The Nazification of India

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, presided over a pogrom that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. This was in 2002, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, India. Because of his role in this violence, Modi was banned from entering the United States for ten years. According to a documentary released by BBC in January 2023, a British government investigative team concluded that he was directly responsible for the pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat. Jack Straw, Britain’s Foreign Secretary at the time, told the BBC that Modi played an active role in encouraging Hindu extremists to attack Muslims and discouraging police from protecting them. Quoting the police response to the pleas of Muslims, the April 2002 Human Rights Watch report about the Gujarat pogrom was titled “We Have No Orders To Save You.” Modi not only got away with facilitating a pogrom but he was also elected the Prime Minister of India—twice. How did that happen? That question is explored in the pages to follow, but the answer can be summed up in this way: the Hinduization of India under a joint political-paramilitary partnership between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the parent paramilitary movement called the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). And while Modi’s fortunes continue to rise in India, India’s positioning around the world continues to fall. The Freedom House downgraded India in 2021 to “partially free.” The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index has placed the world’s largest democracy in the category of “Flawed Democracy”. In 2022 Reporters Without Borders placed India among the worst countries in terms of media freedom, ranking it 150th out of 180 countries. This report explains how the BJP-RSS are establishing the ideology of Hindu supremacy called “Hindutva.” And as Hindutva draws inspiration from Nazi ideologies, the result is the Nazification of India. Indian Christians and Dalits are equal victims of the Nazification of India at the hands of the BJP-RSS machine. This report, however, focuses on Indian Muslims, who are the prime target.