Inkwell Institute

World Desk

While most Americans were glued to their tellie watching and listen for the buzz words that would send them into a political frenzy….Benghazi……Benghazi…..and Benghazi……….the amusing point of the this whole silly stuation….it is so damn important but less that 30% of Americans could find Benghazi on a map…..I digress……while Americans were otherwise distracted the world’s largest democracy had a national election.

Yes, I am talking about India and its 500 million voters…….since 1947, the year of their independence from the British Empire the politics have been ruled by the Gandhi family and the Congress party…….but all that influence and power came crashing down around their ears……..a man named Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)………..which in most cases would be an improvement over a single party rule….but in this case I have my doubts.

Why?  Modi and the BJP are ultra-nationalistic Hindus……..in the past he has made some disturbing comments…….Modi’s warnings that Muslim immigrants in the east better have their “bags packed” seem especially ominous when one considers his administration oversaw the 2002 Gujarat riots, which saw the deaths of at least 790, and by some accounts nearly 2,000, Muslim civilians……….Modi’s provincial cabinet ministers were accused of direct involvement in the riots, and while Modi himself was never firmly implicated he has since 2005 been denied entry to the United States. Despite this, the US says that it “looks forward” to working with Modi’s government.

Modi is a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a cultish paramilitary group of ultra-nationalist Hindu activists founded in the 1930s and modeled along the same lines as various right-wing ethno-nationalist groups in the ascendant at the time: the Italian fascists, the German National Socialists, and the right-wing Zionist followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Gandhi’s assassin was an RSS militant, and the group has been at the center of the anti-Muslim riots that have wracked India in recent times.

At the core of RSS-BJP ideology is the idea of Hindutva, which idealizes Indian ethnicity and upholds a mythology that portrays Indians as the first pure “Aryan” race, which supposedly sprang from the Arctic region eons ago. Partisans of Hindutva adopted the swastika – an ancient Indian symbol – as the emblem of their movement, and the constitution of RSS specifies that the leader of the cult must be a blue-eyed Sarasvat Brahmin.

I bring all this up for one simple reason….Kashmir.

An area of India that is claimed by Pakistan and to a small portion of China…….the region is predominately Muslim and has been in contention since independence in 1947.  Several small wars have been fought in the past over this region…..and because of the conflict both sides of the situation has nuclear weapons….mull over that for  bit.

Since Modi is linked to anti-Muslim sentiments will this become a major sticking point now that he is in “control”?

Maybe not right away…..he needs to time to consolidate is power base and then the real Modi will surface……..either for good or bad.

There is more at stake in the world than who knew what in northern Libya.