> NC: One thing that’s happened is the press has been pretty much muzzled. They are very uncritical.
This is a big issue with mass media in India that many don’t realize or want to realize. Between — a) most of the mainstream media houses (except a few) not asking tough questions (but supporting the government for everything), b) the Supreme Court ignoring important cases and not hearing them for years and c) the amount of fake news spread through WhatsApp — the liberal forums in India are filled with stories of how people are losing relationships or finding it difficult to digest the fact that their loved ones are close minded bigots.
Twitter has become a cesspool of bots, political party “IT Cells” and people copy pasting the same messages and hashtags, while WhatsApp has become the main source of truth (actually falsehood) for most people.
I am beginning to think that fascism is mostly a runaway media effect. 100 years ago it was the beginnings of mass-media being understood and incorporated into politics; now it is the internet.
It seems like something akin to witchcraft crazes on a truly horrifying scale.
The Malleus Maleficarum was a runaway 'hit' just after the printing press was invented. It's comically evil and while not fascism as we'd say it is today, damned if the methods of torture, psuedo-trial, and presumptions of guilt aren't mirrored in fascism (among others).
I guess you could say the same in the US. Actual facts and critical discourse have to be actively sought out by people who actually care about these things while the vast majority are swimming in a sea of mainstream media noise.
In the US, the problem is less the sea of mainstream media noise than it is the carefully crafted puddle of right-wing misinformation, anchored by Fox News and bolstered by a variety of foreign and domestic special interests operating in social media.
I really hope you don't believe the left is free of misinformation, biased reporting, and algorithm-optimized bubble think. It's happening on both sides.
No, of course not. But the effort on the right is much more focused and concerted, with a lot more money behind it both domestically (the arms and energy industries) and from foreign actors (notably Russia). And these agents, particularly Russia, are not only producing right-wing memes but also left-wing ones, in order to undermine trust generally. What's happening now is not the usual emergent misinformation that bubbles up from randomly distributed extremists on both sides, but a much more organized effort.
aka people communicating as they have for thousands of years. People love making up stories and spreading them. We need to stop blaming software for human nature.
> the amount of fake news spread through WhatsApp — the liberal forums in India are filled with stories of how people are losing relationships or finding it difficult to digest the fact that their loved ones are close minded bigots.
Can’t understand what this means. Are you saying the liberal forums are full of people who are struggling with family members who are deluded by WhatsApp based fake news?
Zygna did something similar to CA, so have previous campaigns. Plenty of blame to go with engagement algorithms and suppressing things with Orwellian terms like "unbiasing" and filtering auto complete results and having execs allow behavior since they're on the same side. I think the past is being looked at through rose colored lenses. New media enables more people to capture and share as opposed to the official mouth pieces of traditional broadcast media setting the story. Tech is just a thing, people inside echo chambers and settling for the first thing that agrees with them is the exact opposite of critical thinking.
You think the US media supports the US government for everything? Have you been reading the news the past 3 years? It seems to me to be just the opposite, where a majority of the voices in the media are against whatever the government(ie Trump) does. Heck, the few times when segments of the media agree with the government, it comes couched in language like "I hate Trump as much as you, but this time he might be onto something"
I think media widely supports the middle grounds that both Republicans and democrats occupy:
Drops lots of bombs on civilians in the middle east.
Make a ton of money for shareholders from healthcare.
Ignore, or pay only lip service to, the crimes against humanity of corrupt regimes like Israel, Saudi Arabia, China.
Wholeheartedly support the MIC.
For profit prisons.
Housing cost crisis.
Failing infrastructure.
Small stories get through here and there. But no media companies are giving the ruling class a hard time about these things. Though They're happy to spend hours every day shitting on trump. Might that just be a distraction from these dire issues we can track by the coffins behind them
The press in the US is just as factional as the parties. But there's a subset who live off slander - Alex Jones eventually got sued off the air for lying about Sandy Hook. That kind of thing does far more damage than just supporting one party or the other.
Which is why it's illegal and you get sued for it. I don't think that's a good comparison - something illegal that is routinely punished vs something that is neither illegal nor punished, but has massive effect
Well, it's not criminal and it's very hard to succeed in a slander action in the US. So it's very rarely punished. Which is why he could run a channel of lies for two decades. Most of the time it was bizarre fictional allegations against the government.
I think there's lots of blame to go on companies like Cambridge analytica.
CA literally didn’t do anything that FB itself didn’t do, and was praised for doing in the previous election cycle. They just did it for the “wrong” side.
Internet in Kashmir has been down for the longest period ever in a democracy, 172 days and counting [0]. Several cities in UP, Karnataka also faced Internet shut downs during recent protests [1].
One example is looking at the coverage The Hindu gave the BJP, RSS, and Modi before he came power and after. Before they were critical of BJP when it warranted, but since they came into power the coverage has been fawning.
This sort of comparision can be made across the spectrum of the news media. They are smarter than outright jailing journalists.
And that was despicable. Here the entire media spectrum has hardly complained about the fact that the sitting PM, a man FAMOUS for lambasting his predecessor as a mute, has never had a single non-staged media appearance.
IIRC the ONE time Modi did have a question session without being in control, it was a disaster.
And of this fact, there is not the slightest self awareness or questioning from the reporters or heads of news channels.
Indian media uncritically promotes government propaganda. I visited my parents back home, and the news channels are unrelenting in their defense of the govt
This is not nearly accurate. NDTV "and others"(not sure of any other mainstream channels) have also hsitorically been hard on the UPA governments even if you consider them pro-Congress.
The current breed of mainstream channels (Zee, Republic, India) who hold most of the eyeballs in India are not just pro-government they blatantly lie to protect the government's incompetence. Added to the fact teh BJP is a top advertiser on TV media creates a dangerous incestuous relationship the scale of which we've not ever seen before.
Check out the analysis of 200 prime-time debates done by peeing human. Republic, India TV, Zee News, ABP News, Aaj Tak, Times Now, Sudarshan News and countless regional channels are pro-govt. NDTV is the last channel standing.
Fascism is a state of mind, and it occurs at many levels.
To draw a gender-parallel, if it occurs at the level of head of household, it's called male-chauvinism. If it occurs at level of religion, it is called patriarchy.
To draw a leader-parallel, if it occurs at level of subreddit, it's called mod-abuse. If it occurs at level of government, it's called fascism.
They all represent the same thing - power/control gone to head.
And it is ironically hilarious how a subreddit that bans/censors/tramples opposing/minority views constantly criticizes the government of the same.
> Fascism is gaining in many parts of the world today. But the 'other' this time aren't Jews, they're Muslims.
As someone from a Muslim country, this comparison strikes me as facile and ignorant. It’s not just a group of people being viewed as “the other.” Even Muslim majority countries are facing challenges. In Bangladesh, the government is taking actions that people in western countries would probably liken to “fascism.” E.g. banning Muslim political parties. The problem these countries are grappling with is that they’re not just dealing with a group of people who happen to be different. There is a political ideology that crosses national borders and seeks to supplant existing institutions and governments. There is a lot of foreign money flowing into Bangladesh, to fund madrasas (schools) that teach hard line religion. Egypt and Turkey both fought these forces for decades, struggling to maintain secular, western institutions, and ultimately lost.
That is not to say that I don’t find Modi’s actions, or Bannon’s
rhetoric, etc., troubling. I do. It’s just that there is a lot more here than you can understand through shallow analogies or the lens of western politics.
Yeah the madrasa funding from S.A and others is a real poison pill. As a Bangladeshi, it was really disheartening to go through the countryside and see poverty in villages with oppulent mosques.
The question is does Sheikh Hasina think that she has free hand from India to be anti democratic as long as she keeps these guys in line? It’s kind of hard to tell these religious types that death penalty for blasphemy is a no go when you’re handing it out to your political opponents.
I was speaking with my dad about this the other day (who was a politically active university student during independence). He thought that she has quite a bit of leeway to be anti-democratic so long as GDP growth stays around 8% per year. He has been back several times in the last few years, and what struck him was how muted the response has been from BNP supporters. Economic growth seems to have hushed a lot of criticism and partisanship.
Fascism will always seed as a reactionary impulse against competing traditions. And it is competition, on a culturally genetic level.
The choices for all immigrants are assimilation or coexistence, and the latter is a strong lightning rod for the anxieties of neighbors wary of anything different.
With such a large percentage of the population of not just the country in question in the article, but also the entire world, I'm not sure they can be seen to be "the other" to the same degree as the Jews were, given how common they are.
In 1933, there were an estimated 15 million Jews worldwide[1], 9 million or so in Europe. In Germany, with the largest Jewish population, they accounted for less than 1% of the populace. In India today, Muslims account for close to 15% of the population. According to wikipedia, they're very close to 25% of the entire world population. There may be some vilification going on, but when the other group is as large as that, I doubt you can expect a similar outcome or as much of a one sided narrative in the places where it's attempted.
Uh... you mean if you ignore Poland, Romania, and the USSR?
> they accounted for less than 1% of the populace
From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary.
The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts.
> From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary.
Yes, I was mistakenly going from numbers presented for Western Europe.
> The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts.
As I covered elsewhere, I was (because of my own misinterpretation) approaching this more from a Nazi Germany standpoint, and trying to highlight differences from that. I think there's a reason why Jews were able to be scapegoated to the degree they were in Germany, and why it wasn't as bad elsewhere, and I think a lot of that is to do with relative population sizes. At ~1%, you can force your will on a people. At 15-25%, that's a civil war if you try, and there's enough people of that population that it's very hard to not have exposure to a degree that deflates some of that "the other" rhetoric. It's like if the same were applied to latino and hispanic people in the United States, which account for just over 16% of the population in the 2010 census. Not illegal aliens, but all people of that race. That's a really hard sell, because almost everyone knows someone personally that falls into that category that helps go against that narrative just by existing and having contact. I'm willing to bet it's easier in some areas of the world with similar percentages because the influx of Muslims is more recent and less established, but I'm not immediately convinced it's enough to get to what we saw in Germany.
If you want to restrict the discussion to a very vague "the other" that's less extreme, then I'm not really in disagreement. I do believe there are attempts to use Muslims as convenient scapegoats. I'm just not sure to what degree it works in a lot of places, given how many Muslims there are there (and to the degree it works, I think the number of Muslims means there will be a very different response from them if some group attempts to ramp it up).
I think the "everyone almost knows someone personally" thing _really_ depends on patterns of settlement. If the population is very segregated in terms of whether they live, work, etc (as was the case in Poland), that may well not work. Combined with visibly different modes of dress, different customs, different religion, and different language, the whole "the other" thing just wasn't a hard sell.
I agree with your point that mass murder by the millions requires something rather special, not least a combination of (1) feeling that you are not killing people and (2) industriousness that is fairly rare. Plenty of people in Europe in the 30s thought that Jews were worth killing if it wasn't too much work, but weren't quite going out of their way to do it the way the Nazis ended up doing.
> One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in The Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.[15][16]
Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading.
> Jews weren't a small population of some European countries' population
Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge. It took Poland's defeat by Germany before Germany could enforce their own policies (developed in a nation with a much lower Jewish population). Indeed, your own source notes that in the pre-war period while there was increases anti-semitism, and some increased violence, there was nothing like what happened in Germany.
> Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading.
I don't think so, but I can see how you might think so. I believe I misinterpreted what the top level comment was trying to express, and as such my comment isn't really addressing that. I think because of this you're also inferring that my comment is meant to convey something it's not.
So, to clarify, yes, I believe Fascism is on the rise and targeted at Muslims this time. I don't think it's the same as what happened in Germany for the reasons I noted, which wasn't what was stated so it's a bit of a non-sequitur on my part, but it is where my mind went when I was reading it.
> Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge.
Yes, the Poles were not trying to kill all the Jews in Poland. But "othering" Jews in Poland was _very_ par for the course, as was violence directed at them, discrimination against them, etc.
Some things happening to Muslims in the world today (in addition to India) off the top of my head:
-Genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar
-Ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs in China
Then there's just garden variety xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries in the US to the electoral gains of various far right parties in Europe because of the refugee crisis.
Pretty wide spread there, but clearly fascism is on the rise.
I didn't want to imply fascism wasn't on the rise, just some differences I saw. That said, as I covered in a cousin comment, I believe I was misinterpreting what you were trying to express to some degree.
This is sloppy generalization. The US travel ban has never applied to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Indonesia which host the largest Muslim populations.
Rohingga are split Muslims and Hinduism. So it’s not about a specific religion, but rather an ethnic group. Similarly Jewish is an ethnic group with many Christians and atheists being killed in the holocaust.
>Fascism is gaining in many parts of the world today. But the 'other' this time aren't Jews, they're Muslims.
This calls to mind the recent debates over Bill 21 in Quebec, that banned religious symbols for many government employees. It was clear that it was motivated by anti-Islamic sentiment, but it was disguised as a move toward "secularism".
Are you sure? The motivation for this could be interpreted as pro-Islamic too, in the sense that old religious symbols (in this case Christian) are removed from public places as the proportion of muslims in the population grows. This is happening in Nordic countries and my feeling is that we are paradoxically moving away from secularism at this point.
>Are you sure? The motivation for this could be interpreted as pro-Islamic too, in the sense that old religious symbols (in this case Christian) are removed from public places as the proportion of muslims in the population grows.
Very sure.
Originally, the National Assembly was not going to remove the crucifix that had long been hanging in their chamber. Only after some uproar did they backpedal on this. More recently, the Premier of the province made the mistake of being caught suggesting that all French-Canadians are Catholic. This effectively exposes the lie that this was about secularism, rather than a bunch of white Catholics being afraid of a growing minority.
Trump likes to target Mexicans too and openly has said he would like to be in Putin’s position with a dynasty. A surprising number of Americans are okay with this. Next election is going to be dramatic.
Then there’s China and its minorities being swept into mass concentration camps. Reminds me, I wonder what is happening in Hong Kong right now
> Trump... openly has said he would like to be in Putin’s position with a dynasty. A surprising number of Americans are okay with this.
Would you count the Bushes as a dynasty? The Clintons (had Hillary won)? The Adams? A surprising number of Americans do not see being president as disqualifying your close relatives from ever being president.
[Edit: Trump has said that he would like a third term. I don't know of any Americans that are actually OK with this. A surprising number are still OK with Trump after he said that, but that's not the same thing. You can support Trump and still expect - even demand - that two terms will be the limit of his power.]
It is actually happening for a while but for the last 5 years, it was done under the disguise of progressive leadership. Now that the economy is down the drain the people are waking up to see the true face of our leaders.
Thanks to the uneducated buffoon at the helm who faked his degree, didn't listen to Reserve Bank/Chief Economic Advisors and ruined the economy.
I actively read r/india and there hasn't been a single day for the past two months now that horrendous reports of Police rioting, looting, and killing civilians (predominantly Muslims) come up but is never reported by the main-stream media. There have been numerous cases where the ruling political party has mobilised its pro-violence groups with a free-reign to do as they please. Never has a public personality been in more fear of the governing apparatus since the times of the British Raj and so only a few have spoken up. Comedians focusing on social commentary say they frequently get messages of support and caution which they admittedly did not get prior to the right-wing taking charge at the center. The judiciary is in tatters, with judges frequently found to rule in favour of the ruling majority. The judges who allegedly rise up against the tide have been found dead in mysterious circumstances.
The Prime Minister doesn't engage in any debate and has been caught lying consistently. The ruling party has been found repeatedly guilty of spreading propaganda and fake news. Some of its leaders question even the founding principles of the country and openly support and revere Gandhi's assasinators and some hold no reservations against Nazism or Fascism. Activists have been unlawfully detained, tortured, and murdered. There were also alleged reports of Police raping 90+ young Muslim boys.
The current incumbent has not only managed to sell snake-oil to the Hindu populace but continues to harbor snakes to the detriment of the very Hindus that elected them to power: Most of them are in a state of denial about the grim situation breeding in India and some of them think it is an important lesson to be taught to the unruly Muslims. Perhaps, that'd explain why a convicted pro-Hindu terrorist won elections by a huge margin, and why a Hindu religious fanatic bordering on fascism rules the largest and most populous Indian state.
Friends have lost friends, families have divided over oppressive, regressive, populist, uncompromising politics of what's by far the richest ruling party. No one is safe from the propaganda machine, not even the educated, not even the ones in an industry as left-leaning and liberal as ours. It is as if someone has blind-folded them and I don't even know how and when it happened.
r/india is just cesspool. They do not care about free speech or liberty; they just want to control the narrative. The comments section is a shit show. It's hard to find a decent comment. It's all gomutra/sanghi/fascist/chaddi. At least on the other Indiaverse subs, we see some decent discussion. The best debates on CAA are on r/IndiaSpeaks. It's pro-BJP, but you can still criticize them there. And a lot of randians have found an outlet there.
Having spent more than 10 years on r/India, it is saddening to see it in its current form. An outright ban of people with a difference of opinion has taken r/India to a whole new level of bigotry.
Are you just jumping around this thread copy/pasting the same talking points?
For what it's worth, someone getting banned from the comments section of an online forum run by a for-profit company is not fascism – it's not in the same ballpark, not in the same league.
Fascism rose in popularity 100 years ago as a political option. Perhaps it is undergoing a renaissance. I have no idea why anyone thinks its a good idea unless you are the person in charge but it seems to attract support.
Because you probably live a comfortable life. For people who are struggling and see no hope of changing for better they often support more extreme policies just to "rock the boat". Years of rising inequality in many societies have created more people who'd like to have things change drastically.
This doesn't really match up to what I see, which is the people who find fascism attractive also idolizing and politically supporting the wealthy. Usually the people admittedly wanting to "rock the boat" are talking about social politics, which leaves little room for sympathy when the tool used is fascism. It speaks of hatred and nihilism, not desperation and inequality.
Inequality can be the root cause, but it is a hard problem to solve. Let alone powerful people who control the media would never want it to be solved. The result is people are not ready to face it directly. Instead they pick an easier solution such as fascism/racism, hoping the solution works somehow. Example: how many people blame foreigners for the absurd housing market? Because it's easier to blame someone else than thinking critically and find the root cause.
Additionally, it makes them more susceptible for the "someone to blame" agenda that these groups use. If your life is great and you have excess, this falls on deaf ears. This also leads towards terrorism and other violence as the futility of this life creates cracks for indoctrination.
>Fascism rose in popularity 100 years ago as a political option.
more generally totalitarism rose as that option with 2 major branches - either political class/party based, i.e. communism, or national/ethnical identity based, ie. fascism
>Perhaps it is undergoing a renaissance.
giving the increased technological opportunities for the totalitarism (and some, who didn't learn history, even argue - need - as totalitarism entice with seemingly easy solutions to a lot of modern issues) combined with knee-jerk "hide back into national village with good old traditional lifestyle" reaction to globalism it would be strange if we don't see the rise of nationally/xenophobically colored totalitaristic style tendencies.
> it seems to attract support.
populism is extremely natural and foundational to fascism as fascism panders to the perceived core identity of the subject mass of people.
>why anyone thinks
that is the point. Looking at videos and reading about the Nazi rallies, China Cultural Revolution events, USSR Great Purge and whole Stalin period, ... - it is pretty clear that it isn't the higher, the "thinking", level of the brain that gets to drive, it is that lizard part.
I think the precursors are very important in understanding this. In India, before the current Modi regime, there was a strong need for a strong leader. Congress (previous ruling party) suffers from Family rule and sycophants. Modi looked like a god-send to the masses. Now with a strong majority and into the 2nd term, the Fascist undertones are starting to emerge.
I can not not to find parallels with Xi. Just Modi, he looked like a god sent safe candidate for party leadership: unaligned, far from being a clear kleptocrat, and having just enough of his own skill and charisma to hold the seat on his own till last of nineties era elites retire.
Now people who propped him out can't regret it more.
It preys directly on human psychology by creating myths about how life used to be great and invoking nostalgia and frustration in broken people who just need guidance. No one who likes fascism sees it the way normal people do, because it's designed to trick people and weed its way into collective society and psyche.
This is why we must make a continuous effort to stomp it before it spreads and never listen to people who call us silly for saying Modi is a fascist just because he isn't Hitler's level yet.
This is institutional, i'm not suggesting just 'talk it out' with people. You need a complete paradigm shift in legislation to even begin talking about the structures needed to be put in place to help educate people.
Until people can protect themselves against it, for now best we can do is make sure fascism is called out so it doesn't reach anyone.
You are seeing symptoms of fascism not only in India, but pretty much everywhere. It did not sneak upon the world from some fringe underground overnight. No.
The world had 2 decades to wake up, and mop up that political faction.
I honestly don't know where the world is going now.
> Karthik: Right. Maybe you can give some other examples in the world. But he was celebrated when he was administering the occupation of Kashmir. But the moment he criticized the BJPs occupation of Kashmir, the moment he criticized it as reducing Kashmir to a “vassal state”, he’s been in prison.
> NC: In prison?
> Karthik: Yes, in prison, without charges.
This news article (https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/inx-med...) and several others seem to indicate that the Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a charge-sheet and that Chidambaram is out on bail right now.
The initial First Information/Incident Report was filed way back in May 2017.
Chidambaram and his entire family are a bunch of amoral kleptocrats. He laid the roots of the current Indian security state before Modi was elected. He is now being prosecuted for arm twisting and even blackmailing corporates into giving him money, shares etc. If there were any justice in this world, that man would die in a jail cell along with his son. Now your comment is implying that he is some persecuted liberal rights activist. This is either pretty clueless or a malicious attempt to sway opinions of people, who being outsiders, know nothing.
Well, the current govt introduced black box, unlimited size, electoral bonds.
So pretty much anyone can spend billions to buy a bond, and then have it anonymously sent to their party of choice.
The party which has been spending the past several years building a rock solid link to corporate India is the BJP.
They're earnings the last year was greater than the other top 3 parties combined, if not top 4. Think it was nearly 400% growth.
For Chidambaram and his ilk, it seems his greatest fault was not thinking big enough.
I do agree that they are no saints. Its just the scale at which the BJP functions is so many step function increments higher, that its laughable to compare the two.
Here's a recent anarchist podcast on the subject. I note the political orientation because clearly that impacts the interpretation of the events, but it was an interesting listen, I thought:
I really struggle to understand the Indian right wing perspective. There is absolutely no practical way to achieve their goal of a theocratic nation with the country still being intact.
As much as they might want to fantasize about it, you can't wish away 200M minorities. Nor can you economically progress if 200M minorities are ghettoized.
I agree, though real economic progress doesn't seem like a priority for the government as can be witnessed by the slowdown and silly policies like demonetization.
The 200M Indian Muslims are already ghettoized. And they do not mix. RSS's vision of Hindu Majoritarian India is a constitutional democracy without any minority appeasement.
Please stop using HN for political, ideological, and/or national flamewar. You've been doing it repeatedly, and we ban that sort of account. It's not what this site is for, as you'll see if you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I've lived in India all my life and there has never been a single instance in my life where a religious minority has benefited at my expense. I was never denied admission to a college, a job, or a rental apartment because of my religion.
The supposedly appeased minority, on the other hand, routinely struggles to get a rental apartment.
Strangely enough, anyone who is against globalism/neoliberalism is now being labeled as a fascist. Even on here, if you espouse free market ideas, you are instantly downvoted. Fascism has nothing to do with populism or the free market. It is a system where the government takes control of the economy. Don’t be fooled.
I think worldwide all proto-fascism is getting another turn at the wheels of power only because the neoliberal world order post USSR hasn't come up with any legitimate solutions that people feel need addressing. Whether it's wealth disparity, immigration (warranted or otherwise), or healthcare it seems as though we're stuck with old ideas that don't work out so well. Assuming markets and light touching regulations will fix these issues isn't going to be enough for anyone anymore. And I think the scary part is that if global warming isn't addressed sooner then I expect full blown eco-fascism become fashionable with some major parties. When (imo not really if anymore) that happens expect massive purges to happen. It hurts me so much to see this happen but if the neoliberals and social democrats can't offer an alternative them in their inaction others will rise to give options even if those are totally wrong for many reasons (moral, factual, spiritual, etc).
The right wing party in India came to power in 2014 in a perfect storm of a very popular leader and a pretty weak opposition. Opposition was further weakened electorally with demonetization right before elections in the most populous state of India (UP).
They were able to successfully capture most institutions (RBI, supreme courts, investigative agencies) in addition to capturing the media through corporate ownership.
Social media strategy and a massive disinformation campaign on Whatsapp proved extremely successful in the 2019 elections and the right wing party now has an even bigger majority with the opposition decimated.
Barring a turn in public approval (probably from a recession), they will continue to perform well unless opposition steps up their game.
There's more to democracy than opposition. I must remind you that the opposition was at the center of many a scams when it was in power. They're no good. There aren't very many better alternatives.
The citizens taking up to protests is the right way forward. The fascist ideals of the current incumbent is plain to see in these times of mass dissent. That's the point of worry here. Not opposition, not the ruling party, not the right-wing politics, per se; but the unsatiable thirst of a pro-violent party fronting a terrorist organisation to consolidate power with facist undertones.
By opposition, I didn't specifically mean Congress. I meant a political alternative that's better than what we have, hopefully citizen driven. Protests are temporary. Ultimately you need to vote for someone in elections to change the system.
What about BJP ticking/checking out election manifesto one by one and delivering. While Congress is just whining about everything with their ClownPrince pappu on the helm.
An economy which went from dreams of 10% growth, to under 5%, that too with a doctored GDP calculation is not progress.
Nor are the various reports on the economy which the government is sitting on or has surpressed over the last few years because it harms their image.
Say what you want about the previous government, but it seems their mistake was to actually follow procedure - the government regularly released their reports on economic performance, and they didn't resort to juicing the numbers like this govt is.
Very few statistics of this govt are surviving scrutiny, while they do thrive on viral headlines. (Toilet creation vs toilet use and actual sanitation outcomes. GST vs actual tax improvements and economic growth.)
Edit: to whoever downvoted, here's Chavez next to Chomsky, "one of the intellectuals who fights the imperial hegemony of the elite that rules the United States": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p3kvvZfdpE
He isn't some foreign affairs expert. He made the decision to support Chavez based on the information he (and we) had access to at that time, much of which painted Chavez favorably.
We, of course, came to know later that the house was rotting on the inside. But that's just hindsight
I'd say that there isn't as big a language barrier in understanding Indian politics. The English language media landscape in the country is thriving and there is a massive, vibrant internet presence.
India's democratic roots also mean that information is far more transparent.
To be fair, it's generally much easier to find someone who understands what one particular form of injustice looks like than it is to find someone who knows what actual justice looks like.
Well, to be fair, many American right-wing politicians have supported worse, including Saddam Hussein and Saudi royalties. If we discredit political pundits based on who they sided with, the only people remaining would be total misanthropes. Or those who never said anything so far. Maybe that's for the better...
I assume the Saudi reference is in relation to recent NYT articles. That's fair. But since you bring up Saddam, it is more correct to say that he enjoyed majority left wing support, not right.
There's plenty of offenders in American politics, regardless of party. Coloring your comment that way makes it seem less valid.
A long and respected career at MIT in linguistics does not make him an expert on international events. (He may still be one, but linguistics at MIT is not qualification for that.)
I’ll give Chomsky credit for successfully pivoting from linguist to polemicist before his so-called deep grammar was thoroughly debunked. If he’s actually an expert at anything, it’s only self-publicity.
He is not a joke in his field. He is highly intelligent. He has carte blanche to publish commentary on any topic he chooses, and some pundits will pick it up and say see, this well respected and smart guys says this, listen to him!
I see this same kind of response quite often when people question the government and its policies and laws. Instead of addressing the questions and concerns — the government, all the ministers and party members, and its supporters — they deflect it and switch to any topic where Pakistan or some “outsider” is questioned or condemned. Until they have the honesty to look people in the eye and address the questions directly, how could anyone expect a democracy to survive?
Innumerable? Can you point me to stats of those claimed innumerable Islamist terrorist attacks? I'm willing to wager a bet that there have been more cow vigilante fatalities in the country than Islamic terrorism.
I certainly don't support fascism but at least Hitler had some interest in science. Things are worse in India. We spent 0.8% of the GDP on Science and Technology. At the same time, a part of that (taxpayer money) is spent on Homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Cow Urine/Dung Research.
Our policy-makers absolutely have no idea what evidence in science means. Here is an entertaining collection of statements by Indian ministers,
=> “Science is a dwarf in front of astrology.” - Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the minister of human resource development
=> “Since man is seen on Earth, he has always been a man. Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, said they ever saw an ape turning into a human being.” - Satyapal Singh, the minister of state for human resource
=> "Vedic theory is greater than the theory of relativity." - Harsh Vardhan, the current Minister of Science and Technology
=> "Cow urine cures cancer" - current Bharatiya Janata Party member of parliament
=> "Maths never helped Einstein discover gravity" - Piyush Goel, minister of Railways and Commerce
=> "Ganesha proves plastic surgery existed in ancient India" - Modi, Prime Minister
While I don't dispute that those things were said, they're meaningless without context.
How many people made such statements compared with the number of ministers in India? Are these people still in power? Are they leaders in what they do, or are they on the margins and taken with a grain of salt/ignored by the masses and their peers?
Are the sentiments you list commonplace among Indian politicians, or is this like when one Catholic priest says something wacky and the internet goes crazy labeling a billion people?
Yes, without the context it could be misleading that is why there is the hyperlink, so one can understand more.
Irrespective of what party is in power now or previously, the policy-makers should not be making these crazy claims. Please understand this is not a race to the bottom, anyone who holds public office should be held accountable. A countless number of people will take their words as the truth.
And to answer your question yes many of these people still hold the office and all comments were made when they held the office.
It's no use saying "at least Hitler" if it was going to be used to exterminate your kind from the face of the Earth. In that case it's not "at least"; it's much worse.
Also of course vedic theory could be greater than any given theory, no matter how revolutionary, or it could not. It would obviously depend on perspectives and values on life.
This is a big issue with mass media in India that many don’t realize or want to realize. Between — a) most of the mainstream media houses (except a few) not asking tough questions (but supporting the government for everything), b) the Supreme Court ignoring important cases and not hearing them for years and c) the amount of fake news spread through WhatsApp — the liberal forums in India are filled with stories of how people are losing relationships or finding it difficult to digest the fact that their loved ones are close minded bigots.
Twitter has become a cesspool of bots, political party “IT Cells” and people copy pasting the same messages and hashtags, while WhatsApp has become the main source of truth (actually falsehood) for most people.