Domestic Politics Dominate US South Asia Policy
"America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam," declared Barak Hussein Obama in a June, 2009 speech in Cairo that was billed as his administration's attempt to mend fences with the Muslim world. The speech was received enthusiastically by many Muslims, and it raised hopes of fundamental changes in US policies in the Middle East and South Asia.
Just a few months later, however, considerable doubts are growing in the Muslim world about President Obama's resolve to effectively and evenhandedly address the long-standing territorial disputes confronting the peoples of the Middle East and South Asia. The hopes for course correction in US policy on Kashmir and Palestine are fading fast with the Obama administration's dramatic retreat on both fronts.
After repeatedly emphasizing that Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan is inextricably linked to Afghanistan crisis, President Barack Obama backtracked on the need for resolving Kashmir when the issue was dropped from special envoy Richard Holbrooke's mandate under pressure from Indian lobby in Washington. According to Washington Post, India managed to "prune the portfolio of the Obama administration's top envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke -- basically eliminating the contested region of Kashmir from his job description".
In run-up to the last US presidential elections, it was widely known that Obama believes the situation in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. “The most important thing we’re going to have to do with respect to Afghanistan, is actually deal with Pakistan,” candidate Obama said in an interview on October 30, 2008 with MSNBC. “And we’ve got work with the newly elected government there in a coherent way that says, terrorism is now a threat to you. Extremism is a threat to you. We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.”
Obama reiterated his emphasis on Kashmir in a December 7, 2008 interview on NBC's Meet The Press. He said, "...as I've said before, we can't continue to look at Afghanistan in isolation. We have to see it as a part of a regional problem that includes Pakistan, includes India, includes Kashmir, includes Iran. And part of the kind of foreign policy I want to shape is one in which we have tough, direct diplomacy combined with more effective military operations, focused on what is the number one threat against U.S. interests and U.S. lives. And that's al-Qaeda and, and, and their various affiliates, and we are going to go after them fiercely in the years to come."
The story of betrayal is not much different in the Middle East where the Obama administration first insisted on total freeze on Israeli settlements only to retreat after tremendous pressure from the powerful Israel lobby in Washington. In fact, Hillary Clinton not only gave in to the Israel lobby, but described as "unprecedented" Bibi Netanyahu's hollow assurance to "restrain" settlement growth. The immediate effect of this about-face in US policy has been the decision by President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestinian Authority to not seek re-election, a clear signal that the Mr. Abbas, considered a "reliable partner" for peace, feels betrayed by the Americans. This betrayal will only serve the strengthen the extremists on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.
Unfortunately, the domestic politics in Washington have trumped good, well-thought policies and plans by the well-meaning Obama team in both of the extremely dangerous regions of the world.
It is well known that the India caucus, consisting of pro-India members who receive campaign contributions from the Indian lobby, is one of the largest and most active in the US Congress. To ensure their loyalty, the Indian lobby is using both carrots and sticks. Following the Israel lobby's hardball methods, USINPAC helps raise funds for those who support pro-India policies, and threatens to unseat legislators such as Indiana Rep. Dan Burton who are sometimes critical of India. Since its inception, USINPAC has launched campaigns to neutralize Rep. Burton and others who do not do the bidding of the Indian lobby in US Congress. In 2005, USINPAC organized support in Congress to successfully prevent Rep. Burton from becoming the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee. In 2003, USINPAC organized a similar campaign to successfully prevent Rep. Burton from becoming the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee that had jurisdiction over India.
Pakistani Ambassador Hussain Haqqani recently told a US publication that the Indo-U.S. relationship is robust and multifaceted. He mentioned that 26 members of the Obama administration are Indian-Americans. Some of them, such as Sonal Shah, have had known ties with the extremist Hindu Sangh Parivar. An Indian-American Rajiv Shah has been named by Obama as the head of US Agency for International Development (US AID). When confirmed, Mr. Shah will be deeply involved in handling aid to Pakistan under Kerry-Lugar bill.
Taha Gaya of Pakistan's nascent Washington lobby PAL-C explained to the BBC recently that on some issues the Indian and Pakistani lobbies had sometimes cooperated. But the Mumbai attacks last year changed all that.
"When Mumbai happened," Gaya told the BBC, "we saw a resurgence of participation from the older generation of Indian-Americans - those who had grown up in India" - who, he claimed, reverted to what he described as "the old more negative dynamic".
There is inevitable conflict between the two lobbies. The recent Kerry-Lugar aid bill for Pakistan is a good example of this conflict. Pro-India groups lobbied hard for all sorts of conditions to be included in the bill.
Sanjay Puri of USINPAC, the India Lobby, was part of this campaign. This was not about supporting India's interests, he claims, and neither was it motivated by hostility towards Pakistan.
It's clear that Indian-Americans have taken a page from the successful Jewish-American playbook. Not only are they active in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill, they are also being increasingly seen in the powerful financial services sector, high profile US media, major US universities, Washington think-tanks and other places which shape US public opinion and policies. And they are exercising rising influence on South Asia policy in the same way that the Jewish-Americans have on the US position in the Middle East conflict. The rising Indian influence in Washington and close multi-faceted collaboration between India and US are seen as a big threat by Pakistanis.
Indian lobby is collaborating with the American corporate interests and the pro-Israel Jewish-American lobby to gain power in the United States, and influence policies and legislation in Washington. On US policies toward Pakistan, the Indian lobby has already proved its power twice recently: the passage of US-India nukes deal and Kerry-Lugar aid strings. And the Indian lobby's strength is only growing.
Given the growing strength of both Indian and Israeli lobbies in Washington, the lack of progress on Palestine and Kashmir is going to significantly hurt all three nations in the India-Israel-US axis. The Americans will not be able to play the role of an honest broker in either region, unless the Israelis and Indians themselves recognize the consequences of their misguided and self-destructive policies in the Middle East and South Asia. At the same time, the growing Mid-East like US pre-occupation with the major unresolved and festering issues in two regions of the world is going to hurt America's interests abroad, with China seizing the initiative in a rapidly changing world.
Related Links:
Haqqani on US-India Ties
Holbrook "AfPak" Mission
India Lobby's Success in Holbrook Mandate
Obama Ignores Sonal Shah's VHP Ties
Obama on Kashmir
India Washington Lobby Emulates AIPAC
China's Checkbook Diplomacy
Pakistanis See US as Biggest Threat
US-India Nuclear Deal
India-Israel-US Axis
Just a few months later, however, considerable doubts are growing in the Muslim world about President Obama's resolve to effectively and evenhandedly address the long-standing territorial disputes confronting the peoples of the Middle East and South Asia. The hopes for course correction in US policy on Kashmir and Palestine are fading fast with the Obama administration's dramatic retreat on both fronts.
After repeatedly emphasizing that Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan is inextricably linked to Afghanistan crisis, President Barack Obama backtracked on the need for resolving Kashmir when the issue was dropped from special envoy Richard Holbrooke's mandate under pressure from Indian lobby in Washington. According to Washington Post, India managed to "prune the portfolio of the Obama administration's top envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke -- basically eliminating the contested region of Kashmir from his job description".
In run-up to the last US presidential elections, it was widely known that Obama believes the situation in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. “The most important thing we’re going to have to do with respect to Afghanistan, is actually deal with Pakistan,” candidate Obama said in an interview on October 30, 2008 with MSNBC. “And we’ve got work with the newly elected government there in a coherent way that says, terrorism is now a threat to you. Extremism is a threat to you. We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.”
Obama reiterated his emphasis on Kashmir in a December 7, 2008 interview on NBC's Meet The Press. He said, "...as I've said before, we can't continue to look at Afghanistan in isolation. We have to see it as a part of a regional problem that includes Pakistan, includes India, includes Kashmir, includes Iran. And part of the kind of foreign policy I want to shape is one in which we have tough, direct diplomacy combined with more effective military operations, focused on what is the number one threat against U.S. interests and U.S. lives. And that's al-Qaeda and, and, and their various affiliates, and we are going to go after them fiercely in the years to come."
The story of betrayal is not much different in the Middle East where the Obama administration first insisted on total freeze on Israeli settlements only to retreat after tremendous pressure from the powerful Israel lobby in Washington. In fact, Hillary Clinton not only gave in to the Israel lobby, but described as "unprecedented" Bibi Netanyahu's hollow assurance to "restrain" settlement growth. The immediate effect of this about-face in US policy has been the decision by President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestinian Authority to not seek re-election, a clear signal that the Mr. Abbas, considered a "reliable partner" for peace, feels betrayed by the Americans. This betrayal will only serve the strengthen the extremists on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.
Unfortunately, the domestic politics in Washington have trumped good, well-thought policies and plans by the well-meaning Obama team in both of the extremely dangerous regions of the world.
It is well known that the India caucus, consisting of pro-India members who receive campaign contributions from the Indian lobby, is one of the largest and most active in the US Congress. To ensure their loyalty, the Indian lobby is using both carrots and sticks. Following the Israel lobby's hardball methods, USINPAC helps raise funds for those who support pro-India policies, and threatens to unseat legislators such as Indiana Rep. Dan Burton who are sometimes critical of India. Since its inception, USINPAC has launched campaigns to neutralize Rep. Burton and others who do not do the bidding of the Indian lobby in US Congress. In 2005, USINPAC organized support in Congress to successfully prevent Rep. Burton from becoming the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee. In 2003, USINPAC organized a similar campaign to successfully prevent Rep. Burton from becoming the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee that had jurisdiction over India.
Pakistani Ambassador Hussain Haqqani recently told a US publication that the Indo-U.S. relationship is robust and multifaceted. He mentioned that 26 members of the Obama administration are Indian-Americans. Some of them, such as Sonal Shah, have had known ties with the extremist Hindu Sangh Parivar. An Indian-American Rajiv Shah has been named by Obama as the head of US Agency for International Development (US AID). When confirmed, Mr. Shah will be deeply involved in handling aid to Pakistan under Kerry-Lugar bill.
Taha Gaya of Pakistan's nascent Washington lobby PAL-C explained to the BBC recently that on some issues the Indian and Pakistani lobbies had sometimes cooperated. But the Mumbai attacks last year changed all that.
"When Mumbai happened," Gaya told the BBC, "we saw a resurgence of participation from the older generation of Indian-Americans - those who had grown up in India" - who, he claimed, reverted to what he described as "the old more negative dynamic".
There is inevitable conflict between the two lobbies. The recent Kerry-Lugar aid bill for Pakistan is a good example of this conflict. Pro-India groups lobbied hard for all sorts of conditions to be included in the bill.
Sanjay Puri of USINPAC, the India Lobby, was part of this campaign. This was not about supporting India's interests, he claims, and neither was it motivated by hostility towards Pakistan.
It's clear that Indian-Americans have taken a page from the successful Jewish-American playbook. Not only are they active in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill, they are also being increasingly seen in the powerful financial services sector, high profile US media, major US universities, Washington think-tanks and other places which shape US public opinion and policies. And they are exercising rising influence on South Asia policy in the same way that the Jewish-Americans have on the US position in the Middle East conflict. The rising Indian influence in Washington and close multi-faceted collaboration between India and US are seen as a big threat by Pakistanis.
Indian lobby is collaborating with the American corporate interests and the pro-Israel Jewish-American lobby to gain power in the United States, and influence policies and legislation in Washington. On US policies toward Pakistan, the Indian lobby has already proved its power twice recently: the passage of US-India nukes deal and Kerry-Lugar aid strings. And the Indian lobby's strength is only growing.
Given the growing strength of both Indian and Israeli lobbies in Washington, the lack of progress on Palestine and Kashmir is going to significantly hurt all three nations in the India-Israel-US axis. The Americans will not be able to play the role of an honest broker in either region, unless the Israelis and Indians themselves recognize the consequences of their misguided and self-destructive policies in the Middle East and South Asia. At the same time, the growing Mid-East like US pre-occupation with the major unresolved and festering issues in two regions of the world is going to hurt America's interests abroad, with China seizing the initiative in a rapidly changing world.
Related Links:
Haqqani on US-India Ties
Holbrook "AfPak" Mission
India Lobby's Success in Holbrook Mandate
Obama Ignores Sonal Shah's VHP Ties
Obama on Kashmir
India Washington Lobby Emulates AIPAC
China's Checkbook Diplomacy
Pakistanis See US as Biggest Threat
US-India Nuclear Deal
India-Israel-US Axis
Comments
“You also have to weigh … [that] if we didn’t support this government, the government could fall to Pakistani radicals,” he said.
The larger issue, Mr. Bolton said, is preventing terrorists from wresting control of the country’s 60 to 100 nuclear weapons that could deploy to the U.S. Turning the admittedly chaotic Pakistan-U.S. relations into something colder could prove a sizable security issue, he said.
http://wtim.es/1bdtxK9 via @washtimes
“We have received urgent appeal for assistance from Kashmir Government. We would be disposed to give favorable consideration to such, request from any friendly State. Kashmir’s Northern frontiers, as you are aware, run in common with those of three countries, Afghanistan, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China. Security of Kashmir, which must depend upon control of internal tranquility and existence of Stable Government, is vital to security of India especially since part of Southern boundary of Kashmir and India are common. Helping Kashmir, therefore, is an obligation of national interest to India. We are giving urgent consideration to question as to what assistance we can give to State to defend itself.
…..
I should like to make it clear that question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the State to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or state must be decided in accordance with wishes of people and we adhere to this view, it is quite clear. I have thought it desirable to inform you of situation because of its threat of international complications.”
(Excerpts of telegram dated 26 October 1947 from Jawaharlal Nehru to the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee)
“I should like to make it clear that the question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the state to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or state must be decided in accordance with wishes of people and we adhere to this view.”
(Telegram 402 Primin-2227 dated 27th October, 1947 to PM of Pakistan repeating telegram addressed to PM of UK)
“Kashmir’s accession to India was accepted by us at the request of the Maharaja’s government and the most numerously representative popular organization in the state which is predominantly Muslim. Even then it was accepted on condition that as soon as law and order had been restored, the people of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to accede to either Dominion then.”
(Telegram No. 255 dated 31 October, 1947, PM Nehru’s telegram to PM of Pakistan)
“…our assurance that we shall withdraw our troops from Kashmir as soon as peace and order is restored and leave the decision regarding the future of the State to the people of the State is not merely a promise to your Government but also to the people of Kashmir and to the world.”
(Jawahar Lal Nehru, Telegram No. 25, October 31, 1947, to Liaqat Ali Khan, PM of Pakistan)
“We have decided to accept this accession and to send troops by air, but we made a condition that the accession would have to be considered by the people of Kashmir later when peace and order were established. We were anxious not to finalize anything in a moment of crisis, and without the fullest opportunity to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It was for them ultimately to decide.
…
And here let me make clear that it has been our policy all along that where there is a dispute about the accession of a state to either dominion, the decision must be made by the people of the state. It was in accordance with this policy that we added a proviso to the Instrument of Accession of Kashmir.
http://www.jajeertalkies.in/self-determination-for-the-people-of-kashmir/
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.778650
Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo asserted on Tuesday that the Israeli occupation and the conflict with the Palestinians are the only existential threat facing Israel.
“Israel has chosen not to choose, hoping the conflict will resolve itself – perhaps the Arabs will disappear, maybe some cosmic miracle will happen,” Pardo told a conference at the Netanya Academic College. “One day we will become a binational state because it will be impossible to untie the Gordian knot between the two peoples. That is not the way to decide.”
Pardo stated: “Israel has one existential threat. It is a ticking time bomb. We chose to stick our head in the sand, creating a variety of external threats. An almost identical number of Jews and Muslims reside between the sea and the Jordan. The non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria live under occupation. This is Israel's definition, not mine. The law in this territory is as we have made it, a military justice system that is subject to the authority of the Israel Defense Forces.”
He said that despite the full withdrawal from Gaza, responsibility for the territory remains in Israel’s hands. “Israel is responsible for the humanitarian situation, and this is the place with the biggest problem in the world today,” he said.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.778650
http://archive.jsonline.com/news/opinion/election-donors-vs-voters-g675tj0-175510321.html/
It's both comical and depressing at the same time. One commercial says Mitt Romney will raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000 followed immediately by an ad claiming President Barack Obama's plan will raise taxes on the same people by $5,000. The next ad tells us that Romney wants to throw Grandma out in the cold by dismantling Medicare. Two minutes later, an earnest voice informs us that Obama has "stolen" $700 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare and its government death panels.
After almost two years of nonstop recall elections, we in Wisconsin have grown so inured to political advertising that it amounts to little more than irritating background noise. But to someone from the 41 non-battleground states, the incessant politicking must be pretty astonishing.
Maybe people from California or Texas might feel as though they are being taken for granted when they see the amounts being spent in Wisconsin. Perhaps they're jealous at all the special attention being lavished on Wisconsin by the next president. But what does all that spending really amount to?
Yes, it is easy to tune out the ads and to roll your eyes when one comes on every 15 minutes, but there is something very disturbing going on beneath all this that isn't so amusing. Because today's politicians rely so heavily on television advertising and believe that they absolutely have to have it to win their elections, raising money has become their primary mission.
It's why Gov. Scott Walker spent so much time out of state at big-ticket fundraisers before his recall election, all the while claiming the recall effort was being driven by out-of-state interests. It didn't matter how hypocritical it looked; money was what he needed to win the recall election.
It's why Romney spent so little time campaigning even as his campaign was faltering after the Republican National Convention; he apparently believed fundraising was more important than campaign rallies in front of actual voters.
It's why Obama still attends as many Wall Street-sponsored fundraisers as he can, even as he simultaneously campaigns on the evils of the unregulated greed of the big banks. It's all money all the time.
What gets lost in this sea of campaign cash is the average voter's voice. If Romney thinks he absolutely has to win Wisconsin to get elected, he should be practically living here, telling us what he is going to do to make our lives better. Instead, he's in Texas, which he will carry by 15 points because that's where the big campaign donors live.
So the next time you hear an ad telling you that Obama has destroyed the country or that Romney's only purpose in life is to make the lives of the super-rich even cushier, remember what you aren't hearing is what the candidate is going to do for us here in Wisconsin.
Remember that the commercial cost a lot of money to produce and put on the air. Remember that the candidate got that money from someone who has his own agenda and it probably isn't the same as yours. Remember the candidate's loyalty that may have been bought by the donor.
Then remember how a democracy is supposed to work, and let's all try to figure out a way to get back to that.
By Ashok Swain, Prof of Peace and Conflict Resolution, Upsala University, Sweden
The rise of BJP is not only a severe threat to India’s accommodative and power-sharing politics but the peace and stability of the country as such. The Hindu chauvinist forces are exploiting religion to ferment communal oppression and violence in India, and these forces of injustice and bigotry are patronized by India’s large and powerful diaspora community.
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This identity has not been limited to being cultural only but has also gradually become colored with the political ideology of Hindutva. ‘Hinduness’ or Hindutva can be described as a vision of India based on a “cultural nationalism” rooted in the Hindu majoritarian religious customs and traditions. The size and influence of the Hindu diaspora have leaped in the last two decades. As the Indian community in the West comes of age both in terms of numbers and financial capabilities, its political role has also evolved significantly.
The origin of the Hindu Diaspora stems from the British and French colonial masters exporting indentured labor to their other colonies such as Fiji, Trinidad, and Jamaica, to the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique and the Dutch colony of Surinam. After the end of the 2nd World War and the country’s independence from colonial rule, Indians provided both labor and professional help with the reconstruction of war-torn Europe.
From the 1960s, Indians started migrating to non-European developed countries due to their demand for well-educated and professionally trained workforce. However, the most significant wave of Indian migration came in the very end years of last century, with the movement of software engineers and other professionals to western countries – especially the United States.
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The contribution of the Hindu diaspora is not anymore limited to domestic economic growth; it is also playing a significant role in supporting Indian foreign policy. The Indian government is taking regular help of its diaspora to promote its interest in the foreign capitals, mainly to counter Pakistan and China’s diplomatic offensives. The Hindu diaspora, whose financial muscle has become quite impressive, strives hard to get its social and political agenda to India. Its involvement has grown beyond doing some philanthropic activities in and around their villages of origin.
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The goal of rescuing their ‘Hindu’ nation from ‘minority-appeasing’ secular forces, the diaspora is no longer isolated from what is happening in India in the current era of increased global connectivity and communication. Through personal connections, travel and the use of information technology, the Hindu diaspora is actively engaged in India’s political processes.
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In recent years, they lobbied hard to give an image makeover to Narendra Modi’s reputation after the Gujarat riot of 2002, in which 2000 Muslims were killed under his watch, and he was denied a visa to travel to the United States and the E.U. – almost till his election as Prime Minister. Modi after coming to power has continued to nurture his diaspora constituency. In each and every foreign visit, one pressing engagement is to hold meetings addressing the diaspora. He has initiated the process that Indians living abroad will be able to vote in Indian elections by proxy.
In a country buffeted by a festering conflict with the Palestinians, increasingly open warfare with Iran and a prime minister facing indictment on corruption charges, the election has been surprisingly preoccupied with the question of just how Jewish — and whose idea of Jewish — the Jewish state should be.
“I have nothing against the ultra-Orthodox, but they should get what they deserve according to their size,” said Lior Amiel, 49, a businessman who was out shopping in Ramat Hasharon. “Currently, I’m funding their lifestyle.”
This election was supposed to be a simple do-over, a quick retake to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a second chance to form a government and his opponents another shot at running him out of office.
Instead it has become what Yohanan Plesner, president of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, calls “a critical campaign for the trajectory of the country.”
Blame Avigdor Lieberman, the right-wing secular politician who forced the new election by refusing to join Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition with the ultra-Orthodox. The hill Mr. Lieberman chose to fight on was a new law that would eliminate the wholesale exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men to serve in the military.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers wanted to water it down. Mr. Lieberman refused to compromise.
It may have been a ploy to grab attention, but it struck a nerve. Almost overnight, Mr. Lieberman’s support doubled, and he became an unlikely hero to liberals.
For years, says Jason Pearlman, a veteran right-wing political operative, the two main axes of Israeli politics, religion and the Palestinians, had been “zip-tied” together. Mr. Netanyahu’s longtime coalition was just such a merger — right-wing voters, who favored a hard line toward the Palestinians, and the ultra-Orthodox, who promised a bloc vote in exchange for concessions on religious issues.
“What Lieberman did was to snap those zip-ties, popping the axes back apart,” Mr. Pearlman said.
Secular and liberal leaders from the left and center responded by effectively joining forces with the right-wing Mr. Lieberman against the prime minister’s ultra-Orthodox and religious-nationalist allies.
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Most of them favor annexation of the West Bank, which would nearly extinguish the possibility of a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, and many support building a Third Temple on the site of the Dome of the Rock, an affront to a Muslim holy site that could set off a cataclysmic holy war.
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More than 70 percent of the population wants the Sabbath “to be a more free day” and favors civil marriage and other changes that the ultra-Orthodox have blocked, said Gilad Malach, a scholar who studies the them.
Mr. Netanyahu has desperately tried to change the subject, repeatedly bringing security threats to the fore.
“For him, these issues are ticking bombs,” said Mr. Plesner, of the Israel Democracy Institute. “He’s on a collision course with his own voters. The majority of Likud voters are secular or traditional, and do not support the ultra-Orthodox demands.”
But opponents have learned never to write off Mr. Netanyahu, and he could still make the numbers work. The recent fiery attacks on the ultra-Orthodox offer just the threat to rally the base and potentially bring back into the fold voters who might otherwise stray to more modern parties.
Adobe, Britain and Chanel are all run by people with Indian roots
https://www.economist.com/international/2023/06/12/indias-diaspora-is-bigger-and-more-influential-than-any-in-history
The Indian government, by contrast, has been—at least until Mr Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) took over—filled with people whose view of the world had been at least partly shaped by an education in the West. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, studied at Cambridge. Mr Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, studied at both Oxford and Cambridge.
India’s claims to be a democratic country steeped in liberal values help its diaspora integrate more readily in the West. The diaspora then binds India to the West in turn. The most stunning example of this emerged in 2008, when America signed an agreement that, in effect, recognised India as a nuclear power, despite its never having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (along with Pakistan and Israel). Lobbying and fundraising by Indian-Americans helped push the deal through America’s Congress.
The Indian diaspora gets involved in politics back in India, too. Ahead of the 2014 general election, when Mr Modi first swept to power, one estimate suggests more than 8,000 overseas Indians from Britain and America flew to India to join his campaign. Many more used text messages and social media to turn out bjp votes from afar. They contributed unknown sums of money to the campaign.
Under Mr Modi, India’s ties to the West have been tested. In a bid to reassert its status as a non-aligned power, India has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and stocked up on cheap Russian gas and fertiliser. Government officials spew nationalist rhetoric that pleases right-wing Hindu hotheads. And liberal freedoms are under attack. In March Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, was disqualified from parliament on a spurious defamation charge after an Indian court convicted him of criminal defamation. Meanwhile journalists are harassed and their offices raided by the authorities.
Overseas Indians help ensure that neither India nor the West gives up on the other. Mr Modi knows he cannot afford to lose their support and that forcing hyphenated Indians to pick sides is out of the question. At a time when China and its friends want to face down a world order set by its rivals, it is vital for the West to keep India on side. Despite its backsliding, India remains invaluable—much like its migrants.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook
By Aparna Gopalan
EVERY AUGUST, the township of Edison, New Jersey—where one in five residents is of Indian origin—holds a parade to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In 2022, a long line of floats rolled through the streets, decked out in images of Hindu deities and colorful advertisements for local businesses. People cheered from the sidelines or joined the cavalcade, dancing to pulsing Bollywood music. In the middle of the procession came another kind of vehicle: A wheel loader, which looks like a small bulldozer, rumbled along the route bearing an image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aloft in its bucket.
For South Asian Muslims, the meaning of the addition was hard to miss. A few months earlier, during the month of Ramadan, Indian government officials had sent bulldozers into Delhi’s Muslim neighborhoods, where they damaged a mosque and leveled homes and storefronts. The Washington Post called the bulldozer “a polarizing symbol of state power under Narendra Modi,” whose ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly enacting a program of Hindu supremacy and Muslim subjugation. In the weeks after the parade, one Muslim resident of Edison, who is of Indian origin, told The New York Times that he understood the bulldozer much as Jews would a swastika or Black Americans would a Klansman’s hood. Its inclusion underscored the parade’s other nods to the ideology known as Hindutva, which seeks to transform India into an ethnonationalist Hindu state. The event’s grand marshal was the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, who flew in from India. Other invitees were affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international arm of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary force Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi is a longtime member.
Initially, New Jersey politicians—including Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez and Edison mayor Sam Joshi—decried the parade. In September, the Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee, a local wing of the New Jersey Democratic Party, passed a resolution condemning the event and calling for a crackdown on what they described as Hindu nationalist groups’ operations in the state. The resolution alleged ties between several Hindu organizations—including a prominent Washington, DC-based advocacy group called the Hindu American Foundation (HAF)—and the RSS, and called on the FBI and CIA to “step up [their] research on foreign hate groups that have domestic branches with tax-exempt status.” It also called for the revision of anti-terrorism laws to “address foreign violent extremists with speaking engagements in the US.”
But soon after the Teaneck resolution was adopted, nearly 60 Hindu American groups released a statement that shifted the conversation away from rising Hindu nationalism toward fears of Hindu victimization. The signatories—who made no mention of the wheel loader, Modi, or the RSS—claimed that the “hate-filled” Teaneck resolution “[demonizes] the entire Hindu American community.” A couple of weeks later, Hindu activists sponsored ten billboards in north and central New Jersey calling on Democrats to “Stop bigotry against Hindu Americans.” Before long, lawmakers began to denounce the resolution. Teaneck mayor James Dunleavy and New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer came out against the “anti-Hindu” Teaneck resolution; the New Jersey Democratic State Committee soon followed. In the coming weeks, Booker and Menendez both released statements condemning “anti-Hinduism.”
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook
The Teaneck incident is one of many in which Hindu groups have worked to silence criticism of Hindu nationalism by decrying it as anti-Hindu or “Hinduphobic.” In 2013 and again in 2020, a coalition of such groups used allegations of “anti-Hindu bias” to prevent the passage of House Resolutions 417 and 745, both of which criticized Modi. In 2020, when progressives objected to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s decision to appoint Amit Jani, a close supporter of Modi, as his director for Asian American Pacific Islander outreach, the HAF denounced these criticisms as an example of “Hinduphobia.” (Biden retained Jani despite the protests.) “The Hindu right wants to distract from India’s catastrophic human rights record,” Audrey Truschke, a South Asia historian at Rutgers University, told Jewish Currents. “So there’s a lot of value in portraying Hindus as victimized people.”
“The Hindu right wants to distract from India’s catastrophic human rights record. So there’s a lot of value in portraying Hindus as victimized people.”
The HAF, the most influential Hindu American advocacy group, has spearheaded a number of these campaigns. Since its founding in 2003, the organization has been known for its work on Hindu civil rights issues; it has pushed for workplace religious protections, school holidays during Hindu festivals, and immigration reform for skilled professionals. But in recent years, it has increasingly sought to raise awareness about what it describes as a new form of anti-Hindu bias. HAF executive director Suhag Shukla told Jewish Currents in an email that while anti-Hindu sentiment in the US used to be animated by “anti-immigrant xenophobia or rooted in colorism, rather than specifically being about Hindus or Hinduism,” recent manifestations of anti-Hindu hatred are “paralleling political tensions arising in India,” and include “terminology and tropes” that originate in sectarian conflict in South Asia.
“What the HAF is trying to do is to conflate Hindutva with Hinduism—to prove that a criticism of Hindutva is an attack on Hinduism,” said the Kashmiri American journalist Raqib Hameed Naik. “There is no doubt that the HAF subscribes to the ideology of Hindutva.” Asked to respond, HAF senior communications director Mat McDermott repeatedly called the allegation “nonsense.” “HAF does not, either officially or unofficially, ‘subscribe’ to Hindutva as an ideology,” he wrote in an email to Jewish Currents.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook
Faced with rising scrutiny over India’s worsening human rights record, Hindu groups have used “the same playbook and even sometimes the same terms” as Israel-advocacy groups, “copy-pasted from the Zionist context,” said Nikhil Mandalaparthy of the anti-Hindutva group Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Hindu groups have especially taken note of their Jewish counterparts’ recent efforts to codify a definition of antisemitism—the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition—that places much criticism of Israel out-of-bounds, asserting that claims like “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” constitute examples of anti-Jewish bigotry. In April 2021, the Rutgers University chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC)—which the RSS has referred to as its “torch bearers abroad”—held a conference to generate a “robust working definition” of the term “Hinduphobia.” (The HSC did not respond to questions.) In an email to Jewish Currents, the HAF’s Shukla wrote that the effort was “similar to members of the Jewish community coalescing around the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.” The resulting definition refers to Hinduphobia as “a set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviors towards Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and Hindus that may manifest as prejudice, fear, or hatred.” Its examples of Hinduphobic speech—which were reiterated at an event in December by HAF managing director Samir Kalra—include “calling for the destruction and dissolution of Hinduism” and using ethnic slurs (Kalra cited examples like “cow-piss drinker,” “dothead,” and “heathen”). Although the definition never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples also include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity, such as the Teaneck Democrats’ resolution.
Although the Rutgers definition of Hinduphobia never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook
Faced with rising scrutiny over India’s worsening human rights record, Hindu groups have used “the same playbook and even sometimes the same terms” as Israel-advocacy groups, “copy-pasted from the Zionist context,” said Nikhil Mandalaparthy of the anti-Hindutva group Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Hindu groups have especially taken note of their Jewish counterparts’ recent efforts to codify a definition of antisemitism—the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition—that places much criticism of Israel out-of-bounds, asserting that claims like “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” constitute examples of anti-Jewish bigotry. In April 2021, the Rutgers University chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC)—which the RSS has referred to as its “torch bearers abroad”—held a conference to generate a “robust working definition” of the term “Hinduphobia.” (The HSC did not respond to questions.) In an email to Jewish Currents, the HAF’s Shukla wrote that the effort was “similar to members of the Jewish community coalescing around the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.” The resulting definition refers to Hinduphobia as “a set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviors towards Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and Hindus that may manifest as prejudice, fear, or hatred.” Its examples of Hinduphobic speech—which were reiterated at an event in December by HAF managing director Samir Kalra—include “calling for the destruction and dissolution of Hinduism” and using ethnic slurs (Kalra cited examples like “cow-piss drinker,” “dothead,” and “heathen”). Although the definition never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples also include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity, such as the Teaneck Democrats’ resolution.
Although the Rutgers definition of Hinduphobia never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity.
On the HAF’s website, a glossary of Hinduphobic terms includes the word “Hindutvavadi,” or “someone who espouses or promotes Hindutva,” which the HAF says is “intended to demonize Hindu Americans and delegitimize the causes they advocate for.” It also contains the epithet “Bhakt,” or “devotee,” slang in India for die-hard supporters of the BJP, which the glossary says “presents Hindus through a simplistic, political binary of for or against,” adding that the term’s use “in conjunction with portrayals of Narendra Modi and his political party as supremacist or fascist” are “particularly egregious.” Naik called this logic “absurd”: “How can one take a criticism of a hateful ideology and conflate that with a religion?”
Despite such contradictions, the concept of Hinduphobia has enjoyed a meteoric rise in usage in the wake of the Rutgers conference, gaining ground against terms like “anti-Hindu” or “anti-India” in the US. “I saw it grow over the past three or so years,” said anti-Hindutva advocate and journalist Pieter Friedrich, whose activism has recently been labeled “Hinduphobic” by the HSS and its affiliates.