Hugging Controversy

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The leader of India's right wing governing party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is no stranger to controversy.

For the purposes of fear mongering Narenda Modi has seized on the far right trope about Muslims at some point overtaking the country's Hindu majority, despite the data on Muslim growth projection not supporting his assertion.

Modi's authoritarian populism is buttressed by a right wing nationalist paramilitary body, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS):

India’s oldest and largest Hindu-supremacist paramilitary group and the ideological parent of the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) . . . The ongoing relationship between the RSS and BJP has never been hidden . . . one Indian media outlet estimated that one in five BJP ministers was affiliated with the RSS. This includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, who joined the RSS at age eight.

The origins of RSS can be traced back to the country's strain of fascism. It was the organisation behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 and has been responsible for numerous acts of terrorism against India's Muslim population.

There is no compelling reason to be attracted to the Modi brand of politics, and every reason to resile from his dangerous Hindu nationalism where the 'ideal Hindu man' has been implicitly encouraged to rape Muslim women in a country where sexual violence against women in general is notorious.

Yet, the criticism directed his way for his embrace of fellow right wing nationalist and authoritarian, Russian leader Vladimir Putin - when the two men met in July - seems skewed.

The Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented:

It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.

The day he was referring to was one on which the Russians had bombed a Ukrainian hospital.

Flat earth types might seek to deny that Putin is a war criminal, but he is hardly the world's most bloody criminal. Seriously, worse than Israel's Kapo leader, Benjamin Netanyahu? Joe Biden also - who Zelensky is not averse to hugging - is arguably a much more heinous war criminal than Putin, given his ongoing arming of the genocide in Gaza.

In his recent UN speech Zelensky warned the West that the objective of Putin's:

present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our resources into a weapon against you – against the international rules-based order.

Prior to making that statement Zelensky surely drank long and hard from the Kool Aid bottle, branded cognitive dissonance, which helps blur the sad but salient fact that there is no international rules-based order. The UN, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, bodies meant to give meaning to the phrase international rules-based order, have been treated with vile contempt, their rulings and recommendations swept aside by Biden and Netanyahu.

Yeah, Putin is a depraved autocrat but a long way from being the main monster in the jointly produced Tel Aviv-Washington horror show.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.