A region known as ‘God’s land’ offers a glimpse of the future if Indian prime minister’s BJP party retains its power
For centuries it has been known as the “land of the gods”. Stretching high up into the Himalayas, the Indian state of Uttarakhand is home to tens of thousands of Hindu temples and some of the holiest Hindu pilgrimage sites.
Yet as Hindu nationalism has become the dominant political force in India under prime minister Narendra Modi over the past decade, the government is accused of weaponising Uttarakhand’s sacred status for politics, making the state a “laboratory” for some of the most extreme rightwing policies and rhetoric targeting the Muslim minority.
As India’s mammoth election starts on 19 April, stretching across a six-week period, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are expected to return to power. Over the past decade, as India has grown to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, Modi’s government stands accused by rights groups of growing authoritarianism and pursuing Hindutva [Hindu-first] policies that have eroded the rights and freedoms of minorities, in particular India’s 200 million Muslims.
India and Israel are just farther along on the same path we’re on in multiple countries in the West. Fascism feeds off the rising inequality and exploitation of Capitalist excesses. It could easily have barrelled ahead further here first if dominant groups here were any less accepting of cultural differences (we could still do better, but we’re at least at the bare minimum of civility) AND if we weren’t as religiously unaffiliated and/or atheistic*.
(*This is not a knock at spirituality. I only say this because another calling card of fascism is for the dominant local culture’s religion to be contorted into its absolute worst, most corrupt possible form so it may be weaponized in whipping up monstrous sentiments towards scapegoated outcast groups.)
America is not too far behind them. If Trump gets in, brown and queer people will be marched into camps.