by VINOD MUBAYI
As the horrific, genocidal slaughter of the civilian population continues in Gaza, with almost 10,000 killed including thousands of small children at the time of writing, public demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of people have taken place in all major cities in the world in favor of a ceasefire and a stop to the wanton killing by aerial bombardment along with the total siege of Gaza imposed by Israel. These rallies have occurred in Washington, DC, New York and London in the heart of the US and UK, countries that are the main backers of the Israeli government and in the case of the US its major arms supplier and financial patron for many decades. In the UN General Assembly, a large majority, 120 countries, that included even members of NATO such as France and Belgium, voted in favor of a ceasefire. Only 14 countries, including the US and Israel and a few Pacific Island countries, voted no.
Shamefully, India, which had consistently supported Palestine for 65 years abstained among a group of 45 countries including several Western European countries. Modi’s shameful alliance with the war criminal Netanyahu is responsible for this act of cowardice that will go down in history as a black mark against India. Indeed, in stark contrast to the early leaders of independent India like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who generally supported the oppressed and deprived countries and people in international politics, the Hindu right-wing, symbolized by the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh or RSS and its electoral arm the BJP, have consistently supported the oppressors.
In the late 1930s when the idea of a Hindu Rashtra was gelling in the minds of the leaders of the RSS, its Supreme Leader Guru Golwalkar praised the Nazi regime and the way it was treating its Jewish minority. Golwalkar glorified the actions of Hitler and his cohorts in what later became known as the Holocaust in the following words:
“German Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”
Golwalkar, MS, “We Or Our Nationhood Defined”, Nagpur, 1939, p. 45.
In this instance, Golwalkar and RSS stood firmly on the side of the oppressor.
Another prominent Hindutva leader, “Veer” Savarkar, also supported the Nazi anti-Jewish pogroms by stating “A Nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in Germany? They being in minority were driven out from Germany.” In October 1938, he suggested that the same solution be applied to the Muslim minority in India.
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