Zack Beauchamp on Modi

Zack Beauchamp, writing for Vox, thinks that democracy is endangered if a Hindu temple is built in a Hindu country on orders of the highest Court in the land.  He writes-

Understanding the temple’s story is thus essential to understanding one of the most important issues of our time: how democracy has come under existential threat in its largest stronghold.

In 2002 Sonia Gandhi announced that she would build the Temple if the Court gave permission. Thus, both the NDA and the UPA- the two national party coalitions- were committed to building the Temple. The Supreme Court directed the building of the temple in 2019. The 'pran prathishta' ceremony was completed on Jan 22. How is this an existential threat to Hindu democracy in Hindu India? The whole thing is legal and both main national parties were committed with complying with the Court Judgment and building the Temple in the manner the Bench stipulated. 

How the Ayodhya temple dispute gave rise to Modi’s India

The dispute over Ayodhya has become a flashpoint in modern Indian politics because it speaks to a fundamental ideological question: Who is India for?

That question was answered in 1947. India was for Hindus. Pakistan for Muslims. The guy who pulled the trigger on Partition and ethnic cleansing founded a dynasty currently represented by the cretin Rahul. It is because he is utterly useless that Modi will get a third term.  

The relevant history here starts in the early 16th century, when a Muslim descendant of Genghis Khan named Babur invaded the Indian subcontinent from his small base in central Asia. Babur’s conquests inaugurated the Mughal Empire, a dynasty that would reign in what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for generations.

As Nehru's dynasty reigned till recently. Rajiv, Nehru's grandson, set the ball rolling for the construction of the Temple. Had Sonia been in power, she'd have taken credit for it. Sadly, Rahul was gun-shy. He didn't want to get blown to pieces like his Dad or shot to pieces like his granny. The safer thing was to make Congress unelectable.  

At least a remnant of the Mughal state survived until the British seized India in the 19th century.

The Mughals had come under Hindu Maratha protection before becoming pensioners of the British.  

The mosque in Ayodhya was a product of the early Mughal Empire, with some evidence suggesting it was built almost immediately after Babur’s forces conquered Ayodhya in 1529. Called the Babri Masjid — literally “Babur’s Mosque” — it was a testament to the impact the Mughal dynasty and its Muslim rulers had on Indian history and culture.

It didn't matter in the slightest. What mattered was that the site was sacred to Hindus. Still, in the Fifties and Sixties, there was a notion that India could rise rapidly through some magical practice known as 'Secular Socialism'. Sadly, that magic didn't work. People ran away from Secular Socialist shitholes and got jobs working in orthodox Gulf monarchies- unless, of course, they could emigrate to places ruled by White Christian Capitalists.  

During the British colonial period, different Indian factions diverged sharply on how to remember the Mughal empire.

Some Hindus were trying to con the Muslims into accepting their hegemony. The Muslims weren't stupid. They didn't swallow the bait. In any case, they had no interest in living in a shithole ruled by Gandhian shitheads. Sadly, a lot of them had no choice in the matter.  

For Mahatma Gandhi, who led the mainstream independence movement, the Moghul Empire was a testament to India’s history of religious diversity and pluralism.

Gandhi was lying. The way to tell was to see if his lips were moving. Zack may be surprised to hear that politicians lie all the time. 

Gandhi praised the Moghul dynasty, especially its early leadership, for adopting religious toleration as a central state policy. “In those days, they [Hindus and Muslims] were not known to quarrel at all,” he said in 1931, blaming current sectarian tensions on British colonial policy.

He was always saying all sorts of crazy shit. People knew he was getting money from Indian mill owners to get consumers to boycott British textiles so as to benefit his financiers. Still, the good thing about Gandhi was he was doing his best to keep the Brits around. As he said in 1939, Congress is Hindu- i.e. non-violent or shit at fighting. If the Brits left without handing over the Army to Congress, the Muslims and Punjabis would grab everything. They might not rape the Hindus because of Ahimsa magic, but everything else would be up for grabs.

But the leadership of the Hindu nationalist RSS organization saw things differently. Focusing in particular on the late Mughal emperor Aurangzeb — who imposed a special tax on non-Muslims and tore down Hindu temples — they argued that the Mughals were more like the British than Gandhi allowed. The Muslim dynasty was not, in their mind, an authentic Indian regime at all; it was just another colonial conquest of an essentially Hindu nation. Muslims could not, and should not, be seen as full and equal members of the polity.

Sadly for the Mahasabha, it was Congress which was the muscular arm of Hinduism. As Gandhi said, its leaders in Bihar had been very good at killing innocent Muslims just to show them who was boss. 

The Babri Masjid swiftly became a major flashpoint for this historical and political dispute.

No. Muslims being killed and chased away was the big 'flashpoint'. Strange as this may sound, Muslims care much less about some ruin than they do about not being fucking stabbed.  

Because Ayodhya was widely seen by Hindus as Ram’s birthplace, the presence of a prominent Mughal mosque there was seen as an affront by Hindu nationalists. In 1949, shortly after independence, a statue of Ram was discovered inside the mosque itself. Hindu nationalists claimed that this was a divine manifestation, proof that the mosque itself was the site where Ram was born.

It appears there was a clever plan, involving a senior ICS officer, aiming at getting control of valuable parcels of land during those unsettled times. This wasn't only at the expense of Muslims. It appears some land held in trust by 'Udasin' and perhaps some other sects was being transferred. Since Hindu supremacy was swiftly and irrevocably established in UP/Bihar, the temple didn't greatly matter. There were court cases filed by different parties and there was an Archaeological survey but little interest in the matter till the mid-Eighties. Rajiv could have consolidated his hold on the Hindu vote by building the Temple but he vacillated and then was brought down by a corruption scandal. Later, he was foolish enough to say he might send the Army back to Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers decided to kill him. Nice guy but not smart. 

But according to Hartosh Singh Bal,

cretin 

executive editor of the Indian news magazine The Caravan,

a magazine in which there is no news of any kind 

the historical record tells a different story.

“Members of a Hindu right-wing organization clambered over the walls, took the idol, [and] placed it there,” Bal told Vox’s Today Explained. “This was the first supposed proof that this [site] was in any way connected to a Hindu monument.”

Why did the Hindus chose that particular place? Hartosh won't tell us. The answer is that it was the Bethlehem of the Hindus.  

For years, this manufactured conflict over religion and the Mughal legacy didn’t play a major role in Indian politics. The Congress party, the political descendant of Gandhi’s secular liberal vision for India, dominated Indian politics — winning every single national election for the first 30 years of Indian independence.

Indira split the Congress party and turned it into a purely dynastic cult. That's how come a nice Italian lady could rule the country by proxy for ten years.  

But in the 1980s, as the public tired of the Congress party’s domination, Hindu nationalist efforts to stoke tension surrounding the mosque intensified — and caught political fire. The BJP, the political arm of the RSS, made the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri Masjid a central part of its political agenda. The party, which won just two seats in India’s parliament in 1984’s election,

because the Sikhs killed Indira in revenge for the attack on their Golden Temple. Rajiv won a landslide and should have consolidated his hold on the Hindu vote by building a nice Ram Temple.  

won 85 seats in the 1989 contest .

Rajiv was brought down by his own pals who were appalled by the scale of his corruption.  

The RSS and BJP kept pressing on the issue, helping organize a series of yatras (pilgrimages) to Ayodhya calling for the mosque’s demolition.

Why? North Indian politics had become 'Mandalized'- i.e. about increased caste based reservations for dominant agricultural castes. The BJP needed 'Mandir'- i.e. Hindu consolidation- to combat 'Mandal'.  

These grew huge, unruly, and even violent. In 1992, an out-of-control Hindu nationalist mob armed with hammers and pickaxes stormed the Babri Masjid. They tore it down by hand, horrifying many Indians and setting off religious riots across India that killed thousands.

Riots only occurred if the police didn't immediately shoot rioters- as they did in Delhi. Still, the BJP and its ideological allies did well out of evidence of Muslim terrorism.  

Andrea Malji, a scholar of Indian religious nationalism at Hawaii Pacific University,

i.e. an ignorant shithead 

describes the Babri Masjid movement as creating a kind of “feedback loop.” By bringing widespread attention to a source of Hindu-Muslim conflict, the movement actually made Hindus and Muslims more afraid of each other — leading to more conflict between the groups and, thus, increasing support among Hindus for Hindu nationalism. This was very good for the BJP’s political fortunes.

No. What was good for the BJP was global Islamic jihad and Pak sponsorship of terrorism and ethnic cleansing in Kashmir valley. Vajpayee, made the BJP a party of governance by doing a nuclear test. The need to contain Islam meant Hindus had to hang together. But militant Islam would have the same effect in Europe. It was the US however which launched the war of revenge which killed 1.3 million mainly Muslim people and displaced tens of millions more. Meanwhile, in Europe 'far right' parties have a role in government in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Hungary too may be considered right wing. France has certainly shifted to the Right. The UK is a bit strange because it has a Hindu Prime Minister. But for his colour, he'd fit the bill of a White Supremacist albeit of a posh sort.  

“Mobilizing around identity — especially when you’re 80 percent of the country [as Hindus are] is an effective political strategy,” she tells me.

No kidding! 

The Ayodhya dispute was not the only reason that, in the coming years, the BJP would displace Congress as the dominant party in Indian politics.

Autocracy gets tempered by assassination. That's why Rahul doesn't want to be PM though, as he said, he could have taken that office on turning 25.  

Modi’s first national victory, in the 2014 election, owed more to economic issues and Congress’ many corruption scandals than anything else.

No. Rahul refused to shoulder aside the decrepit Manmohan and lead his party to victory by promising to clamp down on corruption.

But Ayodhya was the crucible in which the BJP’s modern political approach was formed.

No. The Jan Sangh rose on the coat tails of Lohia, JP, Charan Singh, Karpori Thakur and other such non-Brahmin popular leaders who opposed the Dynasty. Advani and Murli Manohar saw the potential of the 'rath yatra'- i.e. raising funds for the building of a grand Temple- though Atal remained aloof. However, as Modi understood, what was really important was organization building at the booth level. While Rahul is wasting his time with a 'yatra', Modi's vans are criss-crossing the country enrolling 'labarthis' (beneficiaries) in various welfare schemes. This is particularly effective with women voters.  

Modi’s political innovation has been refining this approach, developing a brand of Hindu identity politics with greater appeal to the lower castes than the historically upper caste BJP had previously managed. As time has gone on, he has only gotten more aggressive in pushing his ideological agenda.

This is silly. Voters want economic benefits. If promising to kill minorities could get you elected, minorities would have vanished long ago. Modi's 'Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra'- a massive 'doorstep' welfare enrolment scheme- is his ace in the hole. The Ram Mandir consecration was a personal triumph for Modi but voters have bills to pay. 

Through it all, the Ayodhya issue remained a major priority for both Modi and the BJP.

No. The thing had the potential to turn into a shit-show with the Nirmohis fighting the..urm...Mirnohis or whatever.  

In 2019, just months after Modi’s reelection, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the construction of Ram Mandir on the former site of the Babri Masjid could begin. Its inauguration this week is a declaration of victory for Modi and the BJP on one of their signature issues — one of the most visible in a long line of successes.

The BJP did a good job of setting up a Trust which has managed things very well. It must be said, few predicted how impressive the Pran Prathista ceremony would be. There will now be a lot more such reclamation projects. Everybody is a winner because pilgrims bring in money.  

Hindu nationalism versus democracy

The Ayodhya dispute helps us understand a deeper connection between the rise of Modi-style populism and the erosion of Indian democracy —

A dynasty dying nasty does not represent the erosion of democracy. The reverse is the case 

that anti-democratic politics is not some kind of bug in BJP rule, but an essential feature.

Zack thinks Hindu democracies should not do what is pleasing to Hindus. Sadly, that is not how democracy works. The Bench will probably give more and more Hindu deities title to mosques and Temples will go up on those sites as the law requires.  

India’s constitution and founding documents unambiguously declare the country a secular nation of all of its citizens.

The Bench and the Bench alone says what is or isn't constitutional. The Supreme Court ordered the building of the Temple. It was built. Zack's peculiar interpretation of the Indian Constitution has no importance whatsoever.

This universalistic vision permeates Indian law and government; it lies at the heart of the Indian state.

Does it not permeate the judiciary- which, btw, is more independent than the American Bench?  

India’s founders believed this was essential to making the Indian state a viable democracy: There is no world in which the citizens of such a large and staggeringly diverse country could cooperate together if they weren’t guaranteed certain basic equal rights.

No. India coheres because it is Hindu. Non-Hindus areas are secessionist unless there is a greater external threat- e.g. China to Arunachal.  

“We must have it clearly in our minds and in the mind of the country that the alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is a most dangerous alliance,” Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, said in a 1948 speech. “The only right way for us to act is to do away with communalism in its political aspect in every shape and form.”

Jinnah was saying similar things in Pakistan. His law minister was a Hindu- a pal of Ambedkar who was Nehru's law minister. Sadly Mandal soon had to run away to India. But there were plenty of Muslims being forced out of Nehru's India.  

Modi’s Hindu nationalism, by contrast, posits that legitimacy flows not from consent of all the citizens but consent of true people of India. That means Hindus in general, and Hindu nationalists in particular. Because they believe they represent the true nation, Modi and the BJP have no problem steamrolling on the rights of those who disagree with them — including not just Muslims, but also Hindu critics in the press and checks and balances in the Indian state.

This cretin still doesn't get that it was the Bench which gave the entire plot to the Hindu deity and ordered its construction.  

“It’s very difficult for me to find compatibility between Hindu nationalism and democracy,” says Aditi Malik, a political scientist at the College of the Holy Cross who studies Indian politics.

But Indians think this lady has shit for brains. Smart people who study Indian politics can become rich and influential by getting different political parties elected. Credentialized cretins clutching their pearls and teaching other cretins don't matter in the slightest.  

There is nothing in theory undemocratic about the construction of a Hindu temple on a recognized holy site, especially when the construction is duly authorized by the legal authorities. But when it’s built on the ruins of a mosque torn down by a Hindu nationalist mob aligned with the ruling government, it sends a signal not just of Hindu joy but of Muslim subordination by any means necessary.

In which case, not building the Temple sends a signal of Hindu misery and Muslim supremacy. If it was wrong to smash the ruin in 1992, then building the mosque was wrong. Crimes against property don't attract  

Notably, Modi did not, at any point during the ceremony, apologize to India’s Muslims for the violent way in which the road to Ram Mandir was paved.

Whereas Biden apologized for America killing over a million Muslims one way or another- right?  

Milan Vaishnav,

another cretin 

an India expert at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, sees this as exemplary of the BJP’s general approach to wielding power. In his view, the party has presided over a gradual breakdown of norms of restraint governing Indian politics — adopting an “ends justify the means” approach to imposing the Hindu nationalist agenda because they believe they speak for the true majority.

But Vaishnav aint winning any votes for the INDIA alliance. Oh. I forgot. There is no INDIA alliance. Nitish is back with the BJP while Mamta and Mann have told Congress to fuck off.  

“There is this feeling that, because this government is democratically elected, whatever they do has a democratic imprimatur,” he says.

It did what the Supreme Court asked it to do. Vaishnav type cretins thought the job of the judges was to demand that all Hindus immediately give beejays to Muslims. Surely, that is a Directive Principle in the Constitution?

Modi’s war on the free press

is fake news fabricated by portions of that free press which, like Vox, are subsidized by various billionaire foundations.  

— which has included friendly oligarchs buying up independent media outlets,

Oligarchs like good publicity. They buy media outlets all over the place for that reason. Some make good profits doing so- look at Rupert Murdoch.  

siccing auditors on critical media outlets,

which take money from abroad to spread Chinese propaganda?  

and even imprisoning reporters on terrorism charges — is a case in point.

A terrorist may claim to be a freelance journalist just as rapists may claim to be Sperm Donors freelancing for the WHO. 

Seeking to force the media to tow a friendly line is undemocratic under any definition, even if the policies are authorized by a legislative majority.

But it hasn't occurred in India. True, the State Government can make life very difficult for you if you go against them but three big metros- Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi- are Opposition controlled. You are safer in each of them if you attack Modi.  

But the BJP believes that it, and it alone, speaks on behalf of the Hindu nation — and that critics in the press have no more right to challenge them than Muslims do.

Nonsense! Brahmins- especially heads of Brahmin monastic orders, like the Sankaracharyas- speak for Hindus. The BJP has to tread carefully. It can't be seen to be favouring one sect over another. 

There is every reason to believe that India will continue following this anti-democratic path in the years to come.

There's every reason to believe these cretins will keep recycling this shite every couple of years.  

In evaluating India, we have to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. First, Modi and his agenda is genuinely popular with the Hindu majority. Second, this popularity has given him room to pursue an ideological agenda that imperils the long-term viability of Indian democracy.

 Indians don't want to be a 'Secular Socialist' Republic for the same reason the Iraqis and Syrians don't like Dynastic Ba'athist parties. Religion is a service industry. Let it burgeon and the economy improves. Socialism should mean only a universal welfare safety net- not holding down the economy and sodomizing it mercilessly. 

When Modi said in his speech at Ayodhya that the day marks “the beginning of a new era,” t

for devotees of Lord Ram- sure.  

his might very well be true. India could be at the beginning of a long illiberal night — one its democracy may not be able to survive.

Fuck liberalism. Those who gas on about it just keep getting stupider and stupider. Democracy is burgeoning in India because more and more citizens get something tangible in return for their votes. Leaders, too, find that their power increases when the voters get behind them. This is not to say there aren't challenges ahead- seat redistribution after 2026, 'one nation, one election', Judicial reform, Revenue sharing, etc.- but solving those problems is what politicians get elected to do.