India-Israel ties under Modi: Can Jewish and Hindu nationalism fraternity help?

San Diego Jewish World yesterday published an article on the excellent prospects of Indo-Israel relationship after the recent coming to power of the BJP government (See India and Israel strengthen ties. Indian commentators have also agreed with the predictions. See India 2014 Elections: Narendra Modi, Israel's Best Friend In South Asia). Several reasons were given by author Sean Savage as to why the bilateral relations could see an upsurge under Prime Minister Modi.

First, there is a talk of similarities between the two countries: 

Differences in size and culture aside, India and Israel have many modern and historical similarities. Hinduism and Judaism are among the world’s oldest existing religions, and both share ethno-religious components that set them apart from other major faiths. At the same time, both religions have complicated systems of laws, purity codes, and dietary restrictions that define their communities. In modern times, both India and Israel achieved independence from Great Britain during the late 1940s, after long internal struggles and bloody partition plans.

But these similarities didn't initially result in close ties as Nehru and later Congress Party governments thought Israel as a sign of Western imperialism (colonial policy of divide and rule) and supported Palestinian struggle. So, due to Congress Party's 'mentality', India supported Palestinians from the 1940s to 1980s. However, during the last two decades, both countries have not only become close trading partners but also joint collaborators in military research.

Source: India & Israel Partner To Strengthen Startup Ecosystem

The reasons given for the improvement in relations under Modi are mostly related to the religious nationalism of BJP (particularly of Modi) and its affinity with Israel and Bibi's Jewish nationalism. The author argues that Modi gives importance to his religion as Bibi does.

One of Modi’s first public gestures as prime minister was to visit the Ganges River, one of holiest places in Hinduism, where he promised to restore the heavily polluted river to its former glory. Over the years, Netanyahu has taken a similar approach, focusing on securing Israel’s Jewish heritage sites and insisting that Jerusalem remain under Jewish sovereignty.

Due to this attitude, both and Modi are criticized in the West, which may bring them closer.

Modi, meanwhile, has garnered significant attention for his strong Hindu nationalism, resulting in criticism from the West—especially for Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002. Yet his views in that area may also allow him to form an ideological bond with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is similarly chastised in some Western countries.

It is also mentioned that Israel supported India during its Kargil conflict with Pakistan in 1999 and Israeli companies invested billions of dollars in Gujarat when Modi was Chief Minister there. Modi's foreign policy team is also considered Israel friendly. What is not directly mentioned, although implied, is the fact that the main enemies of both Hindu and Jewish nationalism are Muslims. Internally, Hindu and Jewish nationalism want to deny basic civil rights to their Muslim minorities and externally they have difficult relations with their Muslim neighbors and face terror attacks. These are probably the 'ideological affinities' mentioned in the article.

The new Indian prime minister “might warm up considerably to Benjamin Netanyahu, say, driven by ideological affinities on some issues,” said Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Ningthoujam.

So, does it matter for Indo-Israeli relations that Modi is a Hindu nationalist?

I think yes it matters but probably not much. Where it matters i.e. in security/military affairs, Indo-Israeli relations are already very close as accepted by Ningthoujam in his own article (See India-Israel Defense Cooperation). Incremental improvements aside, the next level of bilateral relations in these sectors can be a defense pact but that is never on the cards because of India's need for Middle Eastern 'Muslim' energy resources. So, the close cooperation will continue and increase but under wraps.  

Economic ties, despite efforts, have not been very close to the potential of improvement is greater there. Can Modi's regime be a game changer? Yes, it is possible and odds-on but does it has something to do with Modi being a Hindu nationalist? Probably not. 

Religious Conversion Laws and Religious Nationalism

Religious conversion laws are generally anti-religious conversion as they try to make the process of religious conversions difficult. These laws can be an indicator of growing religious nationalism. Religious nationalist countries usually have these laws as conversion from majority religion is considered tantamount to disloyalty to the state. As religion is conflated with the state, a change in religion (usually from state-preferred religion to another religion) is considered not only a rejection of previous religion but also a rejection of the state. 

Today, religious conversion was in the news because Myanmar/ Burmese authorities published the draft of a bill that would make it difficult to convert from one religion to another. The draft was published to get the opinion of the public. The proposed law is the result of efforts by Buddhist groups to stop/slow/restrict religious conversion. Although the draft law does not mention any specific religion, it is clear the effort is to stop conversion from the majority religion (Buddhism), rather than to it. News report gives the following details ( See  Myanmar Publishes Draft of Religious Conversion Bill):

Myanmar’s government on Tuesday published a draft bill on religious conversion, calling for public opinion on rules proposed by nationalist Buddhist monks which would require those who want to change faiths to first obtain permission from local authorities. Under the proposed law, anyone who wants to change their faith is required to apply to local registration teams—consisting of religious affairs, immigration, women’s affairs, education, and administration officials—for permission.

If passed, those found to be guilty of violating a list of prohibitions—which includes obstructing someone from converting—would be subject to a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 kyats (U.S. $200). Anyone found guilty of proselytizing could face up to a year in prison, though there is no mention of whether any action would be taken against someone who did not obtain permission to convert.

Organization of Protection of Race, Religion and Belief, a Buddhist group, pressurized the government to propose these laws after a public campaign that collected 1.3 million signatures last year. Myanmar is drifting toward religious nationalism as discussed in this blog before (See Buddhist Fundamentalism: Is it possible?).

Many Muslim religious nationalist states have religious conversion laws or restrict conversion from Islam through courts. In Saudi Arabia, for example,  religious conversion from Islam is termed as apostasy, a crime that carries the death sentence. Similarly, Iran criminalizes apostasy. In Pakistan, apostasy is not a crime despite religious parties efforts but apostates can be charged under the blasphemy law that carries the death penalty. 

Many countries that are drifting toward religious nationalism, like Myanmar, have been consistently pressurized by their majority religious groups to pass religious conversion laws. In some federations, like Malaysia and India, although there are no specific national laws on religious conversion, there are laws at the state/provincial level that restrict religious conversion.

The recent landslide victory of BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, have revived aspirations or fears of a national (anti) religious conversion law. BJP has supported religious conversion laws at the state level (See Narendra Modi (BJP) election win good for Indian economy, but scary for Christian minority) and BJP leaders have vowed to bring such law, if they win elections in 2014 (See ‘BJP will bring law against religious conversions if voted to power’).


Anti-conversion laws in Indian states

Source: Conversion of religion: India (legal aspects) 

Religious conversions are bound to increase as people have more opportunities to know about other religions so pressure from majority religious groups in states based on religious nationalism would also increase to restrict/ban religious conversions (from the majority religion, not to the majority religion). 

    

 Update: Myanmar Parliament passed the anti-conversion law in August 2015.

VHP sees Modi government implementing Hindutva

VHP leader see Modi (See VHP confident on Ram Temple) implementing Hindutva agenda. Modi is compared to the Hindu raja Prithviraj Chauhan that ruled Delhi in the 12th century and asked to return to the Hindutva. Prithviraj was defeated by Shahad-ud-din Ghauri and that led to Muslim rule in Indian subcontinent.

The three main demand of VHP are

1. Building of Ram mandir (where once Babri mosque stood)
2. Common civil code
3. Ban on cow slaughter.

I do not see these things happening but there will be some movement in the direction of Hindutva. Ram mandir and common civil code are particularly difficult to achieve. However, indirect restrictions on cow slaughter maybe imposed.
  

Modi's victory: Do we need public religion today?

There will not be many people who would deny the important role of religion in human lives. However, a public role of religion is controversial. As religion comes out of the shadows and is embraced not only publically but also enthusiastically, the debate has increasing relevance. The most recent triumph of public religion came on May 16 when Hindu nationalist party BJP won a landslide election victory in India (See Landslide for Modi).

 

An overtly religious party winning in secular India is new. Though BJP had won in late 1990s too, in at least two ways this win was different. First, in late 1990s, BJP was led by the intellectual, poet, 'soft' team player Vajpayee who is world away from the current leader Narendra Modi (NaMo) who is brash, street-wise and domineering (See The fact remains, Narendra Modi can never be a Atal Bihari Vajpayee). While Vajpayee's religion was closer to Gandhian model, Modi has been accused of being anti-Muslim and (although not proved) is widely implicated in 2002 riots when around two thousand people were killed (mostly Muslims) under his watch. Secondly, in late 1990s, BJP government was dependent on other parties as it didn't have simple majority in Lok Sabha. In 2014 election, however, BJP won a landslide victory and is not dependent on anyone. So, it can implement its agenda of Hindutva, if it wants (See Will Modi be India’s Putin?)     

 

So, religion is not going anywhere. Ok, but can we justify or understand religion's powerful existence in this modern age? Habermas, possibly the most celebrated intellectual/philosopher of our current age provides some answers. His detailed views are available in his many books and lectures. Here is a small tasting discussion by Michele Dillon on his views of post-secular society and religion (See Enter the Post Secular).

Among other points, Habermas noted that the Enlightenment project of modernization had gone somewhat awry, has become derailed. In particular, as he had previously elaborated, he noted that globalizing economic markets defy the control of consensual rational judgments, and he lamented not only the extent of global socioeconomic inequality but the mass political indifference toward it. This indifference is part of a longer depoliticization process resulting from modernization and increased affluence and consumerism, highlighted by Habermas decades earlier. For Habermas, the threat posed by current globalizing forces to potentially “degrade the capacity for democratic self-steering,” both within and across nations, makes the need for public communicative reasoning all the more necessary. He thus looks to discover new (i.e., underappreciated) political cultural resources for the democratic revitalization project. Hence, “a contrite modernity,” one characterized by several social pathologies that need fixing, may benefit, Habermas argued, from religious-derived norms and ethical intuitions. He conceded that these religious resources can help human society deal with “a miscarried life, social pathologies, the failures of individual life projects, and the deformation of misarranged existential relationships.”

Many sociologists have elaborated on the perils of globalization and the increased polarization between classes and regions as the profit logic of capitalist markets inexorably trumps normative considerations. Yet only Habermas looks to the religious domain rather than pushing for attentiveness to a rearticulated political ideology of, for example, global social democracy, as a way of reorienting societal thinking about modern socioeconomic pathologies. In his view, “The translation of the likeness of the human to the image of the divine into the equal and absolutely respected dignity of all human beings” offers a way of using religious values to reorient society’s values toward principles of economic and social justice. Clearly, Habermas’s new affirmation of the relevance that religious ideas and ethics have for contemporary political debate marks a major transformation in his thinking. I very much welcome this more inclusive view of religion as a potentially emancipatory political and cultural resource, a resource that can open up and enhance rather than retard public discourse, and energize the creation of more deliberative and more participative social institutions.

A Habermas's article on the solution of the 'problem' of religion in public sphere can be read here ( See Religion in the Public Sphere). 

 

  

BJP's religion is about order

Amit Chaudhuri, a novelist and ­professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia, looks at BJP's Hindu nationalism in an interesting way (See India's new Hinduism is about order). Rather than focusing on Modi, he asks the readers to see how Hinduism has changed and is currently being used in India. Religion, 'the sacred is not meant to cause wonder, but to impose order and obedience and curb visceral urges.' He gives evidence to prove his point.

Let me provide an example. “Prophylactic Hindu tiles”, as I’ll call them, have been proliferating in India for the past two decades. You see them on walls, the sides of urinals, and staircases. They have on them a Hindu deity Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh painted in the European style that is a cliche of kitsch Hindu iconography. Their function is to discourage urinating and spitting on public surfaces, both compulsive national masculine pastimes. The argument they embody never actually inscribed in either ancient scripture or even a municipal text is that no one would dare urinate or spit betel juice on a deity. I can think of no more tasteless use of the sacred, but the bizarre interpretation of religion in contemporary India means that hardly anybody thinks the tiles an outrage.

Hinduism was always open and syncretic. What European had started is now bearing fruit. Hinduism has been changing into a modern semitic religion, with specific gods, precepts and practices. According to Chaudari, BJP has done two things to speed up this process. 

The BJP’s contribution to the reshaping of Hinduism has been twofold. First, by turning metaphorical moments such as the birth of Rama into historic events to be fought over, it has made Hinduism a literal-minded, Europeanised, Semitic-style faith. By taking away from Hinduism its complexity and contradictoriness, both the BJP and the free-market “new India” in which it has flourished have produced a generation that knows little about Hinduism.

Second, the political, instrumental use of Hinduism to defend and assert identity while assailing other identities, and a general ignorance of religious experience on the part of the most active religionists, means that not only do we live in an age when to be Hindu is to constantly take offence, but the line separating obeisance from offence, the holy from the disgusting, religious pride from poor taste, is blurred. Indians are being schooled to defend the sacred, but have absolutely no idea how to recognise it.

But why the markets love BJP/Modi? Markets love them because Hindutva promises to bring order to this humongous country. Modi's developmental model is all about completing projects and not worrying about niceties. Maybe a poor and minorities are expendable, if it later results in stability and growth for the next twelve years. Maybe the argument is that if India has to compete with China, it has to be like China where human rights are not important. Read about Gujarat model and big business love for Modi here (See Narendra Modi a 'king among kings', says Anil Ambani at Vibrant Gujarat summit),   

Questions about Modi, the incoming Prime Minister of India

A recent article about Narendra Modi gives a balanced view of what will happen if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins the next elections and Modi becomes the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world (In Upcoming Indian Election, the Legacy of Religious Violence Looms). 

There are apprehensions about Mr. Modi's promotion of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) in the past and his current dog-whistle strategy; his role in massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002; his links with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (a Hindu organization that has used violence in the past to implement Hindutva and where Modi learned politics); and his authoritarian streak. These apprehensions add to what minorities in India already fear about the rise of the BJP, a right-wing Hindu nationalist party.

These apprehensions about Modi and BJP are countered by the following arguments:

• No party in India has attained majority since the 1990s. So, Modi and BJP would have to make coalitions to rule and these coalitions with regional parties would keep them in check. This happened in 1998-2004 when BJP last ruled India and this will happen again.
• India is too diverse and has too many social, economic, administrative and cultural players. All these cannot be fitted in the straitjacket of Hindu nationalism, even if Modi and BJP try.
• The alternative is more of Indian National Congress, the party of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. This party not only has become ineffective, corrupt and staid after ruling for last ten years but also have a record of failing to safeguard minorities.   
• Muslims themselves have moved on, so the world (including the US) should also. What happened in 2002 is in past and one should look to the future.

All these arguments are cogent and compelling but what outsiders and at least some Indian minorities fear are not regular riots and persecution under Modi. 

It is the gradual movement of the center of Indian politics towards right. Some statements and actions that were previously unthinkable, becoming mainstream. Like what happened in Europe recently. Right wing nationalists are not winning in Europe but they have changed the conversation about minorities and immigrants.  

It is one riot or massacre that puts minorities 'in their place' for a whole generation, like what happened in Gujarat under Modi's watch. Modi might not have played any role in the massacre but he surely contributed to the atmosphere where such massacres were possible.