Zionists’ Failed Attempt To Recruit Gandhi

by ShelleyKasli

A recent book brings to light the Israeli lobby’s failed attempt to recruit India’s apostle of peace for its cause.

The Palestinian issue, more than any other wrangle in modern times, has huge overtones of a morality play and as an Indian living in this region, I have always been intrigued about what Gandhi, that apostle of peace and a strong advocate of morality above all in politics, had to say on this troubling matter. And all this takes on a special meaning on the eve of the upcoming historic debate and the move to table a resolution to recognise Palestine as a state in the UN.

A recent bestseller, Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld, an old veteran at the New York Times fortunately throws light not only on Gandhi and the Palestinian question but adds a little spice as well. A clandestine effort is made to sly recruit the Mahatma for the Jewish cause and Lelyveld gives us a ring-side view of this duplicity in his brilliant book.

Nehru was the more vocal supporter of the Arab cause and the primary spokesman in all matters concerning foreign affairs, despite this, it was Gandhi who was approached furtively. The motive was more than the obvious, Gandhi the bigger name and the apostle of passive resistance. The reason for this was both straight forward as well devious.

The secret agent sent by the Political Department of the Jewish agency in Palestine was chosen specifically because he was a close buddy of Gandhi. Gandhi was not aware of this double dealing by his close friend of four decades, a relationship stretching back to his early struggles in South Africa.

Hermann Kallenbach is in an intriguing figure. He and Gandhi made a strange combination and Lelyveld examines this odd friendship in some great detail to the extent that some Indians have taken offence. Needlessly, because Gandhi comes out squeaky clean despite superficial evidence of a damning kind. But all this is takes us away from our main story.

Kallenbach was one among the many supporters of Gandhi of European stock. These converts to the cause were prepared to give up everything to follow their master, whether to work in the commune in Sotuh Africa called Tolstoy farm or in Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmadabad, India. In this gallery of disciples, Kallenbach is undoubtedly one of the more fascinating characters. A wrestler, bodybuilder and macho, yet a devotee of a man who preached non-violence.

They part ways after South Africa, Gandhi back in India, involved in the much bigger struggles while Kallenbach runs into trouble in South Arica, when he is interned as an enemy alien after breakout of the First World War. The two do not meet for more than 30 years until 1937-38 and the express purpose of this meeting is to recruit Gandhi for the Zionist cause. The Mahatma of course is blissfully unaware of these intrigues.

Before we move ahead, we need to step back to Gandhi and his Khilafat movement. The 1920s was the high tide of Gandhi’s herculean efforts to win favour with Muslims, who until then were sceptical and even dismissive of his ways. Non-violence, use of overly Hindu idioms in his fight against the British, his garb of a yogi — all of these made this seer a little suspect in their eyes. The Khilafat movement was Gandhi’s way to show solidarity with his brother Muslims.

This agitation was primarily to shore up support to Turkey and to force the Western powers from disbanding the Ottoman Sultan. A quixotic attempt at best, a brazenly opportunistic tactic at worst, this was not Gandhi at his best and shows yet again that he was not above breaking his own rules to win friends. No doubt to the anti-Gandhi crusaders all this is more grist to the mill that he was a hypocrite and humbug.

Lelyveld’s book, though, should put to rest these accusations because despite intense scrutiny on most of contentious issues Gandhi comes away looming larger than life. The title of the book is in itself Lelyveld’s way to pay homage to the great man. Gandhi’s failings only make him human and consequently his reputation stands burnished and not diminished.

To get back to our main story, Kallenbach stays on in India for more than a month doing a hard-sell of the Jewish stand to the Gandhi and hands out a twenty five page essay on the historical, spiritual and political underpinnings of Zionism. Gandhi is moved but with important caveats. I quote him in full: “In my opinion the Jews should disclaim any intention of realising their aspiration under the protection of arms. No exception can possibly be taken to the natural desire of the Jews to found a home in Palestine. But they must wait for its fulfillment till Arab opinion is ripe for it.”

Gandhi‘s message to Kallenbach is passed on to Chaim Weizmann who was the master mind behind this project in the first place. It is no surprise that this was never published. The conniving and scheming gone to waste and whole futile exercise abandoned. All this would have been lost in the dustbin of history but for Lelyveld’s book.

In this context, India’s stand on this continuing tragedy is worth recalling right from 1948 and even earlier. Nehru in 1930s was one of the first to question the theory propounded by Zionists, A land without people and a People without land; he emphatically rejected this outright then and India since has rejected this consistently.

In recent years India has been cozying up with Israel, despite this, it bears repetition that India was the first non-Arab country to recognise Palestine. India has been a firm friend of Palestine right from the beginning and this support is rooted in high moral principles. Principles, at the very heart of India’s own plurality and diversity; the foundation on which the nation was created in spite of horrifying challenges at its birth, consequently it is but natural that Palestine and India find common cause. 

 

What Gandhi had to say about Zionism

Hindutva: a schizophrenic nationalism

DIBYESH ANAND

(THE discourse of Hindu nationalism – Hindutva – is best understood as a collection of eclectic ideas, images, and practices. It is easy to reject Hindutva as an intellectually bankrupt idea, as a collective fantasy of a few delusional individuals, as an illiberal attack on the secular multi-ethnic plurality of India, or as a regressive extremist movement based on a problematic and empirically flawed category of the ‘Hindu nation’. For instance, such rejectionist approaches were recently evident after the General Elections of 2009 with commentators discussing BJP’s defeat as a product of, as well as contributing to, the existential crisis within Hindu nationalism.

If Hindutva is indeed in crisis, what explains its tenacity and hold over a significant section of Hindus inside India and in the diaspora? Could this be a case of political setback without a serious dent in Hindutva’s cultural project and the long term vision for a Hindu India? That Hindu nationalism has so far failed to provide a stable basis for an ever-expanding political movement does not challenge its more pernicious project of shaping a Hindu samaj (society) and sanskriti (culture) into existence. There have been no stories of declining attendance at RSS shakhas, ABVP membership falling or sadhus abandoning VHP in droves.

The topic of Hindu nationalism has been approached by scholars, intellectuals, politicians, activists and ordinary people from many different angles. I do not offer a comprehensive overview of these approaches nor do I claim to provide an exhaustive account of Hindutva. In this short article, I put forward a simple idea – Hindutva is a schizophrenic nationalism.1

I do not imply that individual Hindu nationalists suffer from a pathological disorder or that no other nationalism is schizophrenic. I have no intention of dehumanizing individuals suffering from schizophrenia; I merely use a lay person’s idea of the disorder to analyze a collective phenomenon.)

In fact, all nationalist movements are to a variable extent based on contradictions, delusions, fantasies and fragmentations. Hindutva is akin to majoritarian nationalisms (such as Han chauvinism in China, Hutu supremacy in Rwanda, White supremacism in the USA, neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in many Central and East European countries, radical Islamism in Egypt or extremist Zionism in Israel) that combine a cultural hubris with political anxiety about the presence of minorities in the body politic. A better understanding of Hindu nationalism may come from a comparative approach but in this article the focus is on Hindutva’s schizophrenic Self.

If Hindu nationalism had been an individual, it would have been classified as exhibiting an abnormality, one that may be amenable to treatment. But it is not an individual; it’s an idea for a collective movement. Curing Hindutva of its paranoia, hallucinations and delusions will dissolve the rationale for its existence. To put it simply, Hindutva’s schizophrenia is productive of its identity; without it, Hindu nationalism is a dead proposition.

There are many consistently identifiable patterns in the discourse of Hindu nationalism. Yet beneath the illusion of consistency there is a selective amnesia of several contradictions that populate the Hindutva world view. Here I highlight a few of these contradictions and fantasies which provide meaning to the majoritarian nationalism of Hindutva. The contradictions are as much a source of weakness as of strength. They militate against a coherent large scale political movement. But they also enable a flexibility, fungibility and ambiguity for extremist, parochial and illiberal ethos of Hindutva to pass itself off as moderate, universalist and enlightened. The primary contradiction is to do with a ‘Hindu nation’.

What makes Hindutva different from any other nationalism in India? It is the accent on Hindu. Unlike the mainstream Gandhi-Nehru-Congress civic nationalism which asserted its legitimacy in the name of all residents of India irrespective of their religious affiliation, Hindutva’s legitimacy is its ethno-religious claim2 to speak for the majority Hindu religious community. The raison d’etre for Hindutva is the privileging of the putative Hindu community in the territory of India.

Hindu nationalists imagine the Hindu community as consisting of all castes, subcastes, outcastes along with Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, all religionists they call ‘indigenous’ except the ‘foreign religionists’ adhering to Islam and Christianity; in short everyone except Muslims and Christians.3 However, in practice, their relationship to Sikhism or Buddhism is problematic.

In contemporary times, Hindutva argues that Hindus are a distinct politico-cultural nation, a nation whose numerical majority has not translated into a political majority in post-independence India. This ‘discrimination’ is ascribed to a conspiratorial alliance of Islam, Church, Communists, Secularists and Westernized media. Hindutva wants the Hindu nation to acquire its rightful place within India. But where is this Hindu nation?

While Hindu nationalism claims to represent the Hindu nation, Hindu nationalists also lament the absence of a united Hindu collective. Hindu nationalist political consciousness has never been hegemonic among Hindus in India. A close analysis of the writings of Hindutva leaders and ideologues shows that while ‘Sanatana Dharma’ is used as the umbrella term and (mis)quotes from non-Hindutva leaders including Ambedkar, Aurobindo or Gandhi are selectively scavenged upon to make a case against Muslims and Christians, Hindu nationalism’s main grudge is against Hindus themselves for not being united. The exhortations of Hindutva ideologues is for the Hindus to ‘awaken’, ‘arise’, recognize the enemies, vote for pro-Hindu parties to punish anti-Hindu secularists and those who betray their earlier promises of being pro-Hindutva, organize as a vote-bank, and remind the ungrateful Muslim and Christian minorities who the ‘real’ (awakened Hindu nationalist) Hindus are.

The Hindu nation does not exist as a conscious corporate body and a Hindu nationalist seeks to create one. In this sense, while claiming to be a mere representation of the pre-existing nation, Hindutva’s main emphasis is on creating this imaginary nation. This process of representation-creation is intimately connected with the question of Self-Other.

Hindu nationalism is a celebration and affirmation of the Hindu Self, but it derives its meaning only from a negation of the minority Others and their allies (the Communists, Secularists, and Westernized elite). The Hindu Self is represented as a self-evident category of identity that has existed for millennia. The naturalization of this modern Hindu Self under-emphasizes the historical and political processes through which it has been created since late 19th century starting with the Revivalist movements and the beginning of religious-category based enumeration through Census. Going against the mainstream Indian nationalist movement, Hindu nationalism in the 20th century sought to present the Hindu Self as the Indian Self, rendering non-Hindu Indians as the untrustworthy Other, anti-Hindu and invariably anti-Indian.

It should be noted that Hindutva seeks to create a unified Hindu samaj, not by removing hierarchies nor by redressing the historical and contemporary injustices suffered by many Hindus, but by shifting the blame for all ills onto the ‘foreign’ Other. Everything that is wrong within Hinduism is a product of a society perverted through a series of foreign invasions mostly by Muslim rulers. Reform of Hinduism is touted only as a tool to counter the possible appeal of Islam or Christianity for the hitherto unprivileged and oppressed Hindus. There is no evidence of a genuine desire to make Hindu religion and practices progressive. By creating the spectre of the dangerous Other, inimical foreigners within the rightful homeland of indigenous Hindu body politic, Hindutva seeks to brush under the carpet, not very successfully, the tensions existing within the category ‘Hindu’.

The story of Hindu Self is thus a story of non-Hindu/anti-Hindu Other.4 Despite the half-hearted claims made by some Hindu nationalists in BJP that Hindutva is not anti-Muslim or anti-Christian but is universalist so long as Muslims and Christians accept to live on the terms set by Hindutva, even a cursory examination of the philosophy and ideology of all strands of Hindu nationalism shows that representation of religious minorities (Muslims and Christians) as inimical, is an obsession for many.5 The Hindu samaj, sanskriti, and sabhyata (society, culture and civilization) are under siege from Islam and Christianity – this is not a nightmare but a waking reality according to Hindutva. Deploying various stereotypes, the minorities, especially Muslims, are presented as waging a war against Hindu India. The extremely diverse Indian Muslims are reduced to a singular stereotyped identity – ‘Muslim’ – and invested with a belligerence and fanaticism that individual Muslims cannot escape.

Hindu nationalists may differ amongst themselves over the root of this supposed Muslim fanaticism – moderates in BJP may blame some Muslims for disloyalty and terrorism without mentioning Islam as a religion or Prophet Muhammad. But most Hindu nationalists from the Sangh Parivar, especially VHP, Bajrang Dal and even the RSS, do not shy away from rejecting entire Islam as the enemy. In treating all Muslims with the same Islamophobic brush, Hindutva plays a game of fear – Islam by its very nature is fundamentalist (the idea of moderate Muslims is an oxymoron); history of Muslim rule in India is nothing but a catalogue of crimes of violence, plunder and rape of Hindus; Muslims are solely responsible for the partition of Akhanda Bharat and those Muslims who stayed back in India did so because they were not satisfied with a separate Pakistan but desired the Islamization of entire India; Muslims, with the active backing of Pakistan and Gulf money, are waging a continuous war against Hindu India.

Terrorism, violence, genocide of Kashmiri Hindus, conversion, illegal infiltration by Bangladeshi Muslims, seduction and rape of innocent Hindu girls, and over-population are all conjured up as weapons used by the traitorous Muslims to overwhelm Hindus in India.6 Christians are said to collude in this war by seducing poor Hindus into conversion and by encouraging separatism in the North East. By stereotyping Muslim and Christian minorities as the irredeemable anti-Hindu, anti-India Other, Hindu nationalism generates a politics of fear, a politics that is set to continue.

This process of essentializing and stereotyping antagonistic identities (Self vs Other) is central to the Hindu nationalist project; a benign and pluralist imagination of minorities on equal terms will take the wind off the sails of Hindutva. A poetics and politics of fear is instrumental in explaining away the use of violence by Hindu nationalism as a spontaneous reaction.7

Violence is central to an understanding of Hindutva. It plays a dual role – it is the rationale for, as well as the product of, Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalists frequently indulge in violence and yet it is the Muslims who are blamed for all violence. Acts of anti-minority violence are sought to be legitimized by ascribing them to just reactions and hurt sentiments of long suppressed, unusually patient Hindu samaj.8 In this way, the sufferings of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and Christians in Orissa in 2008 are seen not as the results of a conscious pogrom or a well-planned hate attack; rather, they are claimed to be the regrettable but justifiable and understandable reactions of the awakened Hindu community.

The state is absolved of all responsibility – after all, what can it do when it is the entire Hindu samaj that lashes out in hurt caused by an arrogant expansionary minority? Thus, in the Hindu nationalist view, complicity of politicians, police, activists and general populace are all bracketed under the rubric of an aroused Hindu nation. This performs an important function of explaining away individual responsibilities and state complicity. If it is the abstract Hindu nation which has reacted to the originary violence of expansionary minorities, how does one begin pinpointing responsibility for the violence? Numerous, well-documented acts of anti-minority violence committed in the name of Hindutva do not disrupt the self-understanding of Hindu nationalists where they see themselves as the wronged party.

Hindu nationalism can be conceptualized as a discourse of security, yet it feeds insecurity into society. As pointed out earlier, according to Hindutva, the minority Others, in alliance with secularists and communists, are waging a war against the Hindus. The stereotyped Muslim figure is represented as a danger to Hindu security at different levels – individual Hindu (especially female) bodies, Hindu neighbourhoods, Hindu India, as well as the entire world.

In the face of such hostile foreign religionists, Hindutva prescribes a multi-pronged approach – a propaganda warfare to ‘reveal’ (in practice, manufacture) the conspiracy of minorities and their secular allies to fool Hindus into believing that there is no danger; socio-cultural mobilization of Hindus so that they are proud of their unified Hindutva identity; political organization of Hindus to ensure that they form a vote bank; capturing the state to reflect the Hindutva interests; and using violence against minorities in the name of securing the Hindu body politic. The aim is to create a potent Hindu nation.

Hindu nationalism fantasizes potency (of a Hindu collective), yet it fears impotency. Nationalism, for Hindutva, is a politico-cultural project to create, awaken, and strengthen a masculinist-nationalist body.9 Elsewhere, I have conceptualized the extremist beliefs of Hindutva (held especially by Bajrang Dal and less overtly by VHP) activists as a porno-nationalism.10 The sexual dimension of the Hindutva discourse, as revealed in the jokes, slogans, gossip, and conversations of young male activists, is relevant not only as an ethnographic curiosity but because it is politically salient. Such a porno-nationalist imagination of the hypersexualized Muslim Other performs two moves at the same time: it assures the Hindu nationalist self of its moral superiority and yet instils an anxiety about the threatening masculine Other. Hindu nationalism, despite claiming to represent the majority Hindu community, has at its core a deep masculinist anxiety which, it claims, will be solved through a masculinist, often bordering on militarized, awakening.

The disjuncture between the imagined militarized Hindu nation and the actual fact of a rich plurality of Hindu society turns the rage of Hindutva against the Hindus themselves. The Hindu nation becomes a rarefied ideal which only the Sangh Parivar and its sympathizers are capable of appreciating. Other Hindus, under the spell of anti-Hindu ideas of Secularism, Communism, ‘Macaulayism’, Westernization, Women’s emancipation, and even Democracy, remain ‘ignorant’.

Hindu nationalists speak of secularism and democratic rights11 with a forked tongue. They reject the mainstream version of secularism as appeasement of minorities and as pseudo-secularism, they argue that a genuine democracy should recognize the primacy of Hindu majority, they argue for the Uniform Civil Code and against Article 370 in the name of equality. But the same Hindu nationalists will also reject secularism as alien (only Hindu sanatana dharma is ‘true secularism’), claim that the celebration of the diversity of Indian culture is a conspiracy to erase the essential oneness of India as expressed in sanatana dharma, promote Hinduization of public life, appeal to Islamophobic western ideologues to support their case, criticize state measures to promote equality (such as the right of daughters to have a share in paternal property) and progressive social and environmental movements as anti-family, and express intolerance of dissident views by beating up artists, writers and activists.

Democracy is not only about majority rule and minority rights, but also a political culture that allows for expressions of dissent without fear. Hindu nationalism has limited tolerance of dissent, resents minority rights and only focuses on majority rule. But its understanding of the principle of majority rule goes against the very principle of liberal democracy – democratic majority is a political majority (the composition of which changes all the time) and not an identity based majority. By investing the numerical Hindu majority with a political agency, Hindu nationalism seeks to make Indian democracy illiberal and potentially authoritarian.

The only ‘rights’ which Hindutva struggles for are those of Hindu nationalists to stamp their mark on the society, culture and politics of India. Otherwise, ‘rights talk’ (where individuals make a claim against the collective, or religious or sexual minorities demand a recognition of their difference, or hitherto oppressed groups struggle for justice) is viewed as promoting individualism and tensions within an otherwise pristine, family-based Hindu/Indian society.

It is tempting to view Hindu nationalism primarily as a political movement and therefore lament or celebrate (depending on one’s views) its limited influence on Indian democracy. The fact that Hindu nationalists have never won more than a minority share of Hindu votes or that Hindutva based parties such as the BJP have had to moderate their views for reasons of governance does not imply a serious setback for Hindu nationalism. The idea of Hindutva remains unsullied for many of its subscribers. The BJP’s defeat is perceived with the same old lens – an unholy alliance of minorities and opportunist secularists led by a foreign-born woman; unawakened and divided Hindus; and a Hindutva party that had gone against its principles. Varun Gandhi’s incendiary speech in 2009 or Narendra Modi’s hate speeches in 2002 may have contributed to BJP’s problems and losses, but it certainly brought a thumping victory in the targeted locales. Such politics of hate clearly worked for Narendra Modi’s party in Gujarat or Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit constituency.

Hindutva’s relationship to politics is one of a convenient split. The dominant self-image is of an apolitical cultural nationalism that despises the ‘dirty’ realm of politics and is primarily interested in a regeneration of Hindu society, protection of Hindu religion and culture, and establishing of a Hindu Rashtra in India. Politics is presented as a regrettable necessity which Hindu nationalists have to indulge in to protect dharma, samaj, sanskriti and sabhyata.

This seeming split of the political and the cultural domain allows RSS to selectively embrace or distance itself from other members of the Parivar and adopt a sanctimonious role of being ‘above politics’.12 If there is an outcry over Bajrang Dal’s hooliganism, RSS would claim that it has nothing to do with them. At the same time, the distinction between RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and so on is highly blurred and the personnel shifts between these.

Like other religious fundamentalisms, Hindutva has a bigger goal of socio-politico-cultural transformation. Setbacks in elections are seen as peripheral to the long term vision of a Hindu Rashtra – after all, in a narrative of a continuous war of hostile religious groups for more than a millennium, a decade of setbacks is not a big deal.

Hindutva as a social and cultural project remains active and thriving. RSS’s shakha activities continue uninterrupted; Hindutva ideologues adapt their ideas to suit the tastes of non-resident Indians (for example, linking Hindutva’s cause with that of Zionists or toning down the swadeshi agenda) and urban middle classes (for example, through Online Shakha); VHP adopts the internet for its agenda; and Bajrang Dal utilises new technologies for spreading intolerance. Hindu nationalism is here to stay in the Indian landscape.

While acting as a defender of faith and culture, Hindutva in practice intervenes in both, and seeks to transform them from fluid, diverse, highly contested entities to ones that can be mobilized for Hindu nationalist purposes. More research is needed on the myriad ways in which Hindutva scavenges upon existing religious and cultural practices, shapes the common-sense of a wider Hindu population, transforms what it means to be a ‘Hindu’, and selectively appropriates ideas of secularism, democracy, rights, equality, and security for its own long term agenda of establishing a Hindu India.

Contradictions, splits, fantasies, and paranoia continue to be mobilized by Hindu nationalist activists. The schizophrenic Hindutva Self remains a lethal threat to the ideas of democracy, secularism, liberalism, and plurality in India. A Hindu Rashtra, with domesticated unified Hindus and subservient minorities, remains a vision for which millions of Hindu nationalists continue to work.

Footnotes:

1. For a discussion of schizophrenia and nationalism in a different context, see John Kane (2007), ‘Schizophrenic Nationalism and Anti-Americanism’, in Brendon O’Connor (ed.), Anti-Americanism: History, Causes, Themes, Vol. 2, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 29-54.

2. For a discussion of Hindutva as an ethnic nationalism, as different from civic nationalism, see Christophe Jaffrelot (1999), The Hindu Nationalist Movement: 1925 to the 1990s, Penguin, New Delhi.

3. This distinction between Indian and Foreign Religionists is made most starkly in a work on religious demography that sought to prove the theory of declining Hindu population in India (India here was seen as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh together). Lal Krishna Advani, the Home Minister of India at the time of publication, wrote a foreword to the book. See A.P. Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and J.K. Bajaj (2003), Religious Demography of India, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai. Summary available online http://www.cpsindia.org/downloads/religious/Summary3c.pdf (accessed 5 July 2009).

4. On the history of this, see Jyotirmaya Sharma (2003), Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism, Penguin, New Delhi.

5. See for instance, speeches and writings of VHP leader Ashok Singhal. Ashok Singhal (2005) Public Speech During VHP Dharma Sansad, 13-14 December, Hardwar, India; Ashok Singhal (n.d.), Secularwadiyon dwara hindu samaj par uttpan chaturdik hamla (Total attack on Hindu society due to secularists), VHP, New Delhi.

6. For a sample of Hindutva writings on this, see Goel, Krishnaswami, Swarup, and ‘Love Jihad’. Sita Ram Goel (n.d.), Hindu Society Under Siege, Voice of India, New Delhi, (originally published 1981, revised 1992). Available online http://voiceof dharma.org/books/hsus (accessed 5 July 2009); Krishnaswami (n.d.), Islam and Pseudo-Secularists, Shradha Prakashan, Delhi; Ram Swarup (n.d.), Understanding Islam Through Hadis: Religious Faith or Fanaticism?, Exposition Press, Smithtown, New York. Available online http://bharatvani. org/books/uith (accessed on 3 July 2009); ‘"Love Jihad" – A Jihadi Organisation To Trap Hindu Girls’ (2009) Hindu Janajagruti Samiti 27 February. Available online http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/6389.html (accessed 23 July 2009).

7. A detailed discussion of the poetics and politics of fear deployed by Hindu nationalists can be found in my forthcoming book. Dibyesh Anand (2010), Hindu Nationalism and Politics of Fear in India, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

8. For a discussion of legitimisation of violence, see Paul Brass (2003), The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi; and Thomas Blom Hansen (1996), ‘Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violence and the Exorcism of the Muslim "Other"’, Critique of Anthropology 16(2), 137-172.

9. For an incisive treatment of sexuality, gender and Hindutva, see for example, Paola Bacchetta (2004), Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues, Women Unlimited, New Delhi; Charu Gupta (2001), Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India, Permanent Black, Delhi; Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi De Alwis (eds) (1998), Embodied Violence: Communalising Women’s Sexuality in South Asia, Zed, London; Dibyesh Anand (2007), ‘Gendered Anxieties: Representing Muslim Masculinity as a Danger’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 9(2), 257-269.

10. See Dibyesh Anand (2008), ‘Porno-Nationalism and the Male Subject: An Ethnography of Hindu Nationalist Imagination in India’, in Jane Parpart and Marysia Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the ‘Man’ Question in International Politics, Zed, London. See also Tanika Sarkar (2002), ‘Semiotics of Terror: Muslim Children and Women in Hindu Rashtra’, Economic and Political Weekly 38(28), 13 July.

11. See for instance, Thomas Blom Hansen (1999), The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India, Princeton University Press, Princeton; David Ludden (ed.) (1996), Making India Hindu: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

12. On Sangh Parivar, see Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.) (2005), The Sangh Parivar, Oxford University Press, New Delhi; Tapan Basu, Pradip Datta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Sambuddha Sen (eds.) (1993), Khaki Shorts, Saffron Flags, Orient Longman, New Delhi.

 http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/601/601_dibyesh_anand.htm

Thought is matter

Those who think a great deal are very materialistic because thought is matter. Thought is matter as much as the floor, the wall, the telephone, are matter. Energy functioning in a pattern becomes matter. There is energy and there is matter. That is all life is. We may think thought is not matter but it is. Thought is matter as an ideology. Where there is energy it becomes matter. Matter and energy are interrelated. The one cannot exist without the other, and the more harmony there is between the two, the more balance, the more active the brain cells are. Thought has set up this pattern of pleasure, pain, fear, and has been functioning inside it for thousands of years and cannot break the pattern because it has created it. 

(JKRISHNAMURTI, Freedom from the Known,101)

BRICS - The Coming Challenge to U.S. Economic Dominance

by David Francis
April 23, 2013
from TheFiscalTimes Website

Late last month, leaders from,
Brazil
Russia
India
China 
  South Africa,
...the so-called BRICS, announced they were forming their own development bank to assist other emerging economies.

The yet-to-be-named bank is expected to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary fund, two institutions with power structures based firmly in the United States and Europe.

The announcement also serves as yet another sign that the world economy is quickly evolving to a place where United States global economic dominance is being challenged by regional interests.

Since the end of World War II, the United States was the driver of global monetary policy. When the Federal Reserve acted, the world listened and reacted.

Now, according to officials from the BRICS nations, emerging countries are trying to insulate themselves from the market shocks caused by the United States and Europe.

They no longer trust the West to do the right thing.

They’re forming their own “union” to create stability that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Fed have been unable to provide.

“If there were shocks to the global financial market, with credit running short, we'd have credit from our biggest international partner[s], so there would be no interruption of trade," Brazilian economic minister Guido Mantega said.

The bank, which is planning to raise $50 billion in capital, is expected to open next year, according to Indian finance minister P. Chidambaram.

Other alliances around the world are also forming, portending the end of Western economic dominance.

To be clear, these alliances are not monetary unions.

They don’t share a currency and therefore do not share fiscal policy. Yet they do share the common belief that together, their developing economies can foster and sustain growth.

These alliances do more than simply hedge against Western financial calamities. They encourage investors to keep money in the region instead of sending it to western markets and promote trade between member nations.

Even though many of these alliances lack real teeth, their formation is important symbolically.

They give emerging economies a forum to show their strength, as well as send a clear signal that in the future, the United States is not the only game in town.

Rise of the BRICS

It did not take long for the BRICS to become a major force on world markets.

The leaders of these countries first met in 2006, but a formal alliance wasn’t made until 2009. South Africa joined the group in 2010.

These countries now represent more than 3 billion people. They have a combined gross domestic product of $14.8 trillion, and hold $4 billion in foreign reserves.

The U.S. economy is still the world’s largest, although experts agree that the Chinese economy will grow larger by 2016.

And while BRICS’ economic growth has slowed in recent years, they weathered the global economic slowdown far better than the United States and Europe.

In fact, the new BRICS bank is likely the direct result of the Western response to the crisis. The Fed, the European Central Bank, the World Bank and the IMF all acted repeatedly to soften the blow of the crisis.

Yet strong growth, both here and in Europe, remains elusive.

According to a paper (The Financial Crisis - Impact on BRIC and Policy Response) by Ritwik Banerjee and Pankaj Vashisht, published at the height of the financial crisis, the ability of the BRICS to sustain growth while Western economies were contracting convinced the emerging nations that a rebalancing of global economic power was necessary.

“The erstwhile engine of global growth, the USA, was weakening and the new growth poles were emerging,” they wrote. BRICS were “one of [the] emerging growth poles that caught the imagination of the world.”

BRICS Not Alone

In the wake of the global financial crisis, other countries are seeking alliances that will make them less reliant on the West.

During the financial crisis, Japan, China and South Korea created a $120 billion emergency loan fund to shore up Asian nations’ finances. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, comprised of 10 countries from that part of the world, is also experiencing a period of robust growth.

New partnerships are also emerging closer to home.

Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia, recently told The Fiscal Times that his country is considering entering into a formal economic alliance with Mexico, Peru and Chile, creating a bloc with a GDP of $2.2 trillion.

These countries have already agreed to eliminate trade tariffs on 90 percent of the goods exchanged between them.

But the biggest challenge to U.S. dominance remains in Asia.

The Pentagon is shifting its strategy to confront potential rivals in that part of the world. And U.S. companies are gaining ground in huge consumer markets in China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Even the National Basketball Association recognizes that the key to future success is breaking the Asian market.

It has spent $1.5 billion on a sports and entertainment complex outside of Beijing, and has sent Chinese-American star Jeremy Lin on a tour of the country.

"We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures," Christopher Kojm, National Intelligence Council chair wrote in a recent intelligence appraisal.

"By 2030, Asia will be well on its way to returning to being the world's powerhouse, just as it was before 1500."

Slavery By Consent: Understanding The Human Farm

Fear and The Everyday Mind

by Colin Bondi
April 18, 2013

from WakingTimes Website

 

Fear is a force to be reckoned with there is no doubt about it.

There is hardly anyone alive on this planet that does not to some extent have to contend with fear.

I want to be clear as to what I mean by the word fear. Fear is a psychological state which has nothing to do with real world danger. If you are walking down the street and a man jumps out and sticks a gun in your face, you could say you would react with fear.

However what happens in such a situation is really a biological reaction to danger, it’s the fight or flight response, and all animals have this to some extent. It’s natural and part of the survival mechanism of the species. Usually in an acute life threatening situation, the mind and its thought processes freeze and we are thrust intensely into present moment reality as the body forces us to deal with the immediate crisis.

However unlike any other animal human beings project a label on the intense energy of the danger response and call it fear.

The problem with this is we create a mental/emotional entity called fear which we then experience in relationship to imagined situations that have nothing to do with any real world event. We might fear that we will be robbed on the way home or that we could be fired tomorrow, even though in the moment neither of these things is happening, we feel a low level danger response.

A mental construct is connected to a biophysical response which gives a feeling of reality to the imagined situations we fear. They seem real because we feel some of the same physical response to them as we do to a real world threat.

Low level fear is often referred to as anxiety, and you could say that almost all of us experience some level of anxiety regardless of our life situation.

So why does the mind do this?

 

It is an extremely dysfunctional way of existing as it distorts the experience of life and puts the body under much unnecessary stress. But that’s my point right there, the everyday mind is fueled by fear and its counterpart, lack. The mind is often fearing some kind of internal or external threat or it’s in fear of not having what it wants whether that’s money, sex, love or a material object.

It’s a process of continual fear and deprivation. At times this may not be apparent when things seem to go well, but it’s just that these things are operating under the surface and so aren’t as easily noticed. But again why does the mind do this?

This brings us to the root of it. What we call mind is simply a process of consciousness, the process of thought and memory.

The mind is thoughts and without thoughts there is no mind.

 

In a state of complete internal stillness (called Samadhi) there is no mind just consciousness or awareness. However, we tend to collect bundles of thoughts and create an identity out of them and then take that to be who and what we truly are.

We identity ourselves as being the body and the mind, but the body is a temporary thing and the mind is just a constant flow of thoughts. So this identification is both very unstable and very limited. We’re so used to taking ourselves to be the body/mind, to be something tangible that there is intense fear at the thought that we might be no-thing at all.

The body was born and it’s going to age and die. The body will get sick and it is very fragile and subject to damage at any time.

The mind when you really look deeply into it doesn’t exist except for thoughts that constantly come and go. Both of these things are going to generate fear if this is all we take ourselves to be.

 

Our existence is like a bubble on the front of a wave. We usually deal with this fear by distracting ourselves from looking into it. We project the fear and its protective expression, anger, onto external objects such as partners, governments, groups we don’t agree with, bosses, society or just about anything that takes us away from looking within.

 

The real distraction however is the incessant thought process of the mind.

Most people’s minds almost never stop except for deep sleep, and it’s a good thing for that because we sure need that rest. The mind must remain in motion, that is, generating thoughts or not only will it soon be shown to be nonexistent but what we take to be the world will fall apart. The world as most of us know it is a screen of our projections.

 

This is why so many people have a hard time with silence and stillness and deep meditation.

The mind cannot afford to be still lest it lose its illusion of existence. Boredom is a version of fear in disguise, causing us seek stimulation, anything other than being still. The mind is very adept at keeping the illusion going.

None of this reflects our natural state or who and what we truly are.

 

On a spiritual level I think the challenge and the opportunity for us all is to confront the root fear of our own nonexistence to uncover the truth beneath that. This root fear of the mind is a threshold we must pass through if we are to truly know ourselves.

 

To pass through this threshold requires the absolute surrender of everything we have ever taken ourselves to be.

The fear must be transformed into fearlessness, the unknown embraced unconditionally. Given the temporariness of the body/mind we really have nothing to lose in this surrender that we aren’t destined to lose anyway.

 

Why not consciously, intentionally dive right into the truth of who you really are right now?

The gift is the freedom of reality but that is nothing we can conceive of, all thoughts and imaginations about the Divine are not it. What we are cannot be grasped by the mind.

There is an intelligence somewhere deep within us that is calling us home to the truth, to freedom, it’s just a question of when we’ve had enough of the fear-based illusion...

Caught, Israel orchestrating world war

By Gordon Duff and Press TV

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/04/29/caught-israel-orchestrating-world-war/

"The plans are clear, an invasion of Syria, splitting the Kurdish region of Iraq off, into an Israeli controlled military bastion for an invasion of Iran. What isn’t being said, however, is that, in order to push the United States back to war after a decade of military and economic disasters, assassinations, false flag terror and a campaign of counterfeit WMD intelligence is planned."  

The proposed moves, as outlined below and confirmed through DEBKA, would require the United States to return to “Bush era unilateralism,” moves unlikely if President Obama, Secretaries Kerry and Hagel and JCOS Chief, General Martin Dempsey were still alive, despite wild conspiratorial claims quoted below.”

The Israeli “security publication,” DEBKA, a key part of their “war through deception” campaign against the world, has now made it inexorably clear, Israel is putting into motion their “final solution,” a campaign to pit nation against nation.

The result, the planet a smoldering ruin, Israel ruling over the ashes and mass graves, is a foregone conclusion, at least to Netanyahu and his worldwide terrorist network.

DEBKA openly admits plans to move Israeli troops into Syria and Iraq, to “con” Turkey, Jordan and the Arab and Gulf States into a war intended to, not just destroy Iran and Pakistan but China and Russia as well, pitting them against NATO in the fatal Armageddon they and their followers believe will ensure Satan’s dominion over man.

Do people really think like that?

Yes, they actually do, the Zionists, the Neocons, and the Dominionists, a vast worldwide network of financial criminals, corrupt politicians and power-mad tyrants. In America, those now seeking to stage a military coup in the United States, submit to full Israeli control and lead the world into a new “dark age.”
Conspiracy theory? Of course, very much so, but not just a theory but plans long whispered now made clear, plans impossible to misconstrue.

Plans in motion

The plans are clear, an invasion of Syria, splitting the Kurdish region of Iraq off, into an Israeli controlled military bastion for an invasion of Iran. What isn’t being said, however, is that, in order to push the United States back to war after a decade of military and economic disasters, assassinations, false flag terror and a campaign of counterfeit WMD intelligence is planned.

The proposed moves, as outlined below and confirmed through DEBKA, would require the United States to return to “Bush era unilateralism,” moves unlikely if President Obama, Secretaries Kerry and Hagel and JCOS Chief, General Martin Dempsey were still alive, despite wild conspiratorial claims quoted below.

Softening up the Goyim

The American president is a likely assassination target. A new 9/11 style terror attack is a necessity, the groundwork already laid at Sandyhook and the Boston Marathon.

The preparations are already underway, with political and military division in the US being contrived, “sequestration,” threats of gun seizure and a planned economic crash, another “pump and dump.”

The terrorism is underway as seen in Boston, hoax articles outlining an imaginary 20,000 man US force to move into Syria as a “buffer” have been placed in American newspapers.

World conquest and planetary annihilation

In the Middle East, Israel is coordinating with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States along with Turkey, the Mossad supported Communist PKK terrorists in Turkey, key leaders in the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq, Al Qaeda led rebels and Druze militias inside Syria.

Syria and Iraq will be dismembered. Jordan has already fallen to Israel and their Al Qaeda allies, now Israel’s base of operations against not just Syria but Iraq as well.

From there, the move will be Iran, then Afghanistan and the Caspian Basin.

If China and Russia fail to recognize the threat in time and “go nuclear” to block this move against Asia, the planned attack on Pakistan, scheduled for a 2015-2017 time frame will bring about a world war.

Beginning with deception and cover  

More stories have been planted, more hoaxes, describing an agreement allowing Israel to build an air base in Turkey to attack Iran. Turkey has failed to issue denials though such an act would label them a rogue state. They are playing a very dangerous game and can well expect the betrayal any “friend” of Israel suffers. Turkey is fully “onboard,” cutting a deal with the Kurdish PKK, a first step toward joining Israel in a conquest of Northern Iraq. Israel has also promised Turkey an “occupation zone” comprising nearly a third of Syria.

Azerbaijan has long been steeped in Israeli/Turkish plots. They have been promised Iran’s Caspian oil reserves.

They actually put it in writing

Key to this is getting the United States to follow the plans DEBKA clearly outlines for them.

Issue 585, dated April 26, 2013 has laid out their startling plans beginning with a broad move into Syria. Israel has no plans to use its own troops, of course. Since their defeat in Lebanon in 2006, the IDF has been shown as capable of mass punishment and reprisals against unarmed civilians inside Israel and the occupied zones.

DEBKA’s “fairytale” is carefully coordinated with terror cells and death squads in the US, all working under the broad cover of America’s Israeli controlled press:

“On Friday, April 26, a few hours after this issue reaches DEBKA-Net-Weekly subscribers, Jordan’s King Abdullah II will be sitting down at the White House with President Barack Obama. When they finish talking, they will shake hands on the exact date in the coming days for the consignment of 20,000 American troops to the Hashemite Kingdom.

Obama has ordered the biggest overt surge of US troops in six years in any Middle East country.

This air base will be home to the incoming American troops. US engineering corps units have been working 24/7 to expand the base, adapt it to its new functions and construct accommodation for the GIs.

Most of the contingents will be airlifted to their new base from US and Europe through Israeli air space, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive military sources.
Israeli Air Force jets will escort the transports over the eastern Mediterranean until they touch down in Jordan and keep an air umbrella in place over the American force for the duration of its stay.

The heavy equipment – tanks, missiles, self-propelled artillery, armored vehicles and Patriot missile intercept batteries – will be transported by sea to two destinations: Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba and the Israeli port of Haifa.

These arrangements were tied up by Defense Secretary Hagel in his talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.

In those conversations, our sources disclose, Israeli leaders offered every assistance, including air and intelligence resources, needed for preserving the Hashemite throne in Jordan, including support for the incoming US force. Netanyahu gave this pledge to King Abdullah on the four occasions that they met in Amman.”  

The plans, quoted directly from the highest Israeli and Jordanian sources, could never be realized without an America crippled by powerful terrorist organizations like AIPAC, long above any law.

Current American doctrine prohibits any military action without, not only a UN Security Council resolution but a new National Intelligence Estimate. Previous “NIE’s” had found no evidence of nuclear programs in Iran. Similarly, current Israeli claims of WMD use by Syria were rejected by Washington this week.

Israel’s plans are clear. What is also clear is that many Americans will die to get Israel the war they want, the war that Zionism needs to survive.

What is also clear is that, in order to get that war, more Americans will die and that many have died already.

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