[News] Indians rise up against their liar-in-chief

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/opinion/indians-rise-up-against-their-liar-in-chief/ 



  Indians rise up against their liar-in-chief

By Vijay Prashad <https://www.asiatimes.com/author/vijay-prashad/> - 
December 24, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every day and in every part of India, hundreds of thousands of people, 
mainly young people, have been gathering on the streets to express their 
anger at the government. Their protests, like the protests in Chile, 
emerged out of one particular grievance but then cascaded outward 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ple-protesting-against-caa-nrc/ckxsl4/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>. 
They are angry at the government’s attempt to define citizenship in a 
narrow and bigoted way; but they are also angry at the arrogance of the 
government and at the disastrous way in which it has managed the economy.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to the Bharatiya Janata 
Party, a far-right political party that has intimate roots to India’s 
fascist currents. The BJP’s parent organization, the Rashtriya 
Swayamsevak Sangh 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/catalog-product-view-id-21401/ckxsl6/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>, 
was born in 1925 with close links to Italian fascism. Both the BJP and 
the RSS believe in a doctrine known as Hindutva, which is in essence the 
promotion of the supremacy of Hindus over other communities inside India.

The animus of the BJP and the RSS is directed against India’s Muslims. 
The way that the BJP government defined the Citizenship Amendment Act 
(CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) appears directly to 
target Muslims, and to define Indian nationality in opposition to Muslims.


        Anti-Muslim

Given India’s large population, minority communities are also 
considerably large. India’s Muslim population, for instance, though only 
15% of the total, amounts to more than 200 million people. The country 
with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia, and Pakistan and India 
are in essence tied for second place; India’s Muslims by themselves 
would form the eighth-largest country in the world after Brazil and 
ahead of Nigeria.

The demographic make-up of India necessitates that the country’s laws 
and traditions accommodate all of India’s cultural and social diversity. 
The fascistic viewpoint of the BJP and the RSS is not only immoral and 
unjust, but is simply impractical.

The upsurge of the population against this immoral anti-Muslim posture 
of the government has surprised the BJP leadership. Modi and his cabinet 
have become used to pushing a hard-right agenda. When Modi was the chief 
minister of Gujarat, he oversaw a pogrom in 2002 that killed more than 
2,000 Muslims and disfranchised many thousands more. The BJP’s agenda 
was clear then; it did not take the new bills to show the face of the 
BJP’s animosity to India’s diverse social world. That was apparent in 2002.

Indeed, it was apparent in 1992, when Modi’s seniors in the BJP and the 
RSS egged on mobs to destroy a 16th-century mosque in the town of 
Ayodhya (on its ruins the Indian Supreme Court this year allowed a 
temple to be built, a vindication of the hooliganism of 1992). Since 
2014, when Modi became the prime minister, violence against Muslims and 
against oppressed castes (Dalits) has become routine 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/modinama-html----store-in/ckxsl8/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>.


        Borders

For historical reasons, the borders dividing India from Bangladesh and 
Myanmar have been porous. These are lines drawn by colonial rulers that 
made no sense to the people whose lives were divided by them. People 
cross these borders as they have for centuries, but they also cross them 
to flee oppression. Because of the violence perpetrated by the 
government in Myanmar, more than a million people of the Rohingya 
community have fled the country for Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, 
Malaysia and Thailand. The BJP’s Amit Shah – who is India’s home 
minister – went after the 40,000 Rohingya refugees who are in India. He 
wanted them deported to Myanmar.

In September 2018, at an election rally in West Bengal state, Shah spoke 
of the migrants from Bangladesh in the most horrid language. 
“Infiltrators are like termites in the soil of Bengal,” he said 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/to-bay-of-bengal-idUSKCN1RO1YD/ckxslb/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>. 
“A Bharatiya Janata Party government will pick up infiltrators one by 
one and throw them into the Bay of Bengal.” This language of “termites” 
and “infiltrators” is deeply provocative, and very dangerous.

In Assam, an Indian state that borders Bangladesh, the government 
constructed detention or concentration camps where it held those whom it 
wanted to deport. An Amnesty International report 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/V-OMqjvaxSsqZZ9TSxc7RvUU2-view/ckxsld/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> from 
November 2018 provides extensive documentation of the existence of these 
camps, and of their illegality. The report quotes BJP official 
Shiladitya Dev’s remarks about migrants being involved in “criminal 
activities,” and Modi’s comment that people are entering Assam from 
Bangladesh daily.

“The underlying hyperbolic,” the report says, “seems to be aimed at 
dehumanizing Bengali-speaking people.” The Indian Supreme Court also 
intervened to ask 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/on-Centres-Balancing-Act-Assam/ckxslg/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> for 
the detainees to be released.


        Lies

Some clever people have set up a website called Modi Lies 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2019-12-23/ckxslj/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>. 
For good reason the makers of the site have not given their names or 
said anything about themselves. A new report 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nalists-in-india-2014-2019-pdf/ckxsll/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> shows 
that during Modi’s tenure there have been about 200 documented cases of 
attacks on journalists who tell the truth about his government; 40 
journalists – at least – were killed in this period.

During the current protests, a correspondent for The Hindu newspaper, 
Omar Rashid, was picked up by police 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ed-by-cops-article30361909-ece/ckxsln/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> in 
Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state governed by the BJP. 
Rashid was beaten and threatened with violence, including being told 
that the police would tear off his beard. This is the climate for 
journalists. It is also chilling to hear the volume of lies from the 
government. It’s hard to be a journalist when you are confronted by a 
deluge of untruths. No wonder the Modi Lies site is anonymous.

This past Sunday, Modi gave a 90-minute speech 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/watch-v-AgElqM9Op-Y/ckxslq/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> at 
a public rally in Delhi. He repeated a volley of lies, but two of them 
are worth highlighting:

  * *There is no National Register of Citizens.* In his speech, Modi
    said that since his government took power in 2014, “there has never
    been a discussion on this NRC.” However, the BJP’s election
    manifesto from this year says
    <https://go.ind.media/e/546932/en-manifesto2019/ckxsls/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>,
    “We will expeditiously complete the National Register of Citizens
    process in these areas on priority” (page 11). On December 9, Modi’s
    home minister told Parliament, “Rest assured, NRC will be brought in
    soon.”
  * *There are no detention camps.* Modi said, “Rumors of detention
    centers raised by Congress and urban Naxals” are lies. The term
    “urban Naxals” is used by the BJP to disparage protests and
    dissenters; it refers to Maoists, and is used against anyone who
    disagrees with the government. Here, as we have seen, Amnesty
    International did a report on these camps, and the Indian Supreme
    Court has intervened regarding them. There are news reports of camps
    not only in Assam, but of government action to build camps in the
    states of Maharashtra
    <https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-for-illegal-immigrants-report/ckxslv/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY> and
    Karnataka
    <https://go.ind.media/e/546932/igrants-40-km-bengaluru-109992/ckxslx/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>.

These are flagrant lies. Neither photographic evidence (as with the 
camps) nor transcripts of actual statements (as with Amit Shah’s 
statement in Parliament) are sufficient to undermine the prime 
minister’s fantastic statements.

But Modi is not alone here. He has good company 
<https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/article/indias-modi-pulls-a-trump-on-citizenship-law/> 
in Donald Trump, in Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Jair Bolsonaro, in Boris 
Johnson and in a host of other world leaders for whom lying is part of 
their agenda. Arguments based on reason are not their mode of 
conversation; their mode is emotion. They speak in an emotional 
register, in which they claim to be victims of a large conspiracy 
(“urban Naxals”) and in which they reach into the grievances and 
humiliations of sections of the population and pretend that their 
hideous policies are a solution.

The BJP has deepened the economic crisis and has deepened further the 
employment problem; it has offered no solutions. But, like Trump, Modi 
has suggested that if he can tackle the migration problem, he will both 
secure the country and produce jobs – it is the migrants who are 
terrorists and job-stealers. This kind of thought process does not need 
to be logical. It needs to be emotional.

To prove that Modi has lied does not solve anything. It is not the lie 
that is important to his form of communication. What is important is the 
simplicity of his emotional statement: If I can build the wall, says 
Trump, I can get you jobs; if I can corral Muslims, says Modi, I can get 
you jobs.

The lying is maddening. It is what will continue to bring more and more 
people to the streets. They can see the lie. Outside the circles of 
those who are on the streets, however, are millions of people who accept 
the lie. It is not that they are being hoodwinked, but that the lie is a 
salve against the hopelessness of their social condition. They believe 
the lie because the lie suggests the possibility of a future for 
populations who have been taught to think of themselves as the majority 
in a society.

Other possibilities need to be presented to undercut the emotional 
resonance of the lie. To say that Modi or Trump is lying is not enough. 
What alternative is there before those who want the lie, what other 
argument is there to provide hope against the stagnation of the present? 
Those on the streets have begun to construct that hope. It will form a 
utopia, one that has to undermine the emotional power of the Lie of the 
Strongman.

The BJP’s political power is depleting. In March 2018, it ruled 13 of 
India’s 29 states, and was in a coalition government in six other 
states; now, after recent defeats in Maharashtra and in Jharkhand, the 
BJP rules only eight states and is in alliance in eight more. This 
uprising has further weakened the BJP.

/This article was produced by/ Globetrotter 
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-/ckxslz/526583433?h=crDx90O2IjjIBznWuDf-XegxwYQYVTO1hzas9gf-NGY>, 
/a project of the Independent Media Institute, which provided it to Asia 
Times./


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