trochee

... racism explodes in India.

The so-called "Hindu Unity" organization (warning, serious hate literature behind the link) combines the racism and racial paranoia of the Third Reich with the zealotry and religious violence of the modern-day Zionists. But they're only the tip of the frothing rabid insanity, the most verbally violent of a dangerous nest of snakes.

They, and their backers, are so virulently anti-Muslim that they consider themselves and the Israeli right wing to be "the two towers" (check out the flags on their front page) standing forth against the "Muslim terror". In my view, it's more like Sauron and Saruman than their "twin pillars of righteousness".

These people turn my stomach. I feel physically sick -- although fascinated -- by reading it. I don't understand how anyone could read this and not hear the echoes of the Nazis marching across Europe, gassing and destroying as they go, killing and raping Jews.

The more I learn about the all-too-recent genocide in Gujarat (Dissent) the more I am ashamed that my nation (the USA) has done nothing but fan the flames of unreasoning anti-Muslim hatred and fear. And yes, it is genocide, according to the UN:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group, (b) Causing serious bodily harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

This resurgent, violent racialist and nationalist movement is called Hindutva, meaning, roughly, "Hindu-ness", or, more simply, Hindu fascism. Those who oppose it -- regardless of their religion -- are threatened, beaten, denounced as anti-Hindu, raped, or killed. Witnesses are intimidated into silence, and government officials silently stand by or actively collaborate in the destruction of Muslim lives, homes, and property. Hindu opponents are particularly vilified as "race traitors", although that language is rarely used.

But it gets worse.

Hindutva is organized into one mafia-like hydra with many heads called the Sangh Parivar. Its political wing is the Bharatiya Janatiya Party (founded by admirers of Mussolini and Hitler), which is currently in control of the Indian Parliament (the entire national government) and several states, including Gujarat. In Gujarat, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unrepentant over the deaths of 2000 Muslims in highly-organized, well-planned, genocidal rioting in 2001.

Other branches of the Sangh include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a youth/volunteer corps, and the Bajrang Dal, paramilitary shock troops; note the BD's "official" web site is hosted at Hindu Unity, mentioned above. We think we have it bad here, but the Republicans and Religious Right have nothing on these guys. Gujarat BJP politicians openly refer to the Gujarat genocides as "The Gujarat Experiment", and if that doesn't sound like "The Final Solution" I don't know what does.

Mahatma Gandhi must be turning in his grave.