence Bureau (“IB”) has actually plagiarised a key part of a paranoid speech by Modi in 2006. The report blacklists a considerable number of reputable human rights organisations and environmental groups, including Greenpeace, Amnesty International, the child-support service Childline and the women’s trade union SEWA (which assists poor, illiterate self-employed Indian women), claiming that they pose a “threat to [India’s] national economic security” due to “foreign funding”. Extensive further details and analysis via the New York Times, DNA India and Yahoo News.

Extract from the aforementioned Indian Express article: On September 9, 2006, then Gujarat chief minister Modi had lashed out in a speech at a “wealthy” and “influential” class of NGOs [Non-Governmental Organisations] that “hire PR firms to continually build their image” with “money coming from abroad.”……[Modi continued]: “Another conspiracy — a vicious cycle is set up. Funds are obtained from abroad; an NGO is set up; a few articles are commissioned; a PR firm is recruited and, slowly, with the help of the media, an image is created. And then awards are procured from foreign countries to enhance this image. Such a vicious cycle, a network of finance-activity-award is set up and, once they have secured an award, no one in Hindustan dares raise a finger, no matter how many the failings of the awardee.”

Readers will note the irony of Modi’s conspiratorial claims, considering the contents of sections #16 and #19 in the main article below; the sections highlight the network of influential US and UK-based groups (including a giant Washington-based PR firm) which have recently been heavily involved in politically lobbying on Modi’s behalf here in the West and “creating” and “enhancing” his image; #16 also includes some details on the multimillion-dollar foreign funding of the RSS.

(iv) 30% of the ministers in Modi’s government are currently facing criminal charges, including murder, kidnapping, communal [sectarian] disharmony, and electoral violations. The new parliament also has the lowest number of Muslims in post-independence India’s history . Modi’s regime has reinstated corrupt and sectarian Gujarat police officers, along with appointing ministers who have been involved in sectarian violence.

(v) Modi has also not removed BJP minister Giriraj Singh; during the elections, Giriraj Singh claimed that “those [Indians] who want to stop Narendra Modi [from becoming Prime Minister] should go to Pakistan. In the coming days, they will have no place in India.” (He subsequently refused to retract his statements despite the outcry). Giriraj Singh also claimed that “all terrorists belong to one community” [ie. Muslims].

(vi) Sikh readers in particular may be aware of the fact that, as Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Modi tried to force a huge number of Sikh families in Gujarat to “go back” to Punjab even though they have been living in Gujarat as farmers for nearly 50 years. Serving the Sikh families eviction notices and freezing their financial assets, Modi’s state government intended to seize their land, claiming that a law from 1948 allows only Gujaratis to own land in the state.

Further to Modi’s election as Prime Minister, India’s new Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, is the lawyer who defended and facilitated the original acquittals of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, two ringleaders of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms (investigations of Tytler and Kumar were subsequently reopened). More recently, Rohatgi defended Modi’s Gujarat state government against prosecutions by victims of the 2002 riots.

(vii) The continuing epidemic of gang rapes (particularly of low-caste women) in India has received considerable domestic & international publicity, including forceful condemnations from the Obama Administration and the United Nations. One of Modi’s senior ministerial allies has publicly claimed that rape is “sometimes right, sometimes wrong”, and another has publicly claimed that rapes “do not happen deliberately. These types of incidents happen accidentally”. (In January 2013, current RSS head Mohan Bhagwat publicly claimed that “the influence of Western culture” was to blame for rapes in India; he also made the false claim that rapes in India occur only in cities, not villages). The recent murder of an Indian Muslim by members of a Hindu Nationalist organisation along with rioting by the latter in the city of Pune has also received wide publicity. Until very recently, Modi himself publicly remained completely silent about all of these issues, and belatedly spoke out only after widespread domestic and international criticism of his increasingly-conspicuous silence. One of Modi’s own senior ministers has subsequently been summoned to court as one of the accused in a major case involving rape, prostitution and blackmail.

There are a number of further facts that Modi’s lobbyists and pro-Modi media outlets are either reluctant to publicly disclose or are actively covering up. As with the material in the previous two articles in this series, as a contingency measure it is therefore imperative that Western governments, intelligence agencies and business leaders are apprised of the information documented below, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom.

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1. THE “BIG LIE” PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE:

Narendra Modi’s network has been making successful use of the “Big Lie” propaganda technique pioneered by the Nazis:

(a) Firstly, the claim that India’s Supreme Court has “cleared” Modi of culpability in the Gujarat 2002 riots is still widely circulating (including in some sections of the Western media). This claim is completely false. In reality, not only has the Supreme Court accused Modi of being a “modern-day Nero” at the very least, but the report by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigations Team (“SIT”) can be read in full online here. Amongst other things, the SIT report confirmed that Modi’s Gujarat state government was guilty of destroying a huge amount of incriminating evidence, including completely destroying the records of police communications and government meetings during the riots.

The SIT report also confirmed that there were multiple incidents where Modi’s conduct was divisive and prejudiced against Gujarat’s Muslim population; as Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Modi was therefore in violation of his constitutional duty to protect the life and property of every citizen of Gujarat state.

The SIT report also confirmed that (i) Modi claimed to have been unaware of the first massacre during the riots (at the Gulbarg Society area of Ahmedabad) for as long as 5 hours after the atrocity; Modi specifically claimed that he only heard about it during a meeting at his house that evening, (ii) there were numerous communications between police officers during the course of the siege and subsequent massacre, and (iii) Modi was praised for holding a series of meetings with police officers throughout the day in order to continuously monitor the violence. Readers will note the glaring contradiction in this narrative and can draw their own conclusions about the implications.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court also appointed an amicus curiae. Based on the SIT’s own findings, the senior Supreme Court lawyer and former Additional Solicitor General & Vice-President of the Supreme Court Bar Association has recommended that Modi should be put on trial and has concluded that there is indeed sufficient evidence to prosecute Modi on multiple criminal charges. Full details via the Times of India and Tehelka.

A case can of course also be made for prosecuting Modi and his accomplices via the International Criminal Court at The Hague and putting them on trial there.

(b) Secondly, the post-election claim that Modi has been “given a huge mandate by India’s 1 billion population” is being promoted by Modi’s propagandists and sympathetic sections of the Indian media (Modi himself has been making this claim too). In reality, 69% of voters in the election did not vote for Modi; in terms of the total number of eligible Indian voters, the percentage that did not vote for Modi rises to approximately 80%.

(c) Gujarat’s development under Modi’s state government has been considerably exaggerated; in fact, as recently documented by the New York Times, Modi repeatedly made major mistakes in hugely expensive local development projects, primarily due to his own character flaws. Furthermore, there are major health and malnutrition problems in Gujarat; as recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, approximately 50% of Gujarati children under 5 years old are stunted, 70% of Gujarati children under 5 years old are anaemic, and approximately 55% of Gujarati women are anaemic. For his part, Modi is on record as blaming widespread female malnutrition in Gujarat on what he claims is a combination of (i) “beauty-conscious middle-class” girls who don’t want to “get fat” and (ii) vegetarianism.

(d) The claim that Gujarat under Modi’s state government has been “free of sectarian violence since 2002” is completely false; in fact, rates of such violence in Gujarat are far higher than India’s national average. Statistical details via Firstpost here.

2. NARENDRA MODI’S STATEMENTS TO THE NEW YORK TIMES IN 2002:

Estimates of the number of Muslims murdered during the Gujarat 2002 riots range from 1000-2000, with victims ranging from the very young to the very old. Methods used to kill the men, women and children primarily involved hacking them to pieces and/or burning them alive (both individually and, in some instances, mass burnings). The riots also included mass rapes and sexual mutilation, again often involving the female victims subsequently being murdered. The RSS and affiliated groups were heavily involved in perpetrating these atrocities.

Celia Dugger was co-head of the New York Times’ South Asia bureau in 2002. She covered the riots and personally reported that Narendra Modi’s administration was deliberately failing to stop the violence; as mentioned by Celia Dugger in the NYT’s video here, “witnesses were telling [her] that they had begged the police to intervene and stop the mobs and that they stood by and that leaders of groups affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party were inciting violence”.

Celia Dugger personally interviewed Narendra Modi a couple of months after the riots. As included in the aforementioned NYT video:

“I asked [Modi] if he had any regrets about what had happened in his state in that period: Women openly raped, hundreds and hundreds of people were killed. He told me his greatest regret was that he didn’t manage the media very well. I left the interview feeling chilled by my interview with the Chief Minister. He had not shown any regret or expressed any empathy for those who had been slaughtered in his state on his watch”.

(Apart from the obvious callousness displayed, this also has ramifications for the Indian news media now that Modi is Prime Minister; see #11 below).

3. RSS AND NEO-NAZI RALLIES:

As comprehensively documented in the previous article in this series, the core ideology of the Far-Right paramilitary RSS (“Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”) is directly and explicitly based on Hitler and Third Reich-era Nazism; in their extensive writings, the RSS’ Hitler-supporting ideological founders directly lifted Nazi propaganda and simply replaced “Germans” with “Hindus” and “Jews” with “Muslims”. The ideology is also virulently hostile towards Christians. Bear in mind that India’s 1.2-billion population currently includes 170 million Muslims and approximately 30 million Christians.

In his own writings, Narendra Modi is on record as describing the most influential Hitler-supporting RSS founder, M.S. Golwalkar, as “a guru worthy of worship”.

Golwalkar (1906-1973) is on record as repeatedly endorsing Hitler, the Nazis and their treatment of religious minorities. He never retracted any of these statements, not even after the horrors of the Holocaust. Quoting directly from Golwalkar’s own propaganda writings, numerous examples of his statements were documented in the previous article. In summary:

(a) Golwalkar promoted explicitly racial Far-Right propaganda and claimed that a “Nation” is based on 5 indivisible factors: Race, Religion, Culture, Language and Geography. Golwalkar claimed that Race and Religion are the dominant factors for the RSS;
(b) Golwalkar had contempt for educated Hindus;
(c) Golwalkar was opposed to inclusive, pluralistic democracy and territory-based nationality;
(d) Golwalkar claimed that non-Hindus in India “deserve no privileges, not even citizen’s rights”;
(e) Golwalkar glorified Nazi Germany and the persecution of Germany’s Jews, and stated that India should duplicate Hitler’s treatment of minority populations;
(f) Golwalkar misrepresented and slandered Judaism, Christianity and Islam;
(g) Golwalkar claimed that Hindus are differentiated from other religious groups before birth;
(h) Golwalkar claimed that the RSS aims to reconvert Indian Muslims and Christians to Hinduism;
(i) Golwalkar rejected the Indian nationality of all Indian non-Hindus;
(j) Golwalkar reiterated his opposition to territory-based nationality and Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of Hindu-Muslim unity;
(k) Golwalkar repeatedly wrote lengthy bigoted diatribes against both Christians and Muslims, explicitly declaring them to be “hostiles” within Indian society and claiming that Christians have proved to be “bloodsuckers” wherever they have gone in the world.

Narendra Modi has been an active member of the RSS for the entirety of his political career. In fact, the RSS explicitly describe Modi as a “pracharak” for the organisation; the literal translation of the word is “proselytiser”. Modi can be seen performing a modified Nazi salute alongside a number of other RSS members in one of the photos at the top of this article; the photo was taken at an RSS meeting near Ahmedabad in September 2009.

Video footage of a neo-Nazi rally by the RSS is available on Youtube here; the footage is from an “RSS Mega Convention” in Mangalore in 2013. From 3 min 40 s onwards, the thousands of uniformed RSS members standing in formation simultaneously perform a modified Nazi salute. Shortly afterwards, senior RSS leaders (including the current head of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat) can also be seen performing that fascist salute. For obvious reasons, the whole thing looks chillingly familiar.

4. STRATEGY MEETINGS WITH THE RSS LEADERSHIP:

Narendra Modi and other senior members of the incoming new government (including the new Home Minister) were already having lengthy closed-door meetings with the RSS senior leadership during the weekend before the election results, specifically to discuss post-election strategy; details via Firstpost here and here. Modi was the first to do so, personally meeting Mohan Bhagwat for a detailed discussion. Bhagwat himself can be seen performing the aforementioned modified Nazi salute in the bottom-left photo in the image at the top of this article.

5. RSS CONTINUING TO DICTATE POLITICAL POLICY:

Narendra Modi’s team have subsequently continued to have meetings with the RSS. Furthermore, readers may be aware that there is already an escalating controversy involving the Indian state of Kashmir (also see the Kashmir Chief Minister’s tweet here); the RSS has publicly become directly involved in the issue.

6. RSS DOMINANCE OF THE NEW INDIAN GOVERNMENT:

As confirmed by Reuters, 17 of the 23 Cabinet-level senior ministers in Narendra Modi’s new government are current or former RSS members. This includes the new Home Minister Rajnath Singh and of course Modi himself.

7. THE RSS’ LONG-TERM STRATEGY IN INDIA:

A detailed Caravan investigative article on Mohan Bhagwat includes information on the RSS’ long-term gameplan. Extract:

“Between now and [2025], the organisation has planned a three-phase strategy aimed at expanding its work…..The RSS says it’s nearing the end of stage one; it seems that the next step, for which Bhagwat has been preparing the ground, is to win political power. If the BJP becomes dominant in the next government, the [RSS] juggernaut will likely begin rolling, entering a period of potentially unprecedented activity to fulfil its broader social goals.”

The aforementioned article also quotes Mohan Bhagwat making the following statements at a major RSS meeting in 2009:

“…..the evolution of the [RSS] shows that we are indeed marching ahead with our plan and reaching towards our goal consistently……We will overcome and surmount problems and try to accelerate the pace of our work effectively. The picture is clear in front of us. Not only the goal, the clear strategy, all the stages, methodology to reach there are all worked out and we have a clear cut plan before us.”

Similarly, other journalists have reported that a former Indian army officer who joined the RSS 10 years ago and is now conducting leadership camps for the RSS has stated:

“The [RSS’] strategy is to solidly consolidate its position and expand so powerfully across the country that no-one can shake it at least for the next 50 years. RSS believes in silent work and it has spread its activities in several areas all over the country.”

An RSS activist recently made the following statements to the Washington Post:

“We want people who subscribe to RSS’ philosophy of nationalism in every occupation, every department of the government, every industry, every sphere of society.”

8. RSS RECRUITMENT:

According to The Economist, the number of Indians joining the RSS is now 10,000 every month.

In March 2014, The Guardian reported that the RSS already had 40 million members in India. The organisation has at least 50,000 branches across the country, with meetings held daily. The RSS also has approximately 100 affiliate organisations. Furthermore, Bloomberg recently confirmed that the RSS is running a network of 18,000 schools across India.

9. NARENDRA MODI AND “TRIUMPH OF THE WILL”:

A major pro-Modi publication, “OPEN” Magazine, has published a glowing article about Narendra Modi titled “Triumph of the Will”. The article has been publicised on the magazine’s front cover, alongside a photo of Modi. Details via Al Jazeera here. The article’s title is of course the name of the most well-known pro-Hitler propaganda film from the Third Reich. This is not the first time that the magazine has used the “Triumph of the Will” caption for Modi.

10. SOCIAL ENGINEERING VIA PROPAGANDA FILMS:

Narendra Modi’s RSS-dominated team plans to set up a national government wing dedicated to developing & promoting propaganda films via India’s movie industry, in order to “bring a cultural awakening”. Details via the Hindustan Times here.

11. RESIGNATIONS OF ANTI-MODI JOURNALISTS AND CONSOLIDATION OF PRO-MODI INDUSTRIALISTS’ CONTROL OF INDIAN MEDIA:

(a) During Narendra Modi’s tenure as Gujarat’s Chief Minister, his state government actually accused journalists of sedition in order to silence their criticism of Modi’s regime, filing cases under a sedition law that India’s Supreme Court has ruled should only be used in cases of violent rebellion against the state.

(b) As discussed in Outlook India, a large-scale clampdown against senior anti-Modi journalists continued across India in the run-up to the national election. This included the targeting of very senior professional journalists at a number of prestigious news outlets; objective analysis and criticism of Modi has deliberately been silenced, accompanied by multiple high-level resignations. This has been particularly prevalent at all television channels, magazines and online outlets owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group. The industrialist Ambanis played a key role in facilitating Modi’s election victory. Further examples are available here, including screenshots of online statements by anti-Modi journalists such as CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose who have subsequently found themselves silenced.

(c) According to Bloomberg, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani has added $6 billion to his fortune since Modi’s candidacy for PM was announced; Mukesh Ambani and his younger brother Anil Ambani each added nearly $1 billion and $600 million to their respective wealth on the day that Modi’s election victory was announced. Bloomberg has also recently reported that the Ambanis are actively censoring the exposure of their own questionable business activities; for example, the Ambanis are alleged to have successfully pressured the previous Indian government into doubling the price of natural gas in India.

(d) After Modi’s election as Prime Minister, multiple senior anti-Modi journalists such as CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose are continuing to resign as the Reliance group takes over the holding company Network 18, which includes the Indian news channels CNN-IBN and CNBC’s Indian affiliates, along with Forbes India, multiple business and news websites, and multiple entertainment channels. Details via Scroll.in and the Huffington Post. Extensive details on the exact sequence of events have been documented in Caravan here, including Network 18’s role as a major pro-Modi propaganda platform and the resulting impact on Indian news media coverage of Modi.

(e) A few years ago, Rajdeep Sardesai famously interviewed Modi about the Gujarat 2002 riots. As can be seen in the video clip available in this Outlook India article, “awkward questions by Rajdeep Sardesai are met with lengthy, awkward silence”. The same article also includes video footage of the famous incident when Sardesai’s CNN-IBN colleague Karan Thapar interviewed Modi in 2007; Thapar directly asked him “People still call you in your face a mass-murderer, and they accuse you of being prejudiced against Muslims. Do you have an image problem ?” One minute into the scheduled interview, Modi became visibly angry, asked for a glass of water, and then actually walked out of the interview (which was all caught on camera). According to Caravan:

…..the following day, Thapar said, he got a call from Modi: “He asked me, ‘Are you firing by resting your gun on my shoulder?’ and I said, ‘Didn’t I tell you it was better to complete the interview?’ He was okay by then, it seemed. He said when he came to Delhi next, we would have dinner together. And he would give me another interview. At some point he also said, ‘I love you.’”

However, despite repeated requests since 2007, Modi has never allowed Thapar to interview him again.

(f) Regular readers will recall that Modi has only recently publicly admitted that he is actually married. The aforementioned Caravan article also discusses what happened when an Indian Express journalist located Modi’s wife in 2002. Extract:

[The Indian Express journalist Darshan Desai] met [Modi’s wife], her brother and the headmaster of a primary school where she was teaching. None of them would agree to an interview, fearing retribution, and several local BJP men made it clear his questions were unwelcome and insisted he leave.

“I remember I had just reached home and removed my shoes when I got a call on my cell phone,” Desai told me. “The voice on the phone said in Gujarati, ‘The chief minister wants to speak with you.’ Soon, Modi came on the line. He said ‘Namaskar’, and then he asked: ‘So what is the agenda?’

“I said, ‘I didn’t quite get you.’ And he said, ‘You have written against me. Your newspaper even started Modi Meter,’ referring to a column my paper ran during the riots. I just kept quiet, and he said, ‘I’m aware what you’ve been up to today. What you’ve done today goes much beyond. That’s why I want to know what your agenda is.’ I wasn’t scared, but I remember being a little nervous, and I said, ‘I have no agenda. You can contact my editor.’ He just said, ‘Okay. Think it over,’ and hung up the phone.”

(g) In 2010, during a 90-minute interview with the Muslim editor of an Indian newspaper, Modi was asked if he dreamed of the Akhand Bharat (“Undivided India”) concept, which is strongly promoted by the RSS. The question was particularly relevant because, as detailed in Firstpost here, “a report in 2010 quoted the current RSS chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat as saying: “We should start thinking how to be Akhand Bharat once again,”…..The report added that “Bhagwat pointed out that all nations, including China, Russia and America, made no secret of stretching their land by harboring expansionist tendencies in the national interest — and to be stronger nations.”….”It is only this country where her own citizens live like refugees away from their homeland,” he said with respect to the Kashmiri Pandits. “Land,” he said, “is an important factor in today’s geo-politics.”

As quoted in the aforementioned Firstpost article, Modi’s response to the Muslim editor’s question about the RSS’ modern-day version of Lebensraum was to attack the editor himself, as follows:

”People who think of empire are talking of Akhand Bharat. In Pakistan, there is a movement to unite Pakistan, India and Bangladesh so that Muslims are in a majority. Your mouths are watering these days at the prospect of creating a Muslim-majority nation in the name of Akhand Bharat. And getting all Muslims together, with the Indian Muslims at their head, to create strife. Isn’t this a dream of yours?”

(h) As Prime Minister, Modi is currently continuing to centralise power and tighten his grip on the control of information by banning his entire Cabinet along with other senior officials from giving interviews to journalists. The only authorised sources of information from Modi’s regime will be official government spokespeople and Modi’s own Twitter account. (Modi has also recently warned his team about potential “sting operations”). This will effectively be a continuation of Modi’s policy when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat: members of his cabinet were not allowed to speak to journalists unless they had obtained prior permission from Modi, and customary press conferences following state government Cabinet meetings were either held by spokesmen or not even held at all (in other Indian states, such briefings are normally held by ministers).

12. NARENDRA MODI’S BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS CRITICAL INDIAN BUSINESS LEADERS:

As documented by Caravan here, Narendra Modi was present during a major conference of Indian business leaders in April 2002, when a forceful speech by a senior executive condemning the suffering of Muslims in Gujarat received a standing ovation and multiple famous industrialists explicitly questioned Modi’s own attitudes. In response, while on stage Modi furiously ranted: “You and your pseudo-secular friends can come to Gujarat if you want an answer. Talk to my people. Gujarat is the most peaceful state in the country.” Modi then turned to two of the most outspoken industrialists [Godrej and Bajaj; South Asian readers in particular will be familiar with them] and said, “Others have vested interest in maligning Gujarat. What is your interest ?”

After Modi returned to Gujarat, within a few days multiple Gujarati businessmen close to Modi retaliated against his corporate critics by setting up a rival organisation, involving 100 companies threatening to withdraw from the previous business group, claiming that the latter had “humiliated and insulted Modi and all Gujaratis”. A press statement was issued, swearing by the pride of Gujaratis, and demanding that the Gujarat chapter of the original business group should resign for “failing to protect the interests of the state”. In New Delhi, the BJP also began to limit the latter’s access to government ministers, thereby jeopardising one of the group’s primary roles as a lobbying organisation.

13. RSS TERRORISTS AND FALSE-FLAG ATTACKS IN INDIA:

There appear to be some internal clashes between India’s Supreme Court & National Investigations Agency and Narendra Modi’s incoming regime:

(a) A few days before the election results, the NIA publicly released a list of “Hindu Nationalist” terrorists. Details via India Today here; as the article also confirms, every single person on that list is a member of the RSS. The list includes senior RSS leader Swami Aseemanand; Modi is his most prominent political patron. As previously discussed on Loonwatch and in much more detail in Caravan magazine, Aseemanand was responsible for anti-Christian riots involving mass-murder, forced conversions to Hinduism, the destruction of dozens of churches, and the rape of nuns. Aseemanand is also on record as admitting that the RSS leadership personally authorised a series of terrorist attacks across India, deliberately targeting innocent Muslims for mass-murder.

(b) India’s Supreme Court subsequently made statements admonishing Modi’s conduct during investigations of other major terrorist attacks; one of these Supreme Court investigations in particular has confirmed that Gujarat’s state police deliberately framed innocent Muslims. Considering that the police were under the overall jurisdiction of Modi’s right-hand-man & fellow RSS member Amit Shah (Gujarat’s Home Minister at the time), Modi himself is now directly implicated in framing Muslims for what increasingly appear to be “false-flag” terrorist attacks, including the Godhra train attack in 2002 (the latter ostensibly triggered the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat). Details via the Indian Express here and here, via Firstpost here, and via the Times of India here.

(c) This backs up a BBC article from 2002: At the time, the BBC had obtained a leaked report from British officials in India, which stated that the Gujarat riots were “ethnic cleansing”, state-sponsored, planned months in advance, and that amicable relations between Hindus and Muslims would be impossible while Modi is in power.

14. HINDU RELIGIOUS LEADERS CONDEMN NARENDRA MODI:

In May 2014, the religious leaders at several major traditional Hindu monasteries belonging to the Advaita school of Hindu philosophy refused to endorse Narendra Modi’s candidacy for Prime Minister. Details via the Hindustan Times here. One of the Hindu leaders stated: “For me Modi is a grave sinner who has committed the highest sin in Hinduism, which is murder. He has blood on his hands and face.” The monasteries are in Dwarka and Puri in India, two of the seven holiest cities for Hindus. Dwarka itself is in Gujarat.

15. VARANASI: SUPPORT FOR NARENDRA MODI FROM THE LOCAL RSS AND BRAHMIN PRIESTS:

In conjunction with his campaign to become India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi also successfully campaigned to be the minister of Varanasi/Banares, Hinduism’s most important holy city. Modi’s election campaign was heavily supported by both the RSS in Varanasi and Brahmin priests at the city’s primary Hindu temple. Modi also publicly performed religious rituals in the area after his election victory (as filmed by both domestic and international news media).

(a) During the campaign, one of the local RSS leaders told journalists:

“We can all see it now, that it is happening — the change is happening…..What we believe is that we are the most advanced race in the entire world. We will convert the whole world into the Aryan race: So we have decided.”

The RSS is also planning to ban academic books that contradict the organisation’s own distorted claims about Hinduism, change Indian history books that depict Mughal emperors such as Akbar in a positive light, and so on.

Details via the New York Times here.

(b) Similarly, one of the aforementioned Brahmin priests told journalists that he “lamented the fact that all of India’s Muslims had not been sent to Pakistan in 1947; he spoke of the need, when Modi came to power, of one decisive riot that would show Muslims their place”. Details via OPEN magazine here.

(c) Regarding the India-wide campaign as a whole, extensive details on the highly-organised joint strategic coordination between Modi’s team and the RSS are available via NDTV here. This includes RSS-backed think-tanks who have organised meetings between Modi and Indian business leaders.

16. GROUPS LOBBYING FOR NARENDRA MODI IN THE WEST:

In April 2014, The Economic Times published an article exposing the organisations & individuals heavily involved in publicly whitewashing Narendra Modi’s image here in the West, especially the downplaying of Modi’s Nazism/RSS connection and extremist “Hindu Nationalist” agenda. Groups in the US have been particularly active in lobbying on Modi’s behalf, as follows:

(a) United States: Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a right-wing think-tank; former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill (now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations); the Washington-based lobbying giant APCO Worldwide (which already has a history of assisting dictators accused of major crimes against humanity); Indian Americans for Freedom; the RSS-linked Hindu American Foundation (HAF); and the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC). Coordinating these efforts is the BJP’s Overseas Affairs cell and Overseas Friends of BJP.

(b) United Kingdom: According to the Economic Times article, “a major behind-the-scenes operator in these efforts has been UK-based lawyer Manoj Ladwa. Ladwa, who hails from Porbandar in Gujarat and is also the convener of Europe India Chambers of Commerce, is credited by party insiders as having laid much of the groundwork that led to the UK’s change of heart about Modi”. Ladwa was present in India on the day of the election results and was interviewed by NDTV journalist Barkha Dutt.

(c) As confirmed by the Financial Times, the UK’s Channel 4 News, Outlook India, the human rights group Awaaz, Frontline, and most recently by The Independent and Scroll.in, the RSS has been using front organisations in the US and UK to promote its propaganda in those countries and simultaneously raise millions of dollars to fund its activities in India.

Readers here in the West may be interested to know that multiple British citizens of Indian origin were also murdered by the rioters; a number of British Members of Parliament have correspondingly confirmed their support for prosecuting Modi and continuing to ban him from the UK “until he has been brought to account for his actions in fomenting racial and religious violence and bigotry”.

A case can be made for simultaneously prosecuting US and UK-based organisations & individuals if they are actually aware that Modi is indeed guilty of the various allegations regarding the Gujarat 2002 riots and yet are politically lobbying on Modi’s behalf, especially if they are also knowingly downplaying the RSS’ real ideology and any associated hidden agenda which Modi may have. Such US and UK-based organisations & individuals should also be prosecuted if Modi is responsible for any future atrocities and/or religious persecution in India.

17. US AND UK GOVERNMENTS’ PUBLIC RESPONSE TO NARENDRA MODI’S ELECTION VICTORY:

Prior to the election results, the US State Department publicly announced that the Obama Administration would “work very closely” with Modi if he won the election, including meetings in the US; it also mentioned that “there is more room to keep growing” what is now nearly $100 billion of India-US trade. (As confirmed by The Hindu, high-level trade meetings are already being planned, and the US-India Business Council has stated that bilateral trade could reach $500 billion over the next decade). Senior Western politicians including US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and British opposition leader Ed Miliband have subsequently publicly congratulated Modi. President Obama and PM David Cameron have also invited Modi to visit Washington and London respectively (details via ABC News here, The Guardian here and Reuters here.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time after World War Two that the White House and Downing Street have extended congratulations & invitations to any foreign leaders ideologically affiliated with Nazism (it is the equivalent of rolling out the red carpet for a senior member of Golden Dawn if he had risen to power in Greece). However, it is presently unclear if Western governments have simultaneously stipulated “good behaviour” conditions for any amicable diplomatic and business relations with Modi’s regime, particularly if the former are actually pursuing a policy of “containment”. It is also presently unclear if the American and British administrations are aware of the full nature of the regime’s ideological background, especially considering the lobbying & whitewashing activities of the various groups discussed in #16.

18. DIRECT LINKS BETWEEN NARENDRA MODI & RSS AND US “TEA PARTY”:

VICE magazine has made a series of astonishing claims about extensive recent involvement between America’s “Tea Party” Republican politicians (including Newt Gingrich) and Narendra Modi. The article includes video footage. It also claims that RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat has been involved in these meetings. Extensive details here.

19. DIRECT LINKS BETWEEN NARENDRA MODI AND SILICON VALLEY:

Apparently Narendra Modi has also been heavily involved with senior figures & organisations in Silicon Valley, including attempts by the latter to rig India’s recent election. Meetings between Modi and major Wall Street banks to discuss investment in India were also arranged. Extensive details here.

20. BJP “STRATEGIC ACTION COMMITTEE” CHAIRMAN SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY: “UNITE THE HINDUS UNDER ONE FLAG AND DIVIDE THE MUSLIMS”:

Subramanian Swamy has most recently been the head of the BJP’s Strategic Action Committee for the 2014 elections; he was appointed by Rajnath Singh, now India’s Home Minister. Swamy is on record as stating that the BJP’s overall election campaign strategy should be “Unite the Hindus under one flag and divide the Muslims”.

Swamy used to give lectures on economics at Harvard University, but he was effectively fired in 2011 after he wrote a virulently anti-Muslim and anti-Christian article for an Indian news website. Swami made a series of strawman claims about the alleged “goals” of what he collectively describes as “Islamic terrorism” along with the alleged behaviour of Indian Muslims, and proposed a series of “solutions” targeting Indian non-Hindus en masse (especially Muslims and Christians) along with neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Regular readers will notice that many of Swamy’s statements are identical to the RSS’ core ideology, particularly the propaganda writings of the Hitler-supporting RSS co-founder M.S. Golwalkar. Swamy’s article is available online in full here. Key extracts:

Muslims, though a minority in India, still have fanatics who dare to lead violent attacks against Hindus. Other Muslims of India just lump it, sulk or rejoice….[…]…. Muslims cannot be divided into ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ because the former just capitulate when confronted.

…..Therefore we need today a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. In this response, Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do, I will not believe, unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors are Hindus…..But still, if any Muslim does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj, which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).

[…..]

Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.

Strategy: Remove Article 370, and re-settle ex-servicemen in the Valley. Create Panun Kashmir for Hindu Pandit community. Look or create opportunity to take over PoK [Pakistan-occupied Kashmir]. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to struggle for independence.

Goal 2: Blast our temples and kill Hindu devotees.

Strategy: Remove the [Mughal-era mosque] masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple complex [in Varanasi], and 300 others in other sites as a tit-for-tat.

Goal 3: Make India into Darul Islam.

Strategy: Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra [Hindu State] in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus. Re-name India as Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus.

Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.

Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hindu religion to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare caste is not birth-based but code of discipline based. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, northern one-third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle the illegal migrants.

Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.

Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset (see my new book Hindutva and National Renaissance, Haranand, 2010).

CNN-IBN journalist Karan Thapar subsequently interviewed Subramanian Swamy and meticulously challenged him about the statements in his article; video footage and an English transcript of the full interview is available via CNN-IBN here. It is worth reading in full, not least because of Swamy’s own behaviour and ridiculous “arguments” during the interview. Also note that Swamy made the following claims: (a) he was “proud” of his views, (b) his overall agenda explicitly targets Christians as well as Muslims, and (c) he has “already won over the RSS heart long ago”.

Incidentally, many readers will notice that Modi’s regime has already started the process of implementing a number of the “strategies” mentioned above.

Subramanian Swamy’s personal Twitter account is full of similar nonsense. Furthermore, Swamy is also now on record as claiming that “being gay is a mental disorder” and subsequently addressing homophobic insults to people who objected to his statements.

Despite the abhorrent nature of Swamy’s views, the Wall Street Journal has recently continued to give him a platform, albeit about economic issues, without publicly disclosing any of the information above.

21. NARENDRA MODI AND SHIV SENA’S BAL THACKERAY:

The BJP’s oldest ally is the Far-Right Maharashtrian organisation “Shiv Sena” (“Army of Shiva” or “Army of God”), which is now also a political party; approximately 80% of Shiv Sena politicians currently have criminal charges against them, the largest percentage of any Indian political party. The Shiv Sena has repeatedly been involved in fomenting sectarian conflict and violence, first targeting Gujaratis and South Indians, and subsequently Muslims (most notoriously during the 1992-1993 Bombay riots).

According to a formal judicial investigation in India, “the immediate causes of the Bombay Riots were: (a) the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya [the Shiv Sena was one of the Hindu Nationalist groups responsible for its destruction], (b) the aggravation of Muslim sentiments by the Hindus with their celebration rallies and (c) the insensitive and harsh approach of the police while handling the protesting mobs which initially were not violent.” The investigation also confirmed that writings in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna (“Confrontation”) played a major role in inciting sectarian conflict and anti-Muslim violence during the riots; Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray himself had repeatedly written inflammatory polemics in Saamna, describing “what should be done to the Muslims”.

The Shiv Sena has repeatedly been responsible for threats and violence targeting Sikhs too; furthermore, the organisation has also recently been agitating against migrants from the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

During the recent election campaign, minutes before Narendra Modi arrived at a rally, a Shiv Sena leader told the large assembled crowd that “Narendra Modi will destroy Pakistan within 6 months if he comes to power”, although the organisation subsequently distanced itself from his statements.

It turns out that Narendra Modi himself was directly involved with the Shiv Sena’s late leader, the Hitler-idolising Bal Thackeray (1926-2012); one of the photos in the image at the top of this article shows Modi bowing to Thackeray, and the two men even jointly addressed large rallies where Thackeray made virulently anti-Muslim statements to the audience.

Examples of Thackeray’s statements are available as follows:

(a) Via the Indian Express: In 2007, Thackeray jointly addressed a rally alongside Narendra Modi. During Thackeray’s 20-minute speech, he said that his dream was to create “a Hindustan of the Hindus” so that “we can bring Islam in this country down to its knees”.

(b) Via India Today: In 1984, Thackeray gave an interview in which he stated:

”[Muslims] are spreading like a cancer and should be operated on like a cancer. The…country should be saved from the Muslims and the police should support them [Hindu Maha Sangh] in their struggle just like the police in Punjab were sympathetic to the Khalistanis.”

“If you take [Hitler’s autobiography] Mein Kampf and if you remove the word Jew and put in the word Muslim, that is what I believe in.”

In 1993, Thackeray gave an interview to TIME magazine in which he stated:

“There is nothing wrong if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany”.

(d) Via CNN-IBN: In 2008, Thackeray promoted “Hindu terrorism” involving Hindu “suicide bomb squads to protect India and Hindus”.

(e) Via NDTV: Accused of being dictatorial and a demagogue, Thackeray stated:

“I am a great admirer of Hitler, and I am not ashamed to say so ! I do not say that I agree with all the methods he employed, but he was a wonderful organiser and orator, and I feel that he and I have several things in common.….What India really needs is a dictator who will rule benevolently, but with an iron hand.”

(f) Via the New India Press: Thackeray is on record as making the following statements:

“Yes, I am a dictator. It is a Hitler that is needed in India today.’’

[After Thackeray was asked in a television programme whether he wanted to be the Hitler of Bombay] ”Do not underestimate me, I am [the Hitler] of the whole of Maharashtra and want to be of whole of India.’’

(g) Via the New York Times: The article quotes Thackeray describing himself as the “Hitler of Bombay”. The article also includes multiple extracts from previous NYT articles describing Thackeray and the Shiv Sena’s role in sectarian conflict and particularly anti-Muslim carnage.

(h) Via Outlook India: Includes a 1996 video interview of Thackeray describing himself as “the Hitler of Maharashtra”, denigrating democracy and praising dictatorship.

(i) Via Outlook India: English transcript of Thackeray’s 1996 interview when he repeatedly denigrated democracy.

(j) Via TIME magazine: In 1993, Thackeray stated: “If a holy war is to begin because of me, so be it”.

22. NARENDRA MODI AND SAVARKAR, FOUNDER OF “HINDU NATIONALISM”:

Self-described “Hindu Nationalist” Narendra Modi has repeatedly praised V.D. Savarkar (1883-1966), most recently tweeting: “We remember and salute his tireless efforts towards the regeneration of our motherland” and adding “Veer Savarkar is remembered as a prolific writer, thinker, poet and a social reformer. Leaving for parliament to pay tributes to Veer Savarkar.” Around the same time last year (the anniversary of Savarkar’s birth), Modi described Savarkar as a “heroic man”, a “worshipper of weapons” and a “worshipper of sacred texts”. An article on Modi’s own website also includes audio footage of a speech of Modi “going back almost two decades, where he talks about the phenomenon Veer Savarkar was”.

Savarkar coined the term “Hinduvta”, ie. Hindu Nationalism. He wrote numerous propaganda texts promoting this ideology and has been one of its most influential figures. Savarkar was an atheist, which possibly explains why “Hindu Nationalism” is stripped of Hinduism’s admirable pluralistic religious ideals and ethical principles.

Savarkar is on record as repeatedly endorsing Hitler, the Nazis and their treatment of religious minorities. Quoting directly from Savarkar’s own propaganda writings and speeches, numerous examples of his statements were comprehensively documented in the previous article in this series. In summary:

(a) Savarkar praised Hitler, Nazism and Fascism;
(b) Savarkar praised expansionist Nazi Germany and multiple aspects of Nazi ideology;
(c) Savarkar made statements duplicating the Nazi concept of a “Fatherland”;
(d) Savarkar explicitly compared Indian Hindus and Muslims to Germans and Jews;
(e) Savarkar explicitly stated that Indian Muslims should be treated the way Nazis treated German Jews;
(f) Savarkar explicitly advocated the “Two Nation Theory” and reiterated the parallels with Germany and Jews;
(g) Savarkar denigrated historical Hindu warrior codes of chivalry towards women and explicitly stated that Hindu men should rape Muslim women;
(h) Savarkar continued denigrating historical Hindu chivalry towards Muslim women and explicitly stated that Muslim women should be forcibly converted to Hinduism;
(i) Savarkar denigrated Buddhism’s principle of universal brotherhood;
(j) Savarkar promoted collaboration with the British colonial authorities and refused to support the mainstream Indian independence movement;
(k) Savarkar was one of the main ringleaders of the cabal that murdered Mahatma Gandhi, as confirmed by a formal judicial investigation in India during the 1960s.

23. NARENDRA MODI’S ELECTION MANIFESTO AND INDIAN NON-HINDUS:

The BJP’s 2014 election manifesto discussed Indian civilisation from ancient times to the modern period, explicitly referring to various examples in glowing terms, but it completely avoided mentioning anything from the 12th century to the 18th century (as the historian William Dalrymple also recently noted in the New Statesman). The entire era was eradicated from the manifesto’s sweeping historical summary, as though Muslims didn’t even exist, let alone contribute anything positive to Indian culture and civilisation during that extensive period.

Furthermore, the manifesto explicitly stated that persecuted Hindus overseas would be welcome to seek refuge in India, but no mention was made of similar privileges for persecuted Indians overseas from other religious backgrounds — a fact that Narendra Modi increasingly tied himself up into knots to “explain” when Indian professional journalist Arnab Goswami questioned him about the matter prior to the election. Full English transcript of the interview via Outlook India here.

24. MAYA KODNANI: SENIOR MINISTER IN NARENDRA MODI’S GUJARAT STATE GOVERNMENT, MURDEROUS RINGLEADER DURING 2002 RIOTS:

Maya Kodnani, a qualified medical doctor with a further diploma in Gynaecology and Obstetrics, was a senior minister in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state government until 2009 (the perverse irony of Kodnani’s specific medical qualifications will become clear to readers shortly). In 2012, Kodnani was convicted of orchestrating one of the main massacres during the Gujarat 2002 riots. Along with 31 other perpetrators, Kodnani was found guilty of “murder, attempt to murder, conspiracy, spreading enmity and communal [sectarian] hatred and unlawful assembly”. Survivors and witnesses had repeatedly identified Kodnani as one of the ringleaders; she had even driven around and exhorted rioters to kill as many people as possible, and was seen handing out swords to Hindus, again exhorting them to kill Muslims. It is worth noting that Gujarat’s state police, under the primary jurisdiction of Modi’s right-hand-man Amit Shah, had initially refused to prosecute Kodnani, citing “lack of evidence”.

As documented in the English transcript via Outlook India here, Arnab Goswami, the Indian professional journalist mentioned in #23, also recently questioned Modi about the issue of Maya Kodnani. Modi worked closely with her, appointing Kodnani as “Minister for Women and Child Development” in 2007 (bear in mind that Kodnani was one of the ringleaders of a riot that had included mass rapes). There are only two plausible explanations: Either Kodnani managed to successfully trick Modi for years, or Modi approved of her actions during the 2002 riots (possibly including being complicit himself). Modi became noticeably aggressive and evasive when the journalist attempted to question him about Kodnani, including excusing his own promotion of Kodnani to the state Cabinet by repeatedly insisting that “she was not facing any charges at the time”, and even accusing the journalist of having “so much filth on [his] mind”.

As Firstpost observes, not only did Modi make Kodnani a senior minister in 2007 despite the fact that it was already well-known that she had been one of the ringleaders of the mass-murdering, mass-raping riot in February 2002, but Modi had even given Kodnani the ticket to run for election in that very same riot-ravaged constituency in December 2002.

25. “TEN MORE YEARS”:

Narendra Modi is now on record as claiming that it will take “10 years” for him to “transform India”. As detailed in #7 above, the RSS is planning to consolidate and expand its position in India for the next 50 years at the very least.

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FURTHER INFORMATION:

1. I will repeat my statements from the previous two articles in this series: The information in this article should not be exploited by anyone to denigrate India & Indians in general, Hindus en masse or the religion of Hinduism as a whole; both as a Sikh and as an individual, I have a zero-tolerance policy towards racial & religious bigotry, regardless of the source and regardless of the target.

2. Senior academics such as Princeton University’s Dr Christophe Jaffrelot (who has written extensively about “Hindutva”/”Hindu Nationalism” and the RSS) have stated that Narendra Modi will switch to the extremist Hindu Nationalism agenda as “Plan B” if his alleged “development” plans ultimately fail.

Hypothetically, it is also possible that Modi and the RSS will not necessarily wait that long if they think they can get away with it domestically and internationally — particularly if (a) they decide to engineer some kind of “incident” in order to justify their subsequent actions [see #13 in the main article above, regarding the extremely incriminating information recently released by India’s Supreme Court and National Investigations Agency], or (b) there is a genuine Islamist terrorist attack and/or sectarian violence in India and/or a deterioration in relations with Pakistan which they can exploit.

Hopefully none of these events will occur.

Realpolitik may force Modi to moderate his stance and restrain his actions now that he is actually Prime Minister (especially due to foreign trade/diplomatic ties and international scrutiny). Nevertheless, legitimate concerns will remain if Modi does not resign from the RSS, denounce the organisation and condemn its ideology; the feasibility of this is of course complicated by the fact that the BJP openly describes the RSS as its “ideological fountainhead”.

3. The RSS, Bal Thackeray and Hindu Nationalists’ admiration for Hitler and Nazism is particularly ironic (not to mention extremely stupid) considering what the racist white supremacist Hitler actually thought of Indians, including the British colonial rule of India.

Furthermore, Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state government was exposed as enthusiastically promoting Hitler in school textbooks, including the glorification of Nazism.

Indian readers who are unaware of the full historical facts or (for whatever reason) misguidedly admire Hitler are very strongly advised to read Cambridge Professor Sir Richard J. Evans’ acclaimed Third Reich trilogy: The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. Professor Evans is one of the world’s leading experts on the period; his historical trilogy is widely (and justifiably) regarded as the best, most comprehensive overview of Hitler, Nazism, the Third Reich and the Holocaust ever written. The books’ focus on the dangers of dictatorship & extreme nationalism should prove extremely educational, especially the focus on the consequences of large-scale cultural and institutional bigotry towards (and ultimately persecution of) religious minorities; the moral implications for members of majority populations who are either indifferent or actively complicit should also prove enlightening.

4. For interested readers and for future reference, contact details for the International Criminal Court at The Hague are available here. Details on atrocities which the ICC defines as crimes against humanity are available here. It is also worth noting that the United Nations Security Council has adopted multiple resolutions during the past decade in which it has reaffirmed its responsibility to protect people from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; furthermore, one of these resolutions also states that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute crimes against humanity or “a constitutive act with respect to genocide”.

5. The Twitter address of US President Barack Obama is @BarackObama. President Obama also uses the official White House twitter account: @WhiteHouse.

The Twitter address of British Prime Minister David Cameron is @Number10gov.

6. Contact details for the US Department of State are available here. The US Department of State’s Twitter address is @StateDept.

7. Contact details for US Secretary of State John Kerry are available here. John Kerry’s Twitter address is @JohnKerry.

8. Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison and Republican Congressman Joe Pitts have been leading American bipartisan efforts to oppose Narendra Modi. They have jointly introduced a bipartisan Congressional resolution urging the US Government to continue denying a visa to Modi on the grounds of religious freedom violations. They have also jointly introduced a bipartisan Congressional resolution on the protection of religious minorities in India, which includes calls for specific actions to be taken by the US State Department; the complete text of the resolution is available in PDF form online here.

Congressman Keith Ellison’s Twitter address is @keithellison. Congressman Joe Pitts’s Twitter address is @RepJoePitts.

9. Contact details for the British Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office are available here. The FCO’s Twitter address is @foreignoffice.

10. The Twitter address of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister for Faith and Communities, is @SayeedaWarsi.

11. Contact details for the British Government’s Home Office are available here. The Home Office’s Twitter address is @ukhomeoffice.

12. The Twitter address of Keith Vaz, Chairman of the British Government’s Home Affairs Select Committee, is @Keith_VazMP.