Tuesday 5 March 2013

Caste of Mind

Why did the Government line itself up for last night's Lords defeat over caste-based discrimination? How can it conceivably have been opposed to a ban on such a thing?

The Hindu nationalist BJP is now about as likely as the Congress Party to be the principal party of government in India. Within and allied to the BJP are violently fascistic elements such as the Shiv Sena and those who massacre Christians in Orissa. Leadership is passing to Narendra Modi, who is heavily implicated in Gujarat's anti-Muslim pogroms in recent years.

Modi is banned from entering the EU, the US, and other relatively civilised places. However, last November and on David Cameron's express instructions, he was paid court by the British High Commissioner to India.

Well, of course he was. If, say, apartheid South Africa, or Ian Smith's Rhodesia, or Mussolini's Italy at least before the alliance with Hitler, were still in existence, then it would be an object of uncritical neoconservative adoration and obedience.

Hindutva, the ideological roots of which are entirely Western, would be treated in exactly the same way; where it is already being attempted, on the backs of hundreds of millions of people, it increasingly is being so treated.

5 comments:

  1. This happened on the same day: http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Inside-story-why-Wharton-cancelled-Modi-s-lecture/Article1-1021161.aspx Cameron looks "nasty party" to oppose redefining "Race" to cover Caste, when at the same time he is re-defining marriage. It appears to be about swing voters here too, besides indian trade deals. Indian/Tamils are Tory target swing voters. True about 500k are dalit, but 1mill are not, so probably thinks it would be negative return.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The proudly Brahmin Virendra Sharma was one of the Labour abstainers on the marriage vote.

    If this really is Cameron's motive, and I fully suspect that you are right, then he is going to have to do an awful lot better than this.

    And then there are his ties to the decidedly anti-Hindu and anti-Tamil regime in Sri Lanka.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's Alok Sharma. Virendra Sharma is Labour.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Apologies for mix up the Sharma, was working from memory. deleted post.

    ReplyDelete