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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html
IN THE SHADOW OF SHIVA
Crazed Hindu-fascists threaten the
world
"I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds."
In the wake of 9/11, much has been written of the link between
religion – specifically, Islam – and the rise of the
terrorist threat: the religion of Mohammed, we are told,
represents a dire threat to the West, comparable, in scope and
potential lethality, to that of the old Soviet Union –
perhaps greater. In recent days, we have been subjected to
warnings that this threat will "inevitably" take the
form of a nuclear device, detonated, perhaps, in an American
city. Be that as it may, the nuclear incarnation of the Muslim
Threat is depicted as a deadly potential. In spite of a veritable
flood of scare stories, to the effect that Al Qaeda-like
terrorists are about to get their hands on a nuclear device, or
have been trying to acquire one, no one argues that Osama bin
Laden or his allies have a nuclear device. But there is another
brand of religious fanaticism that actually does have The Bomb,
whose adherents are not only willing, but also, one could argue,
even eager to use it.
OPPENHEIMER'S WAS RIGHT
"I am become death, the shatterer of worlds" –
these were the first words out of J. Robert Oppenheimer's mouth
as he saw his handiwork blossom over the New Mexico desert, in
1945, at the dawn of the nuclear age. He was quoting the
Bhagavad-Gita, the holy book of the Hindus, and, as Robert
Marquand of the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1998:
"In India, Dr. Oppenheimer's words are increasingly quoted
by a new type of Hindu activist. For them, his use of their
sacred text shows how Hindu ideas of deity are connected to
modern times. Fire and fire rituals are a major element of
Hinduism. The visage of creator-god Vishnu is like the brilliance
of a nuclear flash, they argue."
Marquand points out that India's nuclear arms program is suffused
with Hindu imagery: the Agni rocket stands for the Hindu fire
god; the Trishul missile is named for the trident of
righteousness held by Vishnu. Defending the Indian government's
decision to go nuclear, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
declared that nukes are
"A necessary component of overall national strength....The
greatest meaning of the tests is that they have given India
shakti."
The Hindu concept of shakti refers not just to power, but divine
power, i.e. the military prowess of the Hindu pantheon. In Hindu
mythology, Shakti is the consort of Shiva ("the
Destroyer"), and this was also the code name for India's
nuclear program during its developmental stage. In hailing his
nation's swollen sense of shakti, after the 1998 nuclear testing
that inducted India into the nuclear club, Vajpayee expressed a
key precept of the Hindutva movement that now threatens South
Asia with nuclear destruction.
HINDU-FASCISM IN ACTION
The rise of Hindu fundamentalism as a political force in India
catapulted the Bharatiya Janata Party to power and sought to
expunge the Gandhian pacifism of the old militantly secular
Congress Party tradition, replacing it with a new martial spirit.
The idea of Hindutva, which energizes the Hindu activists, sees
India not only as a Hindu state, but as a militantly revanchist
force in the region, a nation determined to recapture its old
empire. As I explained in a previous column devoted to this
fascinating subject, the Hindutva movement has created a whole
mythology based on the idea of ethnic Indians as the first and
only pure Aryans: the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol, and
has been revived by what I call the Hindu-fascist forces in
India. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological
center of Hindutva, has a provision in its constitution that its
leader must be a blue-eyed Sarasvat Brahmin.
I hesitate to use the term "neo-Nazi" to describe a
contemporary political movement, as it has become almost a
ritualistic term of abuse. However, in this case, the label fits
precisely: to begin with, the Hindutva theory of
"Aryan" racial superiority is nearly identical to that
of the German Nazis. Hitler’s followers borrowed not only
the swastika but also adopted other mythic aspects of Hindu
mysticism, such as the alleged Arctic origins of the
"Aryan" race propagated by B. G. Tilak and others.
Marquand cites Francine Frankel, director of the Center for the
Advanced Study of India, as saying that India's ruling party
"has reinterpreted Hinduism to include a manly
assertiveness." This is confirmed by the exclamation of one
Hindu leader who, averring his support for India's nuclear
program, declared "We are no longer eunuchs!"
The psycho-religious symbolism of India's nuclear exhibitionism
may have eluded our political leaders, but it wasn't lost on the
scholarly community. Marquand cites Sanskrit scholar Surendra
Gamphir, who says militarism is so "deeply embedded [a]
concept in Hindu culture that you hold scripture in one hand and
a weapon in the other."
In short, what we are dealing with, in India, is a bunch of
neo-Nazi nutballs with a giant nuclear chip on their shoulders
– and suffering under a terrible feeling of inadequacy, or
impotency. Calling a group or party "nutballs" is a bit
harsh: but, again, there is no other way to describe the Indian
leaders' professed indifference to the consequences of a nuclear
exchange. Surely a stoic calm in the face of such a horror has
deep – and dark – psychological roots. Such a volatile
mixture of psychological and ideological maladies ought to have
set off alarm bells, back in 1998, when they became a nuclear
power, but nobody seemed to "connect the dots," as they
say. As Marquand pointed out at the time:
"Yet after last month's test, experts in New Delhi and
Washington are not speaking of a 'Hindu bomb' - [even] as they
speak of an 'Islamic bomb.'"
India made its position clear last year, when George Fernandes,
India's defense minister, declared:
"We could take a strike, survive and then hit back. Pakistan
would be finished."
One Western diplomat worried aloud that "these people have
never heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," but, then again,
perhaps Westerners have trouble understanding the concept of
reincarnation, which figures prominently in the religions of
Asia, and especially in the Hindu tradition. You may be
incinerated by a nuclear bomb in this life, but don't worry
– you'll come back. Perhaps as a citizen of a more civilized
country, where the idea of mass death is unthinkable. It's the
next best thing to a green card.
MUSHARRAF PLAYS DEFENSE
The Pakistanis, for their part, are playing a strictly defensive
role in this nuclear drama. Outnumbered by India's massive army,
which is poised on the border, its only advantages are a more
modern air force, its special relationship with the US – and
the willingness to press the nuclear trigger. The determinedly
pro-American General Pervez Musharraf, who single-handedly
stopped Pakistan's slide into Afghan-style fundamentalism, has
had to fight a war on two fronts: against Al Qaeda and the Indian
ultra-nationalists, both of whom are pushing determinedly into
the disputed Kashmir region and share a common goal: the
dissolution of the Pakistani state.
INDIAN EXPANSIONISM
As professors John T. Rourke and Mark A. Boyer, both of the
University of Connecticut - Storrs, point out, the ideologists of
Hindutva hold up the idea of a Greater India as a key foreign
policy objective:
"The BJP's platform advocates not only the return of India
to its traditional Hindu culture, but also the resurrection the
India that was once a great power. Many Hindu nationalists have
maps depicting the ideal of Akhund Bharat, 'Old India,' with
territory encompassing Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and
Pakistan."
THE PALESTINE PARALLEL
Energized by a sense of religious messianism, and dedicated to
the restoration of a lost empire, the Hindu-fascists of the BJP
have a lot in common with their Israeli allies – most
importantly, they have a common enemy in Islam. Embarked on an
extensive program of military cooperation, the two countries have
affected a similar stance in the post-9/11 era: that of being
more royalist than the king (i.e. the US) when it comes to the
issue of terrorism. The Israelis have argued that, like the
Americans in Afghanistan, their incursions into Palestinian
territory are justified in the name of the "war on
terrorism." Likewise, New Delhi, in justifying its ongoing
subjugation of Kashmir and incursions into Pakistan, cites the
pursuit of "terrorists" as justification – and
darkly hints that Pakistani intelligence masterminded the recent
attack on India's parliament.
At the core of the conflict is the issue of Kashmir, which India
has invaded, and holds against the will of the largely Muslim
population. While formally agreeing to hold free elections, India
has managed to delay the process – since 1948, when both
India and Pakistan voted for the Indian resolutions which called
for a UN-supervised plebiscite. India's Occupied Territories,
like Palestine's, are held under martial law, and that is not the
only parallel: here, too, religious ideology provides a ready
justification for a foreign policy of militant expansionism, the
unanswerable justification for daily atrocities visited on an
occupied people.
TONY BLAIR, ARMS SALESMAN
Another key ally of India is Britain. Foreign secretary Jack
Straw made a special trip to Islamabad the other day to accuse
Musharraf, on his home turf, of "aiding 'terrorists' in
Kashmir" and demanded that he curb "extremists,"
i.e., anyone fighting against the Indian occupation. As John
Pilger points out, Britain's New Labor has acted as a kind of
brokerage firm for the British arms industry, and Tony Blair has
been a most effective salesman when it comes to peddling his
wares in New Delhi:
"In January, as the two countries prepared for war, Tony
Blair arrived in the subcontinent on what was called a
"peace mission." In fact, as the Indian press revealed,
he discussed the opposite of peace – a £1billion deal to
sell India 60 Hawk fighter-bombers made by British Aerospace.
'The issue of India acquiring the Hawks," reported the
periodical Outlook India, 'was raised by Prime Minister Blair
with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, defense minister George
Fernandes said today.' Three weeks later, the British High
Commission in New Delhi threw a party for a group of British arms
salesmen in town for a major weapons fair called Defexpo, whose
organizers made no secret of their aim to exploit the 'recent
developments taking place in the south-east Asia region' –
in other words, the conflicts in Kashmir and Afghanistan."
REMEMBER THE MONTAGNARDS
With Britain, Israel, and India arrayed against him, General
Musharraf – who has loyally cooperated with the US in the
fight against Al Qaeda at great risk to his office and his life
– is in a very tenuous position, and whether he holds out is
crucial. For if he falls, then the fate of all pro-American
regimes in that part of the world is prefigured: Musharraf and
his Arab brethren will share the fate of the Vietnamese
Montagnards, and those Cubans who foolishly but heroically went
down to defeat at the Bay of Pigs. Everyone in the region will
get the message, fast, and America's allies in the war on
terrorism will be reduced to Israel, Britain, India, and maybe
Turkey.
THE STAKES FOR AMERICA
That is why George W. Bush's position is nearly as tenuous as
Musharraf's. He must balance the demands of our rabid
"allies," pushing for an open alliance with India,
against the national interests of the US, which militate in favor
of Musharraf. Again, the parallels with the Palestinian conundrum
are striking: Bush has been veering back and forth, first
praising Musharraf for his steadfast support to the US military
effort, and then scolding him publicly for supposedly not doing
enough to rein in Kashmir militants – and for stubbornly
(and correctly) insisting the goal of independence for Kashmir is
"a just struggle." It is a mirror of US relations with
Arafat.
A SELF-INFLICTED TRAGEDY
American collusion with a newly-aggressive and expansionist India
has helped bring us to this point – standing at the edge of
a nuclear catastrophe in South Asia. "Weapons of mass
destruction" – the mantra we hear so often when it
comes to Iraq – hardly seemed to matter where India was
concerned, at least until very recently. Oh, there was
near-universal hand-wringing when India tested nukes, but no
imposition of any but the mildest of sanctions – and even
the beginning of a US-Indian rapprochement. Months before 9/11,
we had already greatly increased our previously low-level
military cooperation with India, and, last I heard, joint
US-India war games were scheduled to occur even as US officials
were saying the Indo-Pakistani war could go nuclear in three
weeks.
PUTTING AMERICA FIRST
The American interest in the India-Pakistan dispute is twofold:
Aside from the moral value of circumventing mass death, we have
an interest in preventing a nuclear war that could have
unpredictable and invariably dire health consequences well beyond
the immediate vicinity of the catastrophe.
Pakistan is a key battlefield in the entirely legitimate effort to eliminate Al Qaeda as a military force. Without General Musharraf, and his largely US-trained-and-equipped military, a massive US operation in Pakistan – an invasion – is inevitable. Which is precisely what the War Party wants….
Both American interests, and justice, dictate a
policy of unequivocal support for General Musharraf. For he is
our Pinochet in the war on terrorism, and, like his namesake, he
deserves better than to be thrown to the dogs. All this guff
about how "democracies" never start wars is surely
proven wrong by the example of India, which started the regional
nuclear arms race by being the first to conduct tests, and is now
openly threatening its neighbor with nuclear annihilation.
"We must be prepared for mutual destruction on both
sides," says Indian defense secretary Yogendra Narain. This
seeming indifference to the prospect of 12 million people
incinerated in the first stages of a nuclear conflict is echoed
by Hindu-fascist military strategists, such as Lieutenant General
Satish Nambiar, affiliated with a military think-tank based in
New Delhi.
"I don't think the Americans want a full-scale war on their
hands in this region. I think there would be some pressure on
Pakistan so that the situation does not escalate into a war
situation. In the worst-case scenario, if Pakistan escalates and
there is a war, then we will deal with it. We must be prepared.
We have been fighting a war with one hand tied for the last 15
years."
SHIVA RISING
The cultural blinders we wear in the West prevent us from seeing
the full horror of the monstrous Shiva rising in the East. Many
were struck by the weird admixture of medieval notions and modern
methods that animated the cadres of Al Qaeda. But then what are
we to make of this news?:
"Indian scientists are turning to an ancient Hindu text in
their search for the secrets of effective stealth warfare. They
believe the book, the Arthashastra, written more than 2,300 years
ago, will give Indian troops the edge on their enemies. India's
Defense Minister George Fernandes has approved funding for the
project, and told parliament recently that experiments had
begun."
A single meal that will energize a soldier sufficiently to fight
for a month; footwear that enables the wearer to walk for
hundreds of miles without tiring – thanks to the application
of a serum made from the flesh of owls and vultures; a magic
fairy-dust made of fireflies and the eyes of wild boar that
bestows the ability to see in the dark: these projects, as well
as numerous recipes for chemical warfare, are being decoded from
the ancient Hindu texts by Indian scientists. Given the growing
US-Indian military relationship, one can legitimately wonder if
perhaps US tax dollars are being used to investigate the military
uses of sacred bat guano mixed with eye of newt.
'WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE MAD'
Humor aside, this is serious, folks. The Indians have indicated
they are planning to invade parts of Pakistan, and run the risk
of all-out retaliation – leaving it to the Americans to
restrain Musharraf. But what if he won't be restrained – and
why shouldn't the Indians restrain themselves?
Of course, they won't: madmen never do. That's why we consider
them mad to begin with. We know we are dealing with madmen when
we listen to Professor SV Bhavasar, whom the BBC describes as a
"space scientist," defend the effort to give the sacred
Hindu texts a military application:
"All of us are excited about the possibilities and do not
for a moment think that the idea is crazy."
I don't know what they're smoking over there, but it seems like
some pretty powerful stuff. A space scientist? That appears to be
a typo – I think what the BBC meant was spaced scientist, as
in so spaced-out that he doesn't know fantasy from reality.
What's scary is that we are not talking about ignorant peasants,
here, but of scientists and the people in charge! Of course
Professor Bhavasar doesn't think the idea is crazy – because
Indian society has gone completely bonkers, and is now capable of
anything – yes, even a genocide of Hitlerian proportions.
Who will stop them? Will the President of the United States
overcome the active collaboration of our "allies" with
crazed Hindu-fascists and demand that New Delhi stand down? This,
more even than 9/11, may prove to be the real test of his
presidency.