There has been a concerted campaign against India by western countries since decades. The campaign has been underway regardless of the political party in power in the country, be it the Congress or the BJP. Since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, the allegations against the Indian dispensation have revolved around ‘fascism’ and ‘authoritarianism’ and other such matters.
Such campaigns are usually orchestrated with Indian puppets forming the vanguard. This year, in September, the propaganda took the form of a conference titled ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’. While the organisers claimed that they were against a political ideology and not a religion, before long they admitted that it is Hinduism they are against.
The timing of the conference was quite intriguing. It took place only two weeks after Joe Biden killed 10 Afghan civilians, at least 6 children among them, in an airstrike that was deemed to be a defensive move. Initially, it was claimed that the US had eliminated ISKP terrorists but eventually, even they had to admit that they had killed a bunch of unfortunate Afghan civilians.
Nevertheless, while the US bungled from one war crime after another, the panelists at the ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference were more concerned with alleged human rights violation in India. But there is something to be said about their utter ineffectiveness and futile endeavor.
The effort was clearly designed to spoil the India-US relationship but despite their shrill cries of tyranny, they have failed spectacularly at creating a dent in the growing relationship between the two countries. Indeed, when Prime Minister Modi visited the US recently to attend the United Nations General Assembly and the first ever in-person Quad meet, the shadow of the conference had long since receded into the dustbins of history.
The DGH Conference was only the latest effort to cast a spanner in India-US relations. Ever since Joe Biden was elected as the President of the United States, liberals in India have been praying and hoping that he would meddle with the internal affairs of India.
Thus far, Biden has been reluctant to do the same although he does appear to have taken some measures to assuage the concerns of his core left-base. Nevertheless, on major issues such as the farm laws, the Biden administration has outright refused to offer any respite to his fans in India.
Obviously incensed by the lack on enthusiasm on the part of the Biden administration, the far-left ‘activists’ in India decided to take it up several notches further. Thus, we had the Dismantling Hindutva Conference, a desperate effort to attract the attention of the powers that be in the United States.
In the end, even that desperate bid failed in monumental proportions. When the Indian Prime Minister met his counterparts from Japan, Australia and the US President for the Quad meet, the conference was a distant memory.
Why Dismantling Global Hindutva agenda against Narendra Modi failed
The campaign to discredit Narendra Modi as a ‘Hindutva fascist’ did not begin recently, it began during his time as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. In 2005, his Visa was revoked on ‘religious freedom’ grounds over the 2002 riots. When Narendra Modi became the elected head of government in India in 2014, the ban was automatically lifted.
There are good reasons why efforts to put a spanner in the India-US relations have failed despite repeated attempts to target Narendra Modi. Firstly, the USA does not care about human rights. Over the course of the 21st century, the USA has committed numerous war crimes. Women and children have been killed in Afghanistan in US drone strikes under the watch of four successive US Presidents.
Furthermore, the US allies with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the less said about their human rights record the better. Thus, when actual human rights violations do not matter, only a fool would believe that allegations against Narendra Modi borne of figments of imagination would swing the tide against India.
It is hard to convince anyone that US cares about human rights when they kill civilians with such impunity. Secondly, the rise of China means that the US has to rely on India to negate the threat as the only country in the region that has the capability to counter the Chinese threat.
Thirdly, geopolitics is based on mutual interests. It is in the interests of both the US and India currently to develop better relations in light of the Chinese threat. Under such circumstances, it is a bit too much to expect irrelevant academics to succeed in their efforts to damage Indian interests.
Thus it happened that a couple of weeks after the DGH conference, Narendra Modi returned from his US trip with 157 artefacts and antiquities handed over the United States. The most important takeaway from the matter is, of course, that the India-US relations are unlikely to be affected by screeching from academics who have their own agenda to peddle.
