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Friday March 29, 2024

Residual democracies, wages of hate

By Aijaz Zaka Syed
March 03, 2017

Feed a monster and there is every danger of you ending up as its fodder. What makes the killing of yet another Indian techie in the US last week – the second such tragedy in February – even more tragic and ironic is the fact that Indian Americans have perhaps been the most passionate of Donald Trump’s supporters. The community played a significant role in his groundbreaking election.

As the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported ahead of the US elections in November, both the Indian American diaspora and Hindutva groups in India strongly rooted for Trump. The Hindu Republican Coalition and Indian Americans began pushing for the billionaire businessman very early in the campaign. Shalabh Kumar, the founder of the Hindu Republican Coalition, has been one of Trump’s biggest donors and has been lobbying for the job of the US ambassador to India.

According to The Hindu, while Indian Americans like most immigrants and ethnic minorities, have always supported the Democrats, in this election they broke away from that tradition and voted for Trump in large numbers. While Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s close Muslim aide, was seen as one possible reason for turning away her Indian voters, most Indian Americans saw in Trump a ‘strong, politically incorrect leader’ a la Narendra Modi and an ally against ‘Islamic terrorism’ and Pakistan.

The Times noted with particular interest the elaborate ‘yagnas’ that were performed by the Hindu Sena in India seeking divine blessings for Trump’s success. The paper also highlighted the striking similarities of style, rhetoric and approach between the US leader and Prime Minister Modi. Steve Bannon, the chief strategist of the US president, admires the Indian leader and calls him ‘Indian Reagan’.

“It may be pure coincidence that some of Trump’s words channel the nationalistic and, some argue, anti-Muslim sentiments that Modi stoked as he rose to power. But it is certainly not coincidental that many of Trump’s biggest Hindu supporters are also some of Modi’s most ardent backers,” wrote Jeremy W Peters in the Times.

Even when Trump unveiled his now infamous ‘Muslim ban’, many in the Indian media continued to cheer for him. Some even suggested taking a leaf out of Trump’s book to throw out India’s own ‘illegals’ and ‘Bangladeshis’ from the north-east.

Given this mutual admiration between the right in the US and India, it’s understandable if many fellow Indians are bewildered by these rising attacks targeting the Indian Americans. The Indian media has noted with dismay that Trump has not condemned the attacks on Indians. (He has condemned the killing in his State of the Union address to Congress).

Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Information Minister Venkaiah Naidu urged the US leader to condemn the Kansas City shooting in the strongest terms saying it was important for the “US government to restore the faith of ethnic minorities in the country”.

One couldn’t agree more with Singh, the solitary voice of moderation in his party. But why this selective outrage? Why did the home minister not proffer the same advice to his own boss when such killings happened less than 30 kilometres from Delhi? We are yet to hear Singh, PM Modi or any other minister condemn the killing of Mohammed Akhlaq or many others like him. Instead of bringing the killers to justice, central ministers like Mahesh Sharma visited Dadri to express solidarity with his killers and even tried to justify it in the name of ‘Hindu sentiments’.

Indeed, the BJP staged a ‘mahapanchayat’ in the village to demand a case against Akhlaq’s family for ‘cow killing’ and no eyebrows were raised in Delhi or in the media. By the way, even though the shaken wife of the slain Indian techie, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, stated in the US that they had moved out of their ancestral village because they thought they did not belong there, this isn’t true. Ashfaq’s family moved out because it couldn’t take all the threats and hate anymore.

There cannot be a greater tragedy for a society when some of its members conclude they do not belong there, especially for a multicultural society which has diversity as its chief strength. It takes a lifetime to make a home and ages to build a vibrant, civil society and a united nation. Hate and bigotry can destroy it all in no time. As Edmund Burke would famously argue, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

We have seen this happen again and again in what my friend Prof Badri Raina calls ‘residual democracies’.          Indeed, it has been happening all around the world.        Intolerance is on the march everywhere.  The rabid right is rising across Europe, the land of Magna Carta.

The European Union, which with its open borders and celebration of democracy and human rights once inspired nations around the world, faces an uncertain future as it gets assailed by the same dark forces. Instead of looking to the future, in the 21st century, we are walking back in time. Rather than nipping evil in the bud, we are flirting with it, and allowing it to mutate into a monster.

All those shocked and bewildered at Trump’s actions like the Muslim ban, mass deportations of immigrants, the wall with Mexico and the plan to multiply the US’s nuclear arsenal cannot complain now. The man is doing precisely what he had promised. At least, he cannot be accused of being a typical politician. As for the liberals, they did not do enough to stop his march to the White House.

The same is true of our own answer to Trump. Notwithstanding his eventful past and his worldview, many good, reasonable Indians, tired of the numerous scams and the lack of direction under the Congress, voted for the ‘strong leader’ hoping he would carry everyone along.

And to be fair to PM Modi, he has certainly given a more effective and responsive administration. Corruption in high places is down. But all that good work is undermined and undone by his deafening silence in the face of the antics of his Parivar, many of them honourable members of his cabinet.

When men in power and authority remain silent in the face of such actions, they send an unmistakable message of complicity. This is why even as Modi preaches ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’, his party leaders and ministers go about their business as usual, spreading sweetness and light. Look at the Ramjas College episode in Delhi and how a 20-year old student, daughter of a Kargil martyr, is facing abuse and threats – some from central ministers – for standing up for her beliefs.

And this is why there is a sudden, visible surge in attacks on immigrants in the US. Because men like the Navy veteran who killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla believe that they have the highest sanction for their despicable actions.

Therefore it’s important for leaders to not only speak out against hate and intolerance in clear, unequivocal terms but to also show with their actions that they do not sanction or tolerate it. Hate hurts us all whether we are white, black or brown. For many in the US, all immigrants and brown-skinned people are ‘Muslims.’

India and the US – the nations of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr – should be leading the world with their celebration of diversity and tolerance, not by accepting hate and bigotry.        

The writer is an award winning journalist.

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com