World View: Hindu Nationalist Nominated as India's Prime Minister

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 AFP and Telegraph India

John Kerry thanks Russia for it’s hard work in Syria

John Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov gave a jointpress conference at 6 am ET on Saturday morning. I assume that the 6am time was chosen in the hope that no Americans would hear it, sinceit was so painfully embarrassing for the United States. I transcribedthe first three minutes of it, which was the first part of JohnKerry’s statement:

“I’m particularly grateful to Sergei Lavrov who stayedextra time from what he had originally planned, hoping we’d finishsooner, and this gave us additional opportunity to be able to workthrough some of the issues.

I especially wanna thank the cooperative effort of Sergei Lavrov,who has worked hard and his entire delegation, including teams ofthe world’s foremost chemical weapons experts, who have joined ushere for the important discussions that we’ve had over the lasttwo days.

Two weeks ago made the decision that because of the egregious useof chemical weapons in Syria against innocent Syrian citizens,women and children, all indiscriminately murdered in the nightthat claimed the lives even of people trying to rescue people, hebelieved it was critical for the world to say “No more.”

The president made the difficult decision that after multiplewarnings, it was his decision that the time had come to takemilitary action to deter future use of such weapons.

But he also made the decision that we needed to take time toenlist the support of the congress and the American people, and Ihave no doubt that the combination of the threat of force, and thewillingness to pursue diplomacy helped to bring us to this moment.

But diplomacy requires willing partners, and I wanna thankPresident Putin for his willingness to pick up on the possibilityof negotiating an ended to Syrian weapons of mass destruction.His willingness to embrace ideas for how to accomplish this goal,and his willingness to send foreign minister Lavrov here to pursue12:03 this effort was essential to getting to this point.

And I wanna thank Sergei Lavrov for his diligent efforts and theefforts of his entire delegation who worked hard and in good faithto overcome difficulties and even disagreements. In order to tryto find a way through tireless efforts to get us where we aretoday.”

It’s good to see that Sergei Lavrov was effusively thanked severaltimes for his magnificent effort of staying an extra day to fully makefools of the U.S. administration once again. I wouldn’t want Lavrovto think that his magnificent efforts were not appreciated by JohnKerry. John Kerry also expressed thanks to Vladimir Putin for sendingthe magnificent Lavrov to meet with Kerry. I was disappointed,though, that Kerry never took a moment to thank Syria’s presidentBashar al-Assad for his magnificent efforts as well.

As for the terms of the agreement, as I understand them, they are asfollows:

• The U.S. completely backs down on its threats of violence. Those ships in the Mediterranean Sea can all go home.
• Bashar al-Assad is supposed to produce a list of all his chemical weapons within seven days, by Friday.
• There are supposed to be U.N. inspectors on the ground sometime in November.
• All of al-Assad’s chemical weapons will be destroyed or removed by mid-2014.
• If anything goes wrong, the U.N. Security Council will debate it (where Lavrov has a veto). There is a “commitment to impose measures,” such as sanctions. Typical “measures” in the past have been to threaten to hold another meeting.

The Obama administration is taking credit for this agreement, sayingthat the threats of military intervention, as well as all theflip-flops and gaffes, were actually done on purpose, just to bringthis agreement about. (Do I need to comment on this claim?)

We can expect to see the following scenario one or more times in theweeks to come: Syria breaches the agreement. John Kerry complains tothe U.N. Security Council. Lavrov says it’s just a technical detail,and anyway there’s no evidence. Kerry offers a resolution. Russiavetoes it.

Reports indicate that now that the threat of American force has ended,Syria’s air force is doubling its attacks with conventional weapons.

Russia’s 2011 strategy of using the United Nations to cripple the Obama administration andAmerican policy is continuing to succeed spectacularly.

At some point, Kerry and Obama are going to be forced to react toPutin and al-Assad repeatedly leading them by the nose and making afool of them, and the result may not be pleasant for anyone.

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