The new stage in India's Nazification: cross-border aggression

The Kashmir issue, which has once again brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war, indeed almost into the middle of war, is a chronic problem that constitutes and determines the limits of relations between the two countries. After the war of independence in 1947, the two countries repeatedly came to the brink of war over the Kashmir issue, and twice, in 1965 and 1971, entered directly into war. What is interesting is that the history of this problem coincides with the years when the occupying Israeli regime was established. There is only one year between them (1947, 1948), but while India's approach to Kashmir at times approaches an occupier mentality inspired by Israel, Israel has become a much stronger source of inspiration for India, which has lately been entering an increasingly racist vise.

The ruling party, which has recently displayed as repressive, discriminatory and racist an attitude as possible toward the Muslims in its own country, deepens this attitude more with each passing day. The pretext India invoked for its latest attack on Pakistan was the armed attack carried out on April 22 in the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir. India's haste, in launching an attack with great appetite, holding Pakistan responsible for this attack without any need for investigation, shows that it is following a strategy of escalating tension. This in fact greatly strengthens the possibility that this attack took place as its own plot.

ISLAMOPHOBIA GETTING OUT OF CONTROL IN INDIA

First of all, let us say that there is a very serious political-ideological atmosphere that has made India this ready, provoked it, motivated it to fight Pakistan. There is a very high probability that the ever-increasing hatred, even toward the Muslims in its own country, will turn into an aggression that can no longer be checked. As we have written before, Muslims, who have been an inseparable part of India for centuries, and who indeed ruled India for centuries, are subjected to heavy and systematic human rights violations and oppression within the framework of the present government's separatist policies. Extrajudicial executions, torture and ill-treatment, pressure on freedom of belief and expression, and unsolved murders have reached terrifying dimensions especially for Muslims.

The fascistic, racist and discriminatory discourse toward Muslims has made everyone lose their minds. The graver side of the matter is that this fascism has also been increasingly adopted by other normal parties that appear moderate. A Hindu parliamentarian was able to call, in a speech, for the genocide of 200 million Muslims.

The policies of the "Hinduization of India" being carried out under the joint political-paramilitary cooperation between the currently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main paramilitary movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), show that the discrimination against Muslims is within a certain philosophy and plan. The policies applied in this regard are being compared one-to-one with Nazi practices.

This political alliance or cooperation thinks that India belongs only to Hindus and that Muslims and Christians have their roots outside and do not belong to this country. Of course, to believe or make others believe this, and hence to be able to build a new national identity on this basis, it is necessary to distort both history and sociology. Muslims, after all, did not come to India from outside. Perhaps Islam was presented by certain pioneers, but a significant portion of the people of India accepted it in the past without any coercion, and thanks to this a strong state and civilization were established in India. This state and civilization, under Muslim administration for centuries, made India an ambitious country on the world stage. The Muslims of India are India itself; the Taj Mahal alone is perhaps witness to this, but the Hindu racist movement is trying to ignore the Muslims in India.

INDIA, UNDER ISRAELI GUIDANCE, IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE NAZIS

While Narendra Modi and his party make the Hindutva ideology, which envisages Hinduizing all of India, a state policy that everyone must join, they openly put the complete destruction of 200 million Muslims among their aims. They apply very serious policies in this direction. For example, with a practice in the direction of redefining the scope of citizenship, by stripping of citizenship everyone who cannot document their citizenship, which is a routine situation in rural areas, they have already stripped more than two million Muslims of citizenship so far. People living in rural areas can live a life without registering their births and marriages. In this situation there are not only Muslims but also people among Hindus in this situation, but the practice openly targets only Muslims.

An interesting point: India had so far not reflected the tensions it experienced with Pakistan over Kashmir onto its Muslim citizens within India this much. But now the racist hatred being escalated both increasingly determines the approach to the Kashmir issue and the Kashmir issue determines India's view of its own Muslim citizens.

Of course, more interesting still is that India's adoption of these Islamophobic racist policies is proceeding in parallel with the development of relations with Israel. India under Modi, with hatred of Muslims, behaves like an occupier also toward Muslim regions outside Kashmir. The model learned and imported from relations with Israel is, just as in Palestine, to apply occupation, genocide and, at best, an apartheid regime.

COULD AN ISLAMIC UNION AT LEAST EMERGE FROM THIS?

While all this is happening, is it futile to expect a stance, a voice in favor of Pakistan from the world? Admittedly, since the Kashmir Issue has become a dispute affecting regional and global security that is not only between India and Pakistan but also includes China, Pakistan will not be alone in this process. The cool-headed stance Pakistan has displayed in not falling for India's provocations and the calls for calm coming from the international community may be a hindrance to the war flaring up further. Of course, although Turkey has called on the parties for calm in this process, it has put forward its clearest stance and support alongside Pakistan. But the heart wishes that the entire Islamic world would take a common stance beside Pakistan precisely on the occasion of such an event. Thus India would also have displayed solidarity with the 200 to 300 million Muslims within it.

Could the unity of Muslims, who have been unable to act at all over Gaza, emerge on this occasion? Would they draw a lesson, especially from the Vatican, which yesterday by electing its new Pope showed the whole world the power, grandeur and importance of a religious unity?

It is unfortunately highly likely that what I am saying will be received as a very naive expectation.

It is not the Palestinian whose honor is trampled every day in Gaza. With the glorious resistance they have shown, with their honorable stance, they are more than saving their own honor. But what is trampled there is the very honor and dignity of the leaders of the Islamic world whom we hope to see take action.