NORWAY MASSACRE: BREIVIK MANIFESTO MAKES APPEAL TO INDIA’S HINDU NATIONALISTS
Ben Arnoldy
Alaska Dispatch
July 25, 2011
The Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik writes in a
manifesto that he acquired some 8,000 e-mail addresses of “cultural
conservatives” not just across Europe but North America, Australia,
South Africa, Armenia, Israel, and India – ensuring scrutiny of
anti-Muslim groups far beyond Europe.
Mr. Breivik’s primary goal is to remove Muslims from Europe. But his
manifesto invites the possibility for cooperation with Jewish groups
in Israel, Buddhists in China, and Hindu nationalist groups in India
to contain Islam.
“It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements
learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals
are more or less identical,” he wrote.
In the case of India, there is significant overlap between Breivik’s
rhetoric and strains of Hindu nationalism – or Hindutva – on the
question of coexistence with Muslims. Human rights monitors have long
decried such rhetoric in India for creating a milieu for communal
violence communal violence, and the Norway incidents are prompting
calls here to confront the issue.
“Like Europe’s mainstream right-wing parties, [India’s] BJP has
condemned the terrorism of the right – but not the thought system
which drives it. Its refusal to engage in serious introspection, or
even to unequivocally condemn Hindutva violence, has been nothing
short of disgraceful,” writes senior journalist Praveen Swami in
today’s edition of The Hindu.
“Liberal parties, including the Congress, have been equally evasive
in their critique of both Hindutva and Islamist terrorism,” he adds.
Last week, Breivik detonated a bomb in downtown Oslo and opened fire
at a youth camp of the ruling political party, killing at least
76 people. He reportedly said in court today that the rampage was
“marketing” for his manifesto, “2083: A European Declaration of
Independence.”
The manifesto Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto calls preserving
traditional European culture by cutting it off from immigration from
the Muslim world.
While he is against setting up a Christian theocracy, he envisions a
revival of Christendom, where the church helps unify Europeans around
a shared cultural identity.
In the manifesto, Breivik references India dozens of times. He
included a five-page paper written by a man named Shrinandan Vyas
that argues the Muslim invaders committed a “genocide” of Hindus in
the Hindu Kush region of present-day Afghanistan. Efforts to track
down Mr. Vyas have failed.
Invasions by Muslims into South Asia did include bloodshed, but use
of the term “genocide” is highly controversial.
But for B.P. Singhal, a retired BJP member of Parliament and noted
Hindutva writer: “There was a wholesale massacre.”
He goes on to cite dramatic drops in the Hindu populations in Pakistan
and Bangladesh since Partition of British India – figures that Breivik
also gives in his manifesto. Mr. Singhal and Breivik share a critical
belief: Muslim majorities always subjugate religious minorities.
“I was with the shooter in his objective, but not in his method,” says
Singhal of Breivik. “If you want to attract the nation’s attention,
surely you need to do something drastic and dramatic, but not killing
people.”
.But Singhal goes on to say violence must be fought with violence. He
says people upset by violent responses to Islam must “go one step
more to find why [Breivik’s] violence came in. Why was that western
Christian talking in bad terms about Islam?” He says it’s because
of violent verses in the Koran that continue to be preached in an
intolerant way.
Singhal said India and Norway should deny voting rights to foreigners
or “foreign religionists,” meaning Muslims. That would solve the
“bane of democracy,” says Singhal, where politicians who are strict
with groups like Muslims are voted out.
Breivik also proposed curbing voting rights within democracy, and both
men view their ideological opponents in the media and universities
as communists.
Singhal has not corresponded with Breivik, nor does he see much need
for alliances to counter Islam’s spread: “Every country will have to
find its own solutions,” he says.
It’s unclear as of yet who Breivik reached out to in India and what
the depth of the interactions was. His manifesto says he is among 12
“knights” fighting within a dozen regions in Europe and the US, but
not India. It’s not known yet whether this group, which he calls the
Knights Templar Europe, actually exists.
Breivik describes months of tedious work farming “high quality” e-mail
addresses off the Internet by friending networks “representing all
spheres of cultural conservative thought” on Facebook, then acquiring
members’ e-mail addresses. The goal appeared to be to generate a list
to send his manifesto to just prior to his rampage.
Officials in India’s Home Ministry would not comment on whether
they are tracking down Breivik’s e-mails to India. Mr. Swami, who
has sources inside India’s intelligence community, told the Monitor
that India does not have the capacity to do those traces easily until
Norway provides information from Breivik’s computers.
“I’ve been trying to ask around if anyone knows about a substantial
correspondence of any kind and haven’t come up with anything,”
says Swami.
The Internet has made it easier for extremists to follow one another
internationally, he points out. But, historically, European and Indian
far right groups have not worked with each other – nor do they have
much practical reason to cooperate now.
“I think irrespective of the Norwegian [attacks], the government needs
to keep a much closer eye on the activities of the Hindu fundamentalist
groups … and crack down on hate speech whether it’s Hindu, Muslim,
or otherwise,” says Swami.
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