Opinion

Welcome to Modi's India, the training ground for Western fascism

Fascism is evolving. Marching under the banner of Islamophobia, Hindu and white nationalists have become increasingly worrying bedfellows, says Ashok Swain.

Ashok Swain
12 Mar, 2025
The New Arab 

Hindu nationalism serves as a model of a non-Western movement that builds a majority-based state while upholding religious and racial hierarchy, writes Ashok Swain [photo credit: Getty Images]


Over the past decade, the global far-right has changed in major ways. In the past, it was mostly focused on white supremacism and European nationalism. But now, it is forming alliances with non-European groups, most notably Hindu nationalists in India.

This growing connection between Hindutva and far-right movements in the US and Europe raises serious questions about how modern fascism adapts beyond racial boundaries.

This connection is not new. The relationship between Hindu nationalism and European fascism dates back to the early 20th century.

At that time, the idea of an "Aryan race" connected German nationalists with privileged caste Hindus, who were seen as having a common ancestry.

Some European thinkers, like Savitri Devi Mukherji, strengthened this connection by combining Hindu mysticism with Nazi racial ideas. She praised both the Hindu caste system and Hitler’s vision of a racial state.

Despite these historical ties, today’s alliance between Hindutva and the Western far-right is more about shared enemies than shared origins. Both movements promote Islamophobia, oppose secularism, and aim for an ethnically or religiously dominant state.

In the US and Europe, far-right populists blame Muslim minorities for social problems and see them as threats. In India, Hindutva groups, led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have passed policies that target Muslims, Christians, and Dalits.

This shared ideology has led to real-world collaborations. For example, Norwegian mass shooter Anders Behring Breivik praised Hindutva in his manifesto, and Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders defended a BJP politician’s derogatory remarks against Prophet. Other links include Steve Bannon’s admiration of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindu nationalist leaders participating in far-right events like the National Conservatism Conference.

One of the most striking aspects of this convergence is the increasing presence of Indian-origin figures in Western far-right politics.

People like Suella Braverman and Priti Patel in the UK, Kash Patel and Vivek Ramaswamy in the US, and Alice Weidel’s partner in Germany (possibly of Tamil origin) show how Hindutva-aligned elites have entered white supremacist spaces. These individuals gain acceptance by supporting nationalist, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant policies.
A new multiracial fascism?

This shift reveals the changing nature of far-right politics. Historically, white supremacy excluded non-Europeans from power. But today, the global far-right is strategically expanding.

Hindu nationalism serves as a model of a non-Western movement that builds a majority-based state while upholding religious and racial hierarchy. This approach appeals to Western far-right groups, which also seek to replace liberal democracy with nationalist, ethno-religious states.

The American Sangh (HSS), a network of Hindutva organisations in the U.S., has played a crucial role in strengthening these ties. Groups like the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and the Republican Hindu Coalition present themselves as defenders of Hindu rights while aligning with conservative and Islamophobic causes. Their influence is seen in efforts to end affirmative action and block caste protections in workplaces.

Far-right collaboration is also visible in publishing and ideology-building. The alt-right publishing house Arktos has helped spread books that mix Hindu mysticism with far-right ideas. Its co-founder, Daniel Friberg, claims to have met with over a hundred influential figures in India, including politicians and religious leaders.

Arktos has ties to far-right parties across Europe, including France’s National Front, Germany’s National Democratic Party, and Italy’s Lega Nord. Figures like Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, who advocates for an anti-liberal world order, are embraced by both American far-right groups and Hindu nationalists.

One recent example of this ideological connection is the growing link between India’s Hindu nationalist networks and Sweden’s far-right Sweden Democrats. Both groups share anti-Muslim rhetoric, as seen when Sweden Democrat Richard Jomshof shared controversial cartoons from an Indian nationalist site.

However, the growing influence of Hindutva within the far-right does not signify an abandonment of racial hierarchies. Rather, it reflects a conditional arrangement in which Hindu nationalists are accepted as subordinates within the framework of white supremacy.

Their inclusion serves the strategic interests of white supremacists, but only as long as they acknowledge and operate within this hierarchy. The presence of Indian-origin far-right figures does not indicate a dilution of white supremacist ideology; instead, it demonstrates its ability to incorporate useful allies while maintaining racial dominance. Those who conform to this structure remain within the fold, while those who challenge it — such as Vivek Ramaswamy — are quickly discarded.

The liberal response to this growing alliance has been inconsistent at best. While many Western liberals strongly oppose white nationalism, they are often hesitant to criticise Hindu nationalism. This hesitation comes from a view of India as a tolerant and democratic society.

As a result, Hindutva has gained more legitimacy in global politics, despite promoting many of the same extreme policies and even worse as the Western far-right.

Zionists & Hindu nationalists unite for a Trump election win
Arun Kundnani

The growing connection between Hindutva and the Western far-right is a warning sign. Fascism is evolving. It is no longer limited to white supremacism but is forming alliances with non-European movements that share authoritarian and exclusionary goals.

To fight this new far-right, progressives must recognise that white nationalism and Hindu nationalism are linked. Just as anti-fascists resist far-right extremism in the US and Europe, they must also challenge Hindutva’s influence worldwide.

The fight against far-right politics cannot be isolated. Stopping authoritarian nationalism — whether in the form of white supremacy in the West or Hindutva in India — requires global cooperation. Marginalised communities must unite to challenge racial and religious supremacy while defending democracy and pluralism. The rise of a multiracial far-right is a reality that cannot be ignored.




Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden

Follow him on X: @ashoswai

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ARYAN NATIONALISM

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ARYAN

Colleges in Nazi Germany thought giving in to government demands would save them

Students and other Nazi supporters gather at Humboldt University in Berlin in 1933. 

AP Photo

The Conversation

April 09, 2025

Many American universities, widely seen globally as beacons of academic integrity and free speech, are giving in to demands from the Trump administration, which has been targeting academia since it took office.

In one of his first acts, President Donald Trump branded diversity, equity and inclusion programs as discriminatory. His administration also launched federal investigations into more than 50 universities, from smaller regional schools such as Grand Valley State University in Michigan and the New England College of Optometry in Massachusetts to elite private universities such as Harvard and Yale.

Trump ramped up the pressure by threatening university research funding and targeting specific schools. In one example, the Trump administration revoked US$400 million in grants to Columbia University over its alleged failures to curb antisemitic harassment on campus. The school later agreed to most of Trump’s demands, from tightening student protest policies to placing an entire academic department under administrative oversight – though the funding remains frozen.

Cornell, Northwestern, Princeton, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania have also recently had grants frozen. Harvard was sent a list of demands in order to keep $9 billion in federal funding.

Now, across the United States, many universities are trying to avoid being Trump’s next target. Administrators are dismantling DEI initiatives – closing and rebranding offices, eliminating positions, revising training programs and sanitizing diversity statements – while professors are preemptively self-censoring.

Not all institutions are complying. Some schools, such as Wesleyan, have refused to abandon their diversity principles. And organizations including the American Association of University Professors have filed lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders, arguing they violate academic freedom and the First Amendment.

But these remain exceptions, as the broader trend leans toward institutional caution and retreat.

As a scholar of comparative and international education, I study how academic institutions respond to authoritarian pressure – across political systems, cultural contexts and historical moments. While some universities may believe that compliance with the administration will protect their funding and independence, a few historical parallels suggest otherwise.



German universities: A lesson

In the 1975 book “The Abuse of Learning: The Failure of German Universities,” historian Frederic Lilge chronicles how German universities, which entered the 20th century in a golden age of global intellectual influence, did not resist the Nazi regime but instead adapted to it.

Even before seizing national power in 1933, the Nazi Party was closely monitoring German universities through nationalist student groups and sympathetic faculty, flagging professors deemed politically unreliable – particularly Jews, Marxists, liberals and pacifists.

After Hitler took office in 1933, his regime moved swiftly to purge academic institutions of Jews and political opponents. The 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service mandated the firing of Jewish and other “non-Aryan” professors and members of the faculty deemed politically suspect.

Soon after, professors were required to swear loyalty to Hitler, curricula were overhauled to emphasize “national defense” and “racial science” – a pseudoscientific framework used to justify antisemitism and Aryan supremacy – and entire departments were restructured to serve Nazi ideology.

Some institutions, such as the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart, even rushed to honor Hitler with an honorary doctorate within weeks of his rise to power. He declined the offer, though the gesture signaled the university’s eagerness to align with the regime. Professional associations, such as the Association of German Universities, stayed silent, ignoring key opportunities to resist before universities lost their autonomy and became subservient to the Nazi state.

As linguist Max Weinreich wrote in his 1999 book “Hitler’s Professors,” many academics didn’t just comply, they enabled the regime by reshaping their research. This legitimized state doctrine, helping build the intellectual framework of the regime.

A few academics resisted and were dismissed, exiled or executed. Most did not.

The transformation of German academia was not a slow drift but a swift and systemic overhaul. But what made Hitler’s orders stick was the eagerness of many academic leaders to comply, justify and normalize the new order. Each decision – each erased name, each revised syllabus, each closed program and department – was framed as necessary, even patriotic. Within a few years, German universities no longer served knowledge – they served power.

It would take more than a decade after the war, through denazification, reinvestment and international reintegration, for West German universities to begin regaining their intellectual standing and academic credibility.
USSR and fascist Italy suffer similar fate

Other countries that have fallen under authoritarian regimes followed similar trajectories.

In fascist Italy, the shift began not with violence but with a signature. In 1931, the Mussolini regime required all university professors to swear an oath of loyalty to the state. Out of more than 1,200, only 12 refused.

Many justified their compliance by insisting the oath had no bearing on their teaching or research. But by publicly affirming loyalty and offering no organized resistance, the academic community signaled its willingness to accommodate the regime. This lack of opposition allowed the fascist government to tighten control over universities and use them to advance its ideological agenda.

In the Soviet Union, this control was not limited to symbolic gestures – it reshaped the entire academic system.

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks oscillated between wanting to abolish universities as “feudal relics” and repurposing them to serve a socialist state, as historians John Connelly and Michael Grüttner explain in their book “Universities Under Dictatorship.” Ultimately, they chose the latter, remaking universities as instruments of ideological education and technical training, tightly aligned with Marxist-Leninist goals.

Under Josef Stalin, academic survival depended less on scholarly merit than on conformity to official doctrine. Dissenting scholars were purged or exiled, history was rewritten to glorify the Communist Party, and entire disciplines such as genetics were reshaped to fit political orthodoxy.

This model was exported across Eastern and Central Europe during the Cold War. In East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland, ministries dictated curricula, Marxism-Leninism became mandatory across disciplines, and admissions were reengineered to favor students from loyalist backgrounds. In some contexts, adherents to older intellectual traditions pushed back, especially in Poland, where resistance slowed though could not prevent the imposition of ideological control.

By the early 1950s, universities across the region had become what Connelly calls “captive institutions,” stripped of independence and recast to serve the state.

A more recent example is Turkey, where, following the failed 2016 coup, more than 6,000 academics were dismissed, universities were shuttered and research deemed “subversive” was banned.
History’s warning

The Trump administration’s early and direct intervention into higher education governance echoes historical attempts to bring universities under state influence or control.

The administration says it is doing so to eradicate “discrimatory” DEI policies and fight what it sees as antisemitism on college campuses. But by withholding federal funding, the administration is also trying to force universities into ideological conformity – by dictating whose knowledge counts but also whose presence and perspectives are permissible on campus.

Columbia’s reaction to Trump’s demands sent a clear message: Resistance is risky, but compliance may be rewarded – though the $400 million has yet to be restored. The speed and scope of its concessions set a precedent, signaling to other universities that avoiding political fallout now may mean rewriting policies, reshaping departments and retreating from controversy, perhaps before anyone even asks.

The Trump administration has already moved on to other universities, including the University of Pennsylvania over its transgender policies, Princeton for its climate programs and Harvard over alleged antisemitism. The question is which school is next.

The Department of Education has launched investigations into over 50 institutions, accusing them of using “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.” How these institutions choose to respond may determine whether higher education remains a space for open inquiry.

The pressure to conform is not just financial – it is also cultural. Faculty at some institutions are being advised not to use “DEI” in emails and public communication, with warnings to not be a target. Academics are removing pronouns from their email signatures and asking their students to comply, too. I’ve been on the receiving end of those warnings, and so have my counterparts at other institutions. And students on visas are being warned not to travel outside the U.S. after several were deported or denied reentry due to alleged involvement in protests.

Meanwhile, people inside and outside academia are combing websites, syllabi, presentations and public writing in search of what they consider ideological infractions. This type of peer surveillance can reward silence, incentivize erasure and turn institutions against their own.

When universities start regulating not just what they say but what they teach, support and stand for – driven by fear rather than principle – they are no longer just reacting to political threats, they are internalizing them. And as history has shown, that may mark the beginning of the end of their academic independence.

Iveta Silova, Professor of Comparative and International Education, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SMOKERS’ CORNER: IN SEARCH OF THE 'NEW MAN'

Nadeem F. Paracha 

DAWN

Published March 31, 2024

Illustration by Abro

Till the 1960s, the idea of engineering an ideal society was an earnest endeavour. It did not draw the kind of cynical ridicule or even dread that it often evokes today. The concept of ‘social engineering’ is now understood as a rather sinister idea — but it just might be making a comeback.

The study of social engineering is often tied to the study of ‘ideologemes’ (a way of expression or representation of a particular ideology), such as the ‘New Man.’ The concept of the ‘New Man’ was a popular unit of various ideologies in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The concept first emerged during the 18th century French Revolution, when radicals (the Jacobins) took control of the revolutionary regime and looked to create a whole new society by completely destroying the old. To do this, the regime felt it needed to shape a new kind of citizen through a new set of knowledge and morals. This pursuit led to excesses, in which hundreds of ‘bad citizens’ were brutally executed.

In the 19th century, two books — one in Czarist Russia and the other in Germany — would go a long way in popularising the idea of the New Man. The first was a novel written by the Russian philosopher Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He called it The Story About The New Man.

After gaining prominence in the 19th century and its proliferation in the 20th century, the concept of ‘social engineering’ in order to create an ‘ideal society’ seems to be on the rise once more

The protagonist of the novel sees himself as one of the “new breed of men” in Russia entirely dedicated to forming a new society. He is a self-appointed messiah, envisioning a utopia. He even suppresses his sexual urges for this and is inclined to treat women as equals, as long as they are willing to work towards creating a new society.

The second book was by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, called Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In it, a ‘prophet’ tells the people about the coming of a new kind of man, the Übermensch (or the ‘overman’).

The Übermensch was to rise by shattering established ideas of morality, destroying the ‘decadence’ of the modern world, and would fill the void created by the figurative “death of God” with a new set of morals. The Übermensch was passionate, intuitive and unabashedly egotistical in his pursuit for power and glory.

These two tomes went on to influence experiments in social engineering in the 20th century, mainly in the communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The founder of communist Russia, Vladimir Lenin, was a great admirer of Chernyshevsky’s novel.

Lenin’s Bolshevik party set out to create the ‘New Soviet Man’ and the ‘New Soviet Woman.’ Lenin understood the Russian society to be ignorant and emotional due to the manner in which it was ‘brutalised’ by the old order.

Policies were launched to engineer a society that preferred consciousness over instinct and emotion, and worked towards creating classlessness. The ‘New Soviet Man’ had to be physically and mentally strong, disciplined by Marxist-Leninist ideology. He had to completely forgo his ethnic and racial identity.



The ‘New Soviet Woman’ was to be his equal — a fellow comrade, a securer of the Revolution but also a wife and mother. Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, asked the party to become “engineers of the human soul.” He said that society needed to be remoulded, “just as a gardener cultivates a tree.”

To Stalin, this required rapid industrialisation. Plans to do this were put into action. But whereas the Soviet Union achieved industrialisation at an impressive pace, this was at the cost of millions of deaths in the countryside, due to food extortion by the state to feed the cities, and the introduction of forced labour to build factories, roads and dams. The period also witnessed the mass execution and exile of thousands of “socially harmful elements.”

In Nazi Germany (1933-45), initiatives were launched to create the ‘New Aryan Man.’ He was to use instinct and intuition over reason and consciousness. He was to be a man of sheer will — not as an individual, but as an extension of a collective striving to serve a new Aryan society. The New Aryan Woman was to be a mother, the breeder of children of “pure German blood.”

Crude experiments in eugenics were carried out, millions from “undesired races” were exterminated, brutal military invasions were undertaken, and a bloody world war was fought to hasten the creation and supremacy of the ‘New Aryan Man.’

Nietzsche’s Übermensch was an inspiration to the Nazis, especially the Übermensch’s amoral and passionate impulse for power through grand military means and an unabashed lust for glory, even if this meant causing outright destruction.

The Chinese communist ideologue Mao Zedong tried to create a ‘New Chinese Man.’ The New Chinese Man was to be engineered to construct a new Chinese society. For this, Mao launched a campaign of “thought reform” in the cities. “Bourgeois thoughts” had to be expelled from the mind and replaced with thoughts of communist ‘sages’, such as Mao.

Then, reforms were initiated to create ‘New Chinese Men’ in the countryside. For this, peasants were forcibly organised into large collectives. ‘New Chinese Women’ were to be equals of men. In fact, they were treated as men and given similar tasks.

In 1966, Mao launched a ‘Cultural Revolution’ to galvanise Chinese youth to lead the way in persecuting those who had supposedly retained “bourgeois thoughts” and habits. Some 30 million people starved to death due to the collectivisation policies in the countryside, and the death toll during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) is said to have been two million. Many were killed by young men and women who were turned into fanatical believers of “the thoughts of Chairman Mao.”

In South Asia, the Muslim poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal wrote about the need to create a ‘New Muslim Man.’ Iqbal took the romanticised and mythologised dimensions of Islamic history to conceptualise the New Muslim Man, who was to be intuitive. He would passionately seek to shatter orthodoxy as well as ‘decadent’ modernity. A kind of Islamic Übermensch.

Iqbal’s ideas, in this context, went on to inspire Islamist ideologues such as Abul Ala Maududi, Islamic modernists such as Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, Islamist revolutionaries such as Ali Shariati and Ruhollah Khomeini, and populists such as Imran Khan.

The Hindu nationalist V.D. Savarkar sought to create a new kind of Hindu who was militant and proudly chauvinistic, or the opposite of the archetypal ‘peaceful Hindu.’ Decades later, Savarkar’s status suddenly rose to that of a ‘sage’ with the rise of populist Hindu nationalism in India.

A fascination with ideas of social engineering is clearly present in the political populism that has engulfed various regions of the world from 2010 onwards — a dreadful development.

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 31st, 2024

Hinduism Is Fascism

Modern Hinduism is fascism and racism. It is the origin of what we would call modern Fascism. Based on a religious caste system that is Aryan in origin, it divides up the world into three castes, warriors, priests, merchants, and in a slave class; the Dalit's or Untouchables. India Caste System Discriminates

The influence of Hindu Fascism on the Occult is well documented. Especially in the racialist constructs of Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophical movement. It is the concept of the Secret Chiefs, of higher beings who contact select humans, usually Caucasian Europeans, while relegating other 'races' of humanity to lesser rungs in the celestial hierarchies. Hence the belief in reincarnation, karma, dharma, etc. gets interepreted as the need for these lesser races to evolve to be accepted into the divine prescence fo the Secret Chiefs.

Later Aryan racialists would look at India as the home of the purist of the Aryan social constructs, that is the caste system, which they equated with the Indo-European peoples and as dating back to the orginal Aryan/Germanic expansion into the region. Savtri Devil, Hitlers Priestess was such a Indo-Aryan revivalist. The underlying construct of Hinduism is of whiteness/light verus black/darkness, which appealed to the Aryan racialists.

Dalit: The Black Untouchables of India
Originally published in India under the title Apartheid in India, V.T. Rajshekar's passionate work on the plight of the Indian Dalits was first introduced to North American readers through the publication of DALIT: The Black Untouchables of India in 1987. This book is the first to provide a Dalit view of the roots and continuing factors of the gross oppression of the world's largest minority (over 150 million people) through a 3,000 year history of conquest, slavery, apartheid and worse. Rajshekar offers a penetrating, often startling overview of the role of Brahminism and the Indian caste system in embedding the notion of "untouchability" in Hindu culture, tracing the origins of the caste system to an elaborate system of political control in the guise of religion, imposed by Aryan invaders from the north on a conquered aboriginal/Dravidian civilization of African descent. He exposes the almost unimaginable social indignities which continue to be imposed upon so-called untouchables to this very day, with the complicity of the political, criminal justice, media and education systems. Under Rajshekar's incisive critique, the much-vaunted image of Indian nonviolence shatters. Even India's world-celebrated apostle of pacificsm emerges in less saintly guise; in seeking to ensure Hindu numerical domination in India's new political democracy, Mahatma Gandhi advocated assimilating those whom Hindu scriptures defined as outcastes (untouchables) into the lowest Hindu caste, rather than accede to their demand for a separate electorate. Rajshekar further questions whether the Brahminist socio-political concepts so developed in turn influenced the formation of the modern Nazi doctrine of Aryan supremacy, placing the roots of Nazism deep in Indian history.

At the Culture and the State Conference at the U of A three years ago there was a concurrent conference of Dalit's from across North America. It was organized by my comrade John Ames. It was there I picked up their materials denonucing Hinduism as Racism and Fascism. These texts advocated a secular socialist humanist perspective on the Dalit struggle against the feudalist religion and politics of Hinduism.

Many Dalit groups, taking their cue from civil liberties organizations, ignore much of the economic ground for untouchability. Communist leader Brinda Karat notes that “only Communist inspired movements, enabled by the active participation of Dalits, have led to concrete gains against casteism.” In West Bengal, she shows, the Communist government initiated land reform that now forms “the backbone of Dalit self-respect and dignity in the State.”Badges of Color

Dalit Voice - The Voice of the Persecuted Nationalities Denied Human Rights
Dalit Voice was the first Indian journal to expose this closely guarded secret and shock the outside world and make history. That is how Dalit Voice has become the organ of the entire deprived destitutes of India, the original home of racism. Started in 1981 by V.T. Rajshekar, its Editor and founder, Dalit Voice, the English fortnightly, has become the country's most powerful "Voice of the Persecuted Nationalities Denied Human Rights". A veteran journalist, formerly of the Indian Express, powerful and fearless writer, V.T. Rajshekar, had to face the wrath of the ruling class, arrested many times, several jail sentences, passport impounded and subjected to total media boycott.

The Dalits are not only literal shit collectors in India they are also the largest group of workers in the service sector including government and the public sector. The political activism of the Dalits has been to unite in unions, broad based populist political parties, movements for womens rights, etc. to confront the Hindu Caste State in India.

Dalit Rising

Ghettoised Indians of the gutter society, eternally condemned. Not anymore, writes Amit Sengupta. The uprising is not a revolution, but it is no less

Buddha Smiles: Mass-conversion of dalits to Buddhism, November 4, 2001 Delhi

The sun of self-respect has burst into flame Let it burn up these castes!
Smash, Break, Destroy These walls of hatred
Crush to smithereens this aeons-old school of blindness Rise, O People!
Marathi song, anti-caste movement, 1970s

In other words, five thousand years and more after, almost 60 years after ‘Independence’, dalits in India are a priori condemned, even before they are born. Even after they die when they are buried in separate village graveyards. Even when they become educated or employed, within or outside the politics of half-fake affirmative action.

Unlike in Punjab, with plus 30 percent dalit population, many of them economically well-off, not dependent on land, where Kanshiram begun his first mobilisation. The dalit-sufi secular traditions (they control dargahs) are as strong here, as is the old Ghadarite-Leftist-radical traditions — be it during the freedom struggle, or in the great sacrifices made against terrorism. The Mansa and Talhan movements are examples of organised dalit reassertion: political and ideological (see story).

In Bant Singh Inquilabi’s amputated limbs, lies the epic story of a nation defiled, like his raped daughter in Mansa. But the truth is that this ‘invisible nation’ is refusing to accept its fatedness anymore. As in Gohana in Haryana, in Bhojpur in Bihar, Ghatkopar in Mumbai, Talhan in Punjab, this rising is rising like a wave on a full moon night. It’s only that we only want to see the dark side of the moon.

The Politics of the Caste System and the Practice of Untouchability The Hindu religious belief that" ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT BORN EQUAL" is deeply entrenched in the psyche of the upper-caste Hindus, leading them to see themselves as a superior race destined to rule and the out-castes (the Untouchables or Dalits) an inferior race born only to serve. This system, which has resulted in the destitution of millions of people due to racial discrimination, has not changed one iota after 50 years of Indian independence.

"For the ills which the Untouchables are suffering, if they are not as much advertised as those of the Jews, and are not less real. Nor arc the means and the methods of suppression used by the Hindus against the Untouchables less effective because they are less bloody than the ways which the Nazis have adopted against the Jews. The Anti-Semitism of the Nazis against the Jews is no way different in ideology and in effect from the Sanatanism of the Hindus against the Untouchables.The world owes a duty to the Untouchables as it does to all suppressed people to break their shackles and set them free."

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in a preface to his book,

"Gandhi and the Emancipation of Untouchables" - 1st September 1943

Man who redefined Dalit politics- The Times of India

October, 10, 2006

NEW DELHI: Kanshi Ram, the Dalit icon who changed the political landscape of north India, was cremated as per Buddhist rituals at a funeral conducted by his political legatee, Mayawati, after Delhi High Court turned down the plea of his family for staying the last rites.

For a man who single-handedly turned the politics of North India on its head by thrusting Dalits as a factor in the regional power-play, Kanshi Ram's end was rather sedate, passing away on Monday, at 72, after being confined to bed for almost four years.

As in life, Kanshi Ram, in death, did not miss to shock his main haters — the urban middle classes — as he pulled the subaltern in droves on to the Capital's roads, throwing them off gear in sweltering heat.

Post-independence, Kanshi Ram redefined Dalit politics in the idiom of defiance. Hailing from a Ramdasiya Sikh family of Ropar and employed as a research assistant in a defence ministry lab, he resigned over the right of Dalit staff to get leave to celebrate Ambedkar and Valmiki jayantis.

What unfolded was a long-drawn mobilisation of Dalits, which changed political faultlines of the Hindi belt, marked by rebellious rhetoric and neat networking.

Kanshi Ram first targeted the better-off among Dalits, who had benefited from job quota. The result was the birth in 1978 of the Backwards and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF), the first countrywide network of government employees from these categories.

APPRAISAL

KANSHI RAM

The Dalit Chanakya

If Ambedkar was theory, Kanshi Ram was practice. Roaring practice.

RAMNARAYAN RAWAT

Magazine | Oct 23, 2006

The dalit in India - caste and social class

THE dalit or "Untouchable" is a government servant, the teacher in a state school, a politician. He is generally never a member of the higher judiciary, an eminent lawyer, industrialist or journalist. His freedom operates in designated enclaves: in politics and in the administrative posts he acquires because of state policy. But in areas of contemporary social exchange and culture, his "Untouchability" becomes his only definition. The right to pray to a Hindu god has always been a high caste privilege. Intricacy of religious ritual is directly proportionate to social status. The dalit has been formally excluded from religion, from education, and is a pariah in the entire sanctified universe of the "dvija." (1)

Unlike racial minorities, the dalit is physically indistinguishable from upper castes, yet metaphorically and literally, the dalit has been a "shit bearer" for three millennia, toiling at the very bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy. The word "pariah" itself comes from a dalit caste of southern India, the paRaiyar, "those of the drum" (paRai) or the "leather people" (Dumont, 1980: 54).

Barbaric Assault on Bant Singh (AIALA Leader)
Petition to Prime Minister of India

We the undersigned condemn the savage and barbaric assault by powerful Congress-backed Jat landlords which has left Bant Singh, Dalit leader of the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha (All-India Agrarian Labour Association) in Mansa, Punjab, with both hands and one leg amputated. Further we note that this criminal attack was planned in retaliation for Bant Singh’s sustained campaign against caste and gender based power and violence, and in particular, his struggle to bring his minor daughter’s rapists to justice. We stand by Bant Singh and his family in the face of this unspeakable tragedy and we believe passionately that such atrocities cannot be acceptable in 21st century India.




Dalit Religious Conversion

A Struggle for Humanist Liberation Theology

The development of Buddhist and Christian conversions as a political force for change is key to the Dalit philosophy. Rather than being absorbed into their new religion, the Dalit's use religious conversion to counter the hegemonic cultural domination of Hinduism. In that they adapt their new religious affiliations to meet their needs, ironically which are based on a humanistic and secular view of the world that oppresses them.

Hindus set to convert to Buddhism

Despite advances, India's lowest Hindu castes remain downtrodden

Tens of thousands of people are due to attend a mass conversion ceremony in India at which large numbers of low-caste Hindus will become Buddhists.

The ceremony in the central city of Nagpur is part of a protest against the injustices of India's caste system.

By becoming Buddhists low-caste Hindus, or Dalits, can escape the prejudice and discrimination they normally face.

The ceremony marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of Buddhism by the scholar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.

He was the first prominent Dalit - or Untouchable as they were formerly called - to urge low-caste Indians to embrace Buddhism.

Similar mass conversions are taking place this month in many other parts of India.

Several states governed by the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, have introduced laws to make such conversions more difficult.

Dalit Theology-

Dalit-liberative hermeneutics is scientific and praxis-oriented.

The Travancore Pulaya mass conversion movement to Anglicanism in the latter half of 19th century was an expression of social protest. For thousands these conversions were protests heralding exit from the inhumanity of the caste system. These oppressed also saw the doors opening for them as a way out of the misery with the success of the anti-slave campaign championed by the missionaries.

Guru Ghasidas

Guru Ghasidas according to delivers of the Satnami panth was born on 18th December 1756 and died at the age of eighty in 1836. He was born in village Girodhpuri in Raipur district in a dalit family. Ghasidas was born in a socio-political milieu of misrule, loot and plunder. The Marath the local had started behaving as Kings. Ghasidas underwent the exploitative experiences specific to dalit communities, which helped him the hierarchical and exploitative nature of social dynamics in a caste-ridden society. From an early age, he started rejecting social inequity and to understand the problems faced by his community and to find solutions, he traveled extensively in Chhattisgarh.

Ghasids was unlettered like his fellow dalits. He deeply resented the harsh treatment to his brotherhood', and continued searching for solutions but was unable to find the right answer. In search of the right path he decided to go to Jaganath Puri and on his way at Sarangarh attained true knowledge. It is said that he announced satnam and returned to Giordh.On his return, he stopped working as a farm worker and became engrossed in Tapasya. After spending six months in Sonakhan forests doing tapasya Ghasidas returned and formulated path-breading principles of a new egalitarian social order. The Satnam Panth is said to be based on these principles formulated by Ghasidas.

Dissident Sects & Anti-Caste Movements:

Both Vedic ritualism and gnosis [supremacy of Brahmans] were bound to be called in question by the common people. The popular discontent found expression in dissident sects like Jainism (540-468 B.C.) and Buddhism (563-483 B.C.). There is no doubt that Jainism and Buddhism were the first attacks or revolts in general against the caste system.

Lord Buddha initiated a radical critique of contemporary religion and society. He was forthright in repudiating the caste system and the notion of ritual purity associated with it. One of his famous sayings runs like this:

No Brahmin is such by birth,

No outcaste is such by birth.

An outcaste is such by his deeds,

A Brahmin is such by his deeds.”

From out of the struggle between Vedic religion and heterodox movements like Jainism and Buddhism was born what is today called Hinduism, which reached its golden age in the Gupta period (300-700 A.D.). Many factors were responsible for this new development. Brahminism succeeded in integrating within itself popular religions. Popular deities were absorbed into the Vedic pantheon through a process of identification or subordination. Even Buddha was given the status of a vishnuite incarnation.

Dalit poems and sayings on evil brahminic system

Tell a Slave is a Slave!

Surely and invariably he will rebel!

For most of times Slaves know not they are Slaves!

Always they only keep enjoying and relishing their Slavery!

They say that had been their lives generations after generations!

That too over the many many millenniums!

Slogging in the fields and mines for the landlords!

Taking just a pittance in return and still be proud and happy!

Listen to this! This is what the landlords, who had raped butchered killed otherwise murdered in cold-blood, and burnt SC&ST Dalits say –

We had all along for generations employed them paid them given them grains, fed them and looked after them! Now they had forgotten all that, to believe in the Govt, go for Education, seek Govt Employment, trust the Parties, run behind the Party Workers, follow the useless Leaders, pin their Hopes on the meaningless Govt Programmes, lean on the fake NGOs, and repose faith in all those stupid Activists! And, they have turned against us, we who have been feeding them for Generations! We can’t understand this! Hence we had to teach them a Lesson! Discipline them! Put them in their Places! They are like our Children! They are our Responsibility! And in fact it is our Duty to Discipline them, and bring them back to the right path – their old ways!

That is it. The Landlords want now to reclaim the SCs&STs, bring them back under their total and tight control, and keep them in their fold, as in the good old days! The old bondage and slavery!

Yes, it is true! Many SC&ST Dalits still toil as Slaves to crude cheap landlords and goons! They don’t realise their status and slavery. They don’t know that the World had changed!

One need not be surprised or feel shocked by this ignorance, and lack of knowledge or realisation of the World. After all they are poor rural labourers of backward feudal areas! But even the educated and employed SC&ST Dalits are not aware of all their Dues and Rights! In fact the depth of their ignorance is shocking! If the Dalits’ Knowledge of Dalit Issues are so shallow, what can we say of others understandings of Dalit Problems! It is for this reason that any writings on Dalit Issues, and Dalit Views have to be in so much of, perhaps what appears to be too detailed! That includes Dalit Poetry on Dalit Issues and Problems! Hence, the Prose like Poetry, or Prose rendering of Poetry! That may not matter, but that also so inevitable!

Dalit Womens Struggles

The oppression of women is a double burden in slave societies, and amongst the Dalit's women have played an important role in linking their struggles with that of being Dalits and women. It has created a syncratic feminism that is reflected in the movement regardless of their religious affiliations. Again emphasising the humanist nature of Dalit relgious conversion.

Ruth Manorama, voice of Dalits
Ruth Manorama is a women's rights activist well known for her contribution in mainstreaming Dalit issues. Herself from the Dalit community, she has helped throw the spotlight on the precarious situation of Dalit women in India. She calls them "Dalits among the Dalits." A peacewomen profile from the Women's Feature Service and Sangat.

DALIT WOMEN: The Triple Oppression of Dalit Women in Nepal

Terai Dalit Women - Violation of Political Rights

Attacks on Dalit Women: A Pattern of Impunity - Broken People ...

FEMINIST DALIT ORGANIZATION

Dalit Women Literature Review

Dalit Feminism By M. Swathy Margaret

EMPOWER DALIT WOMEN OF NEPAL is a small human rights organization for Dalit women, the “untouchable” women on the lower rungs of Nepal’s caste hierarchy.

Five pledges for dalit shakti By Freny Manecksha
Martin Macwan’s Dalit Shakti Kendra in Gujarat provides vocational training to dalit youth. More importantly, it gives them a sense of identity
It began as a small agitation in Ranpur, Dhanduka taluka, Gujarat. Women of a particular dalit sub-caste, who still performed the menial task of manual scavenging despite legislation against it, had asked the panchayat for new brooms but were refused on grounds that there was no budget for it. This was a seminal moment for Martin Macwan, a dalit activist who had set up the Navsarjan Trust in 1989 against scavenging. “What totally devastated me was that they were not agitating against the practice. They were merely begging the panchayat to give them more brooms to prevent their hands from being soiled with shit. They didn’t dream of eliminating scavenging.” (Mari Marcel Thekaekara in Endless Filth, Saga of the Bhangees)

Globalization and the Dalit

The Green Revolution in India as well as the later developments around GMO's etc. have had a disproportionate negative impact on the Dalit's agricultural communities. Modernization and industrialization have not benefited these peasant economies, as much as chaining the Dalits to their landlords.

Free Trade – A war against Dalits & Adivasis

Dalits and Adivasis have never been the part of the conventional trade systems. Today they are faced with the horrible hostility of trade and market policies. In recent times trade entered the scene on mass scale through the principles of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. Mega industrial production still plays the key role in all trade deal not only at the national level but also at the international level.

Industrialisation, which made a colourful and dreamy entry, is turning out to be the worst form of human development. The steady economic growth of industries with active support from the state machinery is directly proportional to the unchecked exploitation of masses. Most of them belong to marginalized communities such as Dalits, Adivasis, women, working class, etc. Though during the independence struggle “land to the tillers” and “factory to the workers” prominently came on to the national agenda, nowhere in India had we witnessed the later one being implemented in the post independence era. Resultant displacement, migration, repercussion of workers, loss of land and livelihood, pilfering state revenue, forest resources, etc. has outgrown to monstrous level.

This has amplified particularly with WTO taking the centre stage of all sorts of trade related agreements and transactions at the international level. Trade is no longer buying and selling of goods and services but it encompasses issues like Intellectual Property Rights. With this the global market has wide open for exploration and exploitation of resources under the aegis of free trade. Industrialised nations found their tools to maintain supremacy on world trade. Prophets of trade and commerce argue that free trade maximises world economic output. This is what is considered to be progress. But what we have been witnessing with the Dalits and Adivasis in India is diametrically opposite to these claims.


Dalit woman shows the way to better yields


Dalit Academic Perspectives

A Dalit Bibliography

558, February 2006, Dalit Perspectives

Seminars and Workshops of Deshkal Society | Seminars on Dalit


Dalit Resources

Nepal Dalit Info

CounterCurrents.org Dalit Issues Home Page

Dalit Freedom Network: Abolish Caste, Now and Forever

Dalit foundation - Accelerating change for equality

Dalit Welfare Organisation (DWO)

Dalit Human Rights

Punjab Dalit Solidarity-A blog

National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)

The Bhopal Dalit Declaration

International Dalit Solidarity Network

Formed in March 2000, the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) is a network of national solidarity networks, groups from affected countries and international organisations concerned about caste discrimination and similar forms of discrimination based on work and descent.

IDSN campaigns against caste-based discrimination, as experienced by the dalits of South Asia to the Buraku people of Japan, the sab (low caste) groups of Somalia, the occupational caste people in West Africa and others.

The work of IDSN involves encouraging the United Nations, the European Union and other bodies to recognise that over 260 million people continue to be treated as outcasts and less than human and that caste-based discrimination must be regarded as a central human rights concern. IDSN insists on international recognition that "Dalit Rights are Human Rights" inasmuch as all human beings are born with the same inalienable rights.

IDSN brings together organisations, institutions and individuals concerned with caste-based discrimination and aims to link grassroots priorities with international mechanisms and institutions to make an effective contribution to the liberation of those affected by caste discrimination.

More than 260 million people worldwide continue to suffer under what is often a hidden apartheid of segregation, exclusion, modern day slavery and other extreme forms of discrimination, exploitation and violence.

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India



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 Opinion

From Christchurch to Emanuel AME, we must recognize the patterns of white supremacy

Recent reports suggest the attacks on houses of worship are not rare and the perpetrators are seldom acting alone.   

In this June 20, 2015, file photo, Allen Sanders, right, kneels next to his wife, Georgette, both of McClellanville, South Carolina, as they pray at a sidewalk memorial in memory of the shooting victims in front of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

March 20, 2023

By 

Danielle N. Boaz

(RNS) — Four years ago, on March 15, 2019, a white supremacist opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, leaving 51 dead and 40 others injured. While this was shocking in terms of the number of deaths and injuries, such attacks have become alarmingly common.

In the past 10 years alone, North America has seen white supremacists carry out mass shootings at multiple religious sites, including: the Overland Park Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom Retirement Center in Kansas (April 2014); the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina (June 2015); the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, Canada (January 2017); the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (October 2018); and the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California (April 2019). 

Reporters and government officials often refer to these shooters as “lone wolves” and their crimes as “one offs.” They study the background of these individuals to attempt to determine what led them to carry out such horrific and supposedly unusual crimes. However, a recent report published by the International Commission to Combat Religious Racism (ICCRR) suggests these attacks are not rare, and the perpetrators are seldom acting alone.   

The ICCRR report examines racially motivated attacks on places of worship and religious community centers in the United States and Canada. In total, the report includes attacks on 58 places, which, in addition to the previously mentioned shootings, include acts of vandalism, arson, stabbings and bombings as well as plots or attempts to carry out these same kinds of attacks. Nearly all the perpetrators of these attacks were white males, and many of them openly declared their intent to protect the white race or to “defend” their country against non-white, non-Christian “invaders.” Many were also self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis and/or they used Nazi symbolism (i.e. swastikas, images of Adolf Hitler and coded phrases meaning “Heil Hitler”) in their attacks.  

Perhaps the most concerning finding in this study is the data on how many perpetrators were part of a larger conspiracy. The ICCRR reports that nearly 1 in 5 cases involved multiple perpetrators.

In nearly half of cases, the “perpetrators were part of, encouraged by, or trying to gain admission to a larger group of extremists who believe in racial supremacy. In many cases, these were well-known groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Brotherhood. In a few instances, the perpetrators organized their own groups for the purpose of training, obtaining weapons, and carrying out attacks.”

Additionally, in more than half of the cases, the perpetrators attacked or planned to attack more than one site. In total, nearly two-thirds of the cases involved a series of attacks, multiple perpetrators and/or affiliation with an extremist group. 

Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh pay their respects as the funeral procession for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz passes their school en route to Homewood Cemetery following a funeral service at the Jewish Community Center, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. Rabinowitz was one of 11 people killed while worshipping at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The findings of a survey conducted jointly by the PRRI and the Brookings Institution, released on Feb. 8, 2023, adds another dimension to our understanding of the ICCRR report. The survey explores support for “Christian nationalism” in the United States. PRRI President and founder Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., defines “Christian nationalism” as belief in “the idea that America is destined to be a promised land for European Christians.” 

According to this definition, it found that 10% of Americans could be classified as adherents of Christian nationalism and that nearly 20% are sympathizers. Of white evangelical Protestants, it found that almost two-thirds are either adherents (29%) or sympathizers (35%). These Christian nationalists overwhelmingly agreed with arguments that are fueling racially motivated attacks on places of worship. For instance, more than 70% believe immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” and more than two-thirds believe people from some majority-Muslim countries should be prevented from entering the United States.

The survey found that the majority of adherents of Christian nationalism disagree that white supremacy is a major problem in the United States. Perhaps most concerningly, approximately 17% of all respondents agreed with the statement, “the United States is a white Christian nation, and I am willing to fight to keep it that way.”  

Read together, the ICCRR report and the PRRI and Brookings Institution survey suggest there is a very serious but overlooked threat terrorizing religious communities in North America. Self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are carrying out violent attacks against religious communities.

Both these attacks and their perpetrators are more organized than official responses would lead us to believe. Nevertheless, not only do large segments of the population refuse to believe white supremacy is an issue in the United States today, many of them appear to share the beliefs of the perpetrators of these attacks.

Danielle N. Boaz. Courtesy photo

These reports should leave us all wondering, and worrying, about the future of our racially and religiously diverse nation. 

(Danielle N. Boaz is associate professor of Africana studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches courses on human rights, social justice and the law. She is also a PRRI Public Fellow. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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