
This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Syria discussion on Framingham Mass. TV on Sunday
- Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi becomes India prime minister candidate
- John Kerry thanks Russia for it’s hard work in Syria
Syria discussion on Framingham Mass. TV on Sunday
Massachusetts residents who have access to Framingham TV should tunein on Sunday (9/15) evening at 6 pm, where I’ll be the guest on thesubject of Syria on Jim Pillsbury’s news/talk show.
Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi becomes India prime minister candidate

Narendra Modi (AP)
A strong populist movement in India has resulted in the selection ofNarendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who in 2005 was banned from entryinto the United States, as the candidate for prime minister for thenationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). BJP will be running againstthe more liberal Congress Party, which has not yet named its leadcandidate for next year’s elections.
Hindu nationalism is controversial in India because opponentsassociate it with “Hindutva violence,” where the Hindutva movementbegan in 1923, led by terrorist Veer Savarkar (Vinayak DamodarSavarkar), mostly as a movement against British colonization. (See “‘Hindutva’ terrorist violence against Muslims shocks Indians” from 2008.) In particular, alarge terrorist bombing in Malegaon in India in 2008 was initiallyblamed on Muslim Jihadists, but evidence led to a Hindutva terroristgroup that seeks revenge against Muslims.
Modi became associated with Hindutva violence in 2002, soon after thetime he became, Governor of the Gujarat province (on the border withPakistan), where he still serves as Governor. On February 27, 2002, atrain with activists shouting Hindutva slogans passed through the cityof Godhra in Gujarat province. There were some unsavory incidents,including an attempt to molest a Muslim girl and pull her into thetrain. Stone-throwing by Muslims led to a fire in one of the coaches,and deaths by burning of 58 people. This triggered several days ofsectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims, killing hundreds anddisplacing more than 150,000 people, of which the majority wereMuslims, who have since been living in refugee camps in direhumanitarian conditions.
As Governor, Narendra Modi was accused of complicity in the violenceagainst Muslims — for provoking it, and looking the other way when itoccurred. An investigation eventually cleared him, but suspicionsremained, and he was denied entry into the United States by PresidentBush’s administration in 2005.
Modi has become extremely popular, either despite or because of hisHindutva connection. This popularity is part of a growing that beganin the 1970s of increasing hostility between the Hindu and Muslimpopulations. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, thismutual hostility is expected to increase, and the region is headed fora new war between Hindus and Muslims, refighting the genocidal warthat followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indiansubcontinent into India and Pakistan. Hindustan Times and