#Lower Modi

[nepalenergyforum]

ndia's power trade gesture a win-win for both countries

India’s recent decision to include imported hydroelectricity from Nepal under its renewable energy count is a significant and commendable move that symbolizes the strengthening ties between the two countries. This policy change, announced by the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, is a milestone in the evolution of power trade in the region, with far-reaching implications for both…

[curtwilde]

People who benefit from casteism aren't bramhins 90 percent of the time, it is the vaishyas, i.e shopkeepers and land-owning farmer class who benefit off dalit farm labourers and poor dalit customers. Often, it is people call themselves "lower caste" by virtue of being down in the heirarchy; they benefit from caste reservations made for dalits while still opressing dalits. Often, and this can be a hard concept to digest, often they are ones who have succeeded in getting OBC certification in many states, so they are able to posture as dalit when it benefits them socially and politically and yet very actively perpetuates the cycle of opression on dalits.

It benifits caste-deniers to present casteism as bramhins vs. non-bramhins but it's important that we never forget what it really is: dalit vs. non-dalit.

[reasonsforhope]

"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade. 

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.  

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2. 

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

[beguines]

Whereas the election of Modi had already demonstrated that this new India was prepared to sacrifice Muslims and others for the purported chance to economically transform the country (read: corporatize it), it was only natural that Palestinians too would be discarded if it meant getting closer to Israel and the boon of global capital. By refusing to allow parliament to pass a resolution against Israeli aggression in Gaza and by abstaining from the resolution endorsing the 2015 UN report that called for accountability for Israeli crimes, India had shown that it was no longer prepared to provide Palestinians even performative support. Moreover, equivocating that both sides had an "equal responsibility" to lower tensions and prevent unnecessary loss of life, Modi's government had already amended the substantive nature of its foreign policy on the question of Palestine.

India had normalized relations with Israel in 1992 without Palestinians achieving statehood or self-determination. In 2014, New Delhi went one step further. It upgraded its public appreciation for Zionism and Israel and reduced its foreign policy to a contorted and performative "sympathy" for the Palestinian cause. It also began to illustrate a respect and intention to emulate Israeli policy at home. In 2014, the Punjab Police traveled to Israel for training on "security and anti-terror operations." A year later, the Indian Police Service (IPS) began an annual program in which recent graduates would spend one week studying "best practices in counterinsurgency, managing low intensity warfare and use of technology in policing and countering terror" with the Israel National Police Academy. In 2015, the Indian government began the implementation of a "smart border" along the Line of Control. These partnerships with Israel did little to deter the Indian foreign ministry from insisting that its commitment to the Palestinians remained unchanged. But the changes had arrived. And it had been a long time coming. India's decision to abstain from holding Israel accountable to the UNHCR resolution in 2015, was the surest sign that India believed in Israel's fundamental right to self-defense, and therefore, its right to exist as a settler-colonial state, unconditionally.

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[anonimusunnoan]

Nothing can compare to the desi queer horror of seeing modi smiling and "celebrating" diwali in "ayodhya" while in the intermission for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This man is the Indian symbol of hate and hindu religious supremacy in india. His blind mass following who believe they are being liberated by his actions from the evil dalit and non hindu folk are the majority. Everyday we fight for our rights as the minority whether we are Muslim – queer – lower castes. And we are trampled by the overwhelming support that this man gets from his goons. Goons who are swept up in his mirage who believe in Israeli propaganda too.

Make no mistake. The hunger games may be fictional, but it's villains are very very real. Until you leave the Capitol you never get to really know.

[homosexuhauls]

By Vidya Krishnan

GOA, India — My niece was just 4 years old when she turned to my sister-in-law in a packed movie theater in Mumbai and asked about gang rape for the first time.

We were watching the latest Bollywood blockbuster about vigilante justice, nationalistic fervor and, of course, gang rape. Four male characters seized the hero’s sister and dragged her away. “Where are they taking Didi?” my niece asked, using the Hindi word for “elder sister.” It was dark, but I could still make out her tiny forehead, furrowed with concern.

Didi’s gang rape took place offscreen, but it didn’t need to be shown. As instinctively as a newborn fawn senses the mortal danger posed by a fox, little girls in India sense what men are capable of.

You may wonder, “Why take a 4-year-old to such a movie?” But there is no escaping India’s rape culture; sexual terrorism is treated as the norm. Society and government institutions often excuse and protect men from the consequences of their sexual violence. Women are blamed for being assaulted and are expected to sacrifice freedom and opportunity in exchange for personal safety. This culture contaminates public life — in movies and television; in bedrooms, where female sexual consent is unknown; in the locker room talk from which young boys learn the language of rape. India’s favorite profanities are about having sex with women without their consent.

It is the specific horror of gang rape that weighs most heavily on Indian women that I know. You may have heard of the many gruesome cases of women being gang-raped, disemboweled and left for dead. When an incident rises to national attention, the kettle of outrage boils over, and women sometimes stage protests, but it passes quickly. All Indian women are victims, each one traumatized, angry, betrayed, exhausted. Many of us think about gang rape more than we care to admit.

In 2011 a woman was raped every 20 minutes in India, according to government data. The pace quickened to about every 16 minutes by 2021, when more than 31,000 rapes were reported, a 20 percent increase from the previous year. In 2021, 2,200 gang rapes were reported to authorities.

But those grotesque numbers tell only part of the story: 77 percent of Indian women who have experienced physical or sexual violence never tell anyone, according to one study. Prosecutions are rare.

Indian men may face persecution because they are Muslims, Dalits (untouchables) or ethnic minorities or for daring to challenge the corrupt powers that be. Indian women suffer because they are women. Soldiers need to believe that war won’t kill them, that only bad luck will; Indian women need to believe the same about rape, to trust that we will come back to the barracks safe each night, to be able to function at all.

Reports of violence against women in India have risen steadily over the decades, with some researchers citing a growing willingness by victims to come forward. Each rape desensitizes and prepares society to accept the next one, the evil becoming banal.

Gang rape is used as a weapon, particularly against lower castes and Muslims. The first instance that women my age remember was in 1980, when Phoolan Devi, a lower-caste teenager who had fallen in with a criminal gang, said she was abducted and repeatedly raped by a group of upper-caste attackers. She later came back with members of her gang and they killed 22 mostly upper-caste men. It was a rare instance of a brutalized woman extracting revenge. Her rape might never have made headlines without that bloody retribution.

Ms. Devi threw a spotlight on caste apartheid. The suffering of Bilkis Bano — the defining gang rape survivor of my generation — highlighted the boiling hatred that Indian institutions under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, have for Muslim women.

In 2002 brutal violence between Hindus and Muslims swept through Gujarat State. Ms. Bano, then 19 and pregnant, was gang raped by an angry Hindu mob, which also killed 14 of her relatives, including her 3-year-old daughter. Critics accuse Mr. Modi — Gujarat’s top official at the time — of turning a blind eye to the riots. He has not lost an election since.

Ms. Bano’s life took a different trajectory. She repeatedly moved houses after the assault, for her family’s safety. Last August, 11 men who were sentenced to life in prison for raping her were released — on the recommendation of a review committee stacked with members of Mr. Modi’s ruling party. After they were freed, they were greeted with flower garlands by Hindu right-wingers.

The timing was suspicious: Gujarat was to hold important elections a few months later, and Mr. Modi’s party needed votes. A member of his party explained that the accused, as upper-caste Brahmins, had “good” values and did not belong in prison. Men know these rules. They wrote the rule book. What’s most terrifying is that releasing rapists could very well be a vote-getter.

After Ms. Bano, there was the young physiotherapy student who in 2012 was beaten and raped on a moving bus and penetrated with a metal rod that perforated her colon before her naked body was dumped on a busy road in New Delhi. She died of her injuries. Women protested for days, and even men took part, facing water cannons and tear gas. New anti-rape laws were framed. This time was different, we naïvely believed.

It wasn’t. In 2018 an 8-year-old Muslim girl was drugged and gang raped in a Hindu temple for days and then murdered. In 2020 a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped and later died of her injuries, her spinal cord broken.

The fear, particularly of gang rape, never fully leaves us. We go out in groups, cover ourselves, carry pepper spray and GPS tracking devices, avoid public spaces after sunset and remind ourselves to yell “fire,” not “help” if attacked. But we know that no amount of precaution will guarantee our safety.

I don’t understand gang rape. Is it some medieval desire to dominate and humiliate? Do these men, with little power over others, feeling inadequate and ordinary, need a rush of power for a few minutes?

What I do know is that other men share the blame, the countless brothers, fathers, sons, friends, neighbors and colleagues who have collectively created and sustain a system that exploits women. If women are afraid, it is because of these men. It is a protection racket of epic proportions.

I’m not asking merely for equality. I want retribution. Recompense. I want young girls to be taught about Ms. Bano and Ms. Devi. I want monuments built for them. But men just want us to forget. The release of Ms. Bano’s rapists was about male refusal to commemorate our trauma.

So we build monuments with words and our memories. We talk to one another about gang rape, keeping it at the center of our lives. We try to explain to our youngest, to start protecting them.

This is how the history of the defeated is recorded. That’s what it all boils down to: a fight between forgetting and remembering.

[grievedeeply]

Hello!! If you're down for it, could I request some general relationship headcanons for Brok, Sindri, Thor, Modi, and Baldur? (If you don't want to do that many characters feel free to skip whoever you want.) Either way, thank you for your time!

sure! decided to skip brok and sindri since i don't write for them romantically as of right now, but thank you for the request and sorry these are short! i'm open to making longer ones :)

gn!reader | no tws

tags: @graciegizmo3184 @anzanishira @chocokaylarobin @uncoveredsun | join my taglist!

relationship headcanons with thor, modi and baldur

thor

first and foremost, this man is great at making you feel safe. his size, strength, power— everything about him just exudes protection

he's a good cuddler even though he pretends to hate it. he'll let you sleep on top of him and just keep his arms wrapped around you, holding you close

you keep him grounded. you help him through everything. you try to help him realize his worth and you hate how brainwashed he is by odin

he isn't the best boyfriend by any means, but he tries. he wants the best for you and knows that it isn't him. yet you stay. he wonders why, but decides against asking too much out of fear you'll come to your senses

modi

he is so incredibly insecure in himself. his father doubts him and his grandfather thinks he's worthless. he's ignored by everyone and treated lower than his brother, so when you come along and want to be with him???

he's shocked. he likes you a lot, but he never expected you to pick him over magni

you're a big help to him in realizing his worth. your reassuring and comforting words mean more to him than he could ever explain

he worries a lot about fucking up and you finding someone better than him, no matter how many times you tell him that won't happen

baldur

he hates how he can't feel your touch. he sees your hand on his arm, his chest, his face— but he feels nothing. he knows it's there. he wishes he could feel you in the way you feel him

even though he can't feel it, he enjoys physical affection. it reminds him that you love him even though he thinks you shouldn't

you'll be the first person he's ever truly opened up to. he tells you everything about his strained relationship with his mother, too. he almost regrets it until he sees your reaction— gentle and kind. as you always are with him

you're so sweet to him. you're a comforting presence that he never wants to go away, and he'll go to any lengths to protect you. you're the only thing he really has in this world and he doesn't intend to let you get hurt in any way

[mariacallous]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya in the key northern state of Uttar Pradesh in January in hopes it would earn him a massive victory in the national election that concluded in June. That didn’t happen—at least not to the extent that Modi, his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and their ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) expected.

In what has widely been described as a shock result, the BJP won merely 240 seats in the 543-seat parliament, after setting a target of 400 seats. Modi has formed a government but only with support from other parties.

Like any election result, the outcome had multiple causes that will take time to fully sort out. But one thing is already clear: Modi failed in his long-running bid to homogenize India’s Hindus across castes and cultures and consolidate their vote for his political benefit.

In 2014, Modi came to power on the back of religious nationalism and security issues, and he continued that trend in 2019. This year, in the absence of any urgent security threat from regional rival Pakistan and rising concerns over unemployment, inflation, and authoritarianism, Modi banked on the RSS’s homogenization strategy.

The Ram temple was built on a site long disputed with Muslims, where a 16th-century mosque stood until December 1992, when a group of Hindu nationalists razed it to the ground allegedly on the BJP’s provocation. Experts said the BJP had envisaged the temple would instill pride in Hindus, feed their Muslim animosity, and bring them under the Hindu umbrella to choose Modi.

Even though, by and large, the Hindu community seemed to have been pleased with the inauguration of the temple, that didn’t translate into votes for Modi across the Hindu hierarchy. Instead, the results exposed the weaknesses of the homogenization exercise.

Hartosh Singh Bal, an Indian journalist and the executive editor of the Caravan, said there is “diversity in Hinduism” and the election results prove that it can’t be “papered over by directing attention and hatred outwards” toward Muslims. This election proves that “Hindus are not a monolith” and that “various segments of Hinduism have a successful chance of taking on the BJP,” he added in reference to tactical voting by lower castes in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP.

Karthick Ram Manoharan, a political scientist at the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru, said that in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India with the second-biggest economy in the country, the BJP did not win a single seat out of a total of 39.

“Hindus are the absolute majority in Tamil Nadu, but they still mostly vote for the secular Dravidian parties,” Manoharan said in reference to local parties that have emerged out of social movements opposed to an upper-caste Hindu order that the BJP and RSS have been long accused of nurturing and propagating.

In March, just a month before voting began, I witnessed saffron-colored flags expressing support for Modi’s party jutting out from rooftops and windows in tightly packed homes in western Uttar Pradesh. Some people I spoke to said that BJP workers had decided to adorn the neighborhoods as they pleased, but underneath the flag-waving, a large-scale discontent was brewing over a lack of employment opportunities.

The upper-caste youth seemed confused, if not yet disenchanted, with Modi and in the absence of industry and strong local economies once again mourned the loss of government jobs to affirmative action. (The Indian Constitution reserves almost half of all state jobs for people from lower castes and others who confront a generational disadvantage and historical discrimination.)

Meanwhile, Dalits, who sit at the bottom of India’s Hindu hierarchy, in hamlets nearby who depend on the quota for their dignity and livelihood were quietly recalibrating their options. The mood was starkly different from 2014 and 2019 when I visited some of the Dalit-dominated parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh. Back then, Dalits I met were upbeat and decisively pro-Modi. They said they supported him since they believed that he might raise their stature in the Hindu hierarchy.

But 10 years later, they suspected the BJP was plotting to weaken the constitution, the only assurance of rights for marginalized communities in a country where upper-caste Hindus continue to hold social capital and economic power.

Recent comments by BJP leaders that if Modi won 400 seats, he would change the constitution spread anxiety among lower castes that the party intended to scrap the reservation system. The BJP repeatedly denied this, but the suspicion that it is first a party for upper-caste Hindus is deep-rooted among lower castes, and experts believe the comments were part of the BJP’s political strategy.

“They were testing the waters to see what would be the reaction,” said Sushil Kumar Pandey, an assistant professor of history at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow and the author of Caste and Politics in Democracy.

“The opposition picked it up and campaigned on it, telling people a change in the constitution could mean losing your livelihood, your jobs,” Pandey added. “That worked at a time [when] people were also scared of privatization” and in government-run sectors.

For Dalits, it was about more than jobs. The Indian Constitution is nearly worshipped by the community and celebrated en masse on the birth anniversary of the Indian intellectual who wrote it. B.R. Ambedkar was no fan of Ram and advocated against the caste discrimination inherent in Hinduism all his life, even converting to Buddhism when he felt there was no escaping caste-based prejudice. While he couldn’t annihilate the caste system, he ensured that the constitution offered lower castes a quota in government jobs to gradually uplift them.

In his honor, and as an ode to the progressive document, Dalits sing songs in praise of the constitution and hail it as the upholder of their dignity in a society where they continue to be belittled. Any change to the text was unacceptable. “Their cultural identity is linked to this book,” said Ravish Kumar, a journalist and the host of a popular YouTube news show.

In the south, too, there was a fear of culturally being subsumed by a Hindi-speaking upper-caste elite. Indian federal units, or states, were defined in the 1950s on the basis of language, and to this day south Indians identify themselves on the basis of the language they speak. The Ram temple had no resonance in the southern states, particularly in electorally significant Tamil Nadu, with the highest number of seats regionally. Tamils were wary that the RSS’s homogenization agenda would drown out their cultural ethos and impose a secondary status on the Tamil language.

Manoharan, the political scientist, said that in Tamil Nadu, it was “not so much religious but fear of cultural homogeneity” and “a language policy which will give importance to Hindi speakers over Tamil speakers and upper-caste Tamils over other backward castes.”

In a state where “88 percent people come from so-called lower castes” and “69 percent have jobs under affirmative action through a special act,” people were also extremely worried that the BJP may “water down” the employment quota promised in the constitution, Manoharan added.

The southern Indian states have a longer history of resistance to upper-caste domination, a higher literacy rate, better economies, and a tradition of secular politics. While the BJP maintained its tally of 29 seats from the last election, it is being seen as a poor result considering the inroads the RSS has made in the south.

For instance, in the southwestern state of Kerala, the RSS has more than 5,000 shakhas, or branches, second in number only to Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state—yet “despite the fact that the RSS has thousands of training grounds in Kerala, they are unable to get influence,” said K.M. Sajad Ibrahim, a professor of political science at University of Kerala. “That’s because while religion is important, communal harmony is more important to people here. BJP tries to create tensions, and that doesn’t work here.”

The BJP managed to gain one seat for the first time in Kerala, but that isn’t being attributed to its ideological success or expansion of homogenization project but to the winning candidate’s personal appeal. Suresh Gopi, the winning candidate, is a popular movie star.

In many states in the Hindi belt and even in the south, the BJP did well. The upper castes and urban voters are standing firmly behind Modi. Kumar, the journalist, said it would be foolhardy to dismiss Modi—and the bigger Hindutva, or Hindu nationalist, forces backing him—just yet. He said Hindutva hasn’t lost and only faced a setback. “The BJP was trying to dominate caste politics with Hindutva,” he said, “but the election result shows that dominance has cracked.” However, he added, “it has only cracked—the ideology still has wide-scale acceptance.”

Everyone else Foreign Policy spoke to concurred but added that Hindus are far too diverse to be homogenized. Manoharan said the results exposed the weakness of the homogenization agenda and its faulty premise. “Hindutva’s aim for homogeneity is confounded precisely by a structural feature of the religion-culture it seeks to defend—caste,” he said.

[chappellrroan]

Sorry to sound like a stupid American, but I am a stupid American, who's bjp and why do we dislike them

ooh this is very long topic but to summarise it, bjp is bharatiya janta party aka one of the major political parties in india which thrives on religion divison, caste oppression, islamophobic sentiments which was in office for last 10 years and since the 2nd tenure was won by clear majority they had way too much power, their ministers have been charged with assault, corruption, money laundering etc. the most recent case being of a member of legislative assembly being involved in a sex scandal which was kept under the wraps for last 3+ years and now he's fled to Germany, not to mention their control over press and the fact that Narendra Modi the leader of the party, who is also the prime minister has never attended a press conference in last 10 years, it's the right wing of india to put it simply which continues to ignore the middle and lower middle class common man and economically weaker sections, they seek vote only on religion which you can already assume is too damaging for nation as whole and if Election 2024 were to give them clear majority we would've been a hair length's closer to apartheid and one party dictatorship (not that we already weren't but still). These are only the surface level issues but i hope that gives you the idea of why we hate them.

[tiredguyswag]

damn i love my religion but these entitled privileged brahmins need to shut the fuck up and stop victimising themselves and then blame the lower castes and adivasis when they don't get their desired seat like your gods modi adani ambani and advani are hellbent on wiping off adivasis and that is why these fuckers like to call them naxals and forest dwellers to justify ousting them out of their fucking homes good god no wonder users like hindulivesmatter magic-coffee vindhyavihasini are defending a fucking genocide these braindead genocidal maniacs. i know we should not spread such distaste against anyone but damn these people i feel so sick going through their blogs they are not even hiding that they want india to be a hindu rashtra don't they know if india does become a hindu rashtra, their rights over properties will be taken away, their husbands can marry again and more patriarchal casteist bullshit these nazi apologists can pull out. and absolutely seeing a radfem terf hindulivesmatter suddenly care about ram ji accepting trans people right before ram mandir fucking cunts. people who they think are "hinduphobic" and stalk their accounts are most of the times hindus themselves, and most all of them queer people themselves. so by that logic does it not mean these people are harassing queer people on this fucking site. forgive me for my rage but i used to follow some people who used to reblog these users and i am so fucking ashamed of them and myself. like they deny sati ever existed, IT DID THERE ARE RECORDS EVEN BEFORE JAUHAR. they say casteism is a western concept, the SAME PERSON WHO SAID THAT LITERALLY SAID SHUDRAS SHOULD NOT ENTER TEMPLES. like the hindutva mania is getting into children i am scared what these people will do to us as whole.

i saw the stuff your mutuals post and they're so funny it's hilarious how hindutvadis lose their minds over posts that doesn't even concern them.

.

[beardedmrbean]

An 18-year-old schoolboy was shot and killed by so-called cow protection vigilantes in India after they chased him for miles over suspicion of being involved in cattle smuggling.

The incident took place in Faridabad in the northern Indian state of Haryana on 23 August, days after a migrant worker was beaten to death by another cow vigilante group in the state’s Charkhi Dadri district over suspicion of consuming beef.

Cows are considered sacred and worshipped by many Hindus, the religion that makes up a large majority of India’s population. Cow vigilante groups are accused of enforcing, often violently, Indian laws banning cattle slaughter and beef consumption.

Scores of cow “protectors” in recent years have been accused of using violence to carry out extra-judicial activities, often finding themselves at odds with law enforcement. Yet their activities have also received a degree of public support from those who believe they are defending the Hindu faith. Their activities have seen an increase since prime minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 as the head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The vigilantes were allegedly searching for cattle smugglers when they chased Aryan Mishra’s car for about 18 miles (30km) before opening fire, reported NDTV.

Five members of the group have been arrested in connection with the incident. The accused, identified as Anil Kaushik, Varun, Krishna, Adesh, and Saurabh, claimed they had received information that smugglers were active in the area in large Renault Duster and Toyota Fortuner cars, hoping to pick up cattle.

Mishra and his friends, Harshit and Shanky, were in a Renault Duster car when they were stopped by the vigilantes. The occupants of the car are said to have had a prior dispute with another individual, mistook the vigilantes for their rivals and sped away.

The vigilantes, convinced that the occupants were cattle smugglers, chased the car and opened fire, hitting Mishra. When the car finally stopped, the attackers fired another shot into Mishra’s chest, resulting in his death, reported India Today.

According to the police, the suspects initially attempted to mislead the investigators, saying they threw the weapon into a canal. However, it was later recovered from Kaushik’s home, police said. The arrested men are currently in police custody, and further investigation is underway.

The killing of Mishra comes on the heels of another brutal incident in Haryana where Sabir Malik, a migrant worker from West Bengal, was beaten to death by a group of cow vigilantes on 27 August on suspicion of consuming beef. Authorities arrested seven individuals, including two minors, in connection with Malik’s death, as the state grappled with the rising tide of such crimes.

Hardline Hindu groups have been demanding a complete ban on cow slaughter across India, with several states enacting strict laws against it. Critics say that these laws have emboldened the vigilantes, leading to an increase in attacks on those accused of killing cows for meat or leather – predominantly people from the minority Muslim community and those on the lower rungs of India’s ancient caste system.

Last week, a 55-year-old woman died, reportedly of a panic attack, after police raided her home in Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh state to see if she was storing beef. In the end their searches showed she wasn’t.

Uttar Pradesh enforces strict laws against cow slaughter, with violations punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to Rs500,000 (£4,500). The state’s anti-cow slaughter law not only bans the animal’s killing, but also the sale and transport of beef.

In the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh, authorities bulldozed the homes of 11 people in June after allegedly finding beef in their refrigerators and cows in their backyards. Police later claimed that the homes were demolished for being illegally built on government land, without providing evidence.

In September last year, police arrested Mohit Yadav, better known by his alias Monu Manesar, after he was accused of inciting deadly religious violence in the north Indian state of Haryana in July.

The head of a unit set up by a hardline Hindu group to protect cows, he was detained for allegedly uploading “objectionable and inflammatory” posts in the run-up to religion violence in Nuh in which at least six people were killed and several injured. He was also accused in the murder of two Muslim men in the neighbouring state of Rajasthan.

In April last year, four members of the right-wing group All India Hindu Mahasabha were arrested in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly slaughtering cows to falsely implicate Muslim men. The arrests were made after police uncovered the group’s involvement in filing a false complaint against four Muslim men for alleged cow slaughter.

In March 2023, police in Bihar arrested three men in connection with the death of a Muslim man, Naseem Qureshi, who was attacked because he was suspected of carrying beef.

On 1 September, an elderly Muslim man was assaulted by his co-passengers on a moving train in Maharashtra’s Nashik district on suspicion of carrying beef. Police arrested three men allegedly involved in the incident after a video of the assault went viral on social media.

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

[tomorrowusa]

This is a good idea...

Ban fossil fuel ads to save climate, says UN chief

Tobacco ads were banned on TV and radio in the early 1970s in the United States. That began a process of denormalization of tobacco which has continued in the years since then.

Climate change likely played a role in India's national election.

The hidden story behind India’s remarkable election results: lethal heat

The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has won more seats than the opposition alliance, and yet its victory tastes of defeat. Why? In the days leading to the election, the BJP’s main slogan had been Abki baar, 400 Paar, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party. Most exit polls had predicted a massive victory for the BJP – and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris. [ ... ] People in Patna voted on 1 June, the last day of the seven-phase polling schedule. In Patna, the temperature had hovered above 40C. Local newspapers carried government ads exhorting voters to exercise their franchise, as well as half-page ads from the health ministry offering advice about how to avoid heatstroke. In the days leading to the voting in Patna, there were reports of personnel at polling stations dying from the heat. In the nation’s capital, Delhi, there were protests over water shortages. Last week, the temperature in Delhi hit 49.9C.

For the Celsius-challenged, 49.9° C = 121.8° F. That's just 0.2° F short of the all time record high temperature in Phoenix, Arizona which reputedly has "dry" heat.

As it turned out the ruling BJP did win the election but will be able to govern only with the help of electoral allies. The BJP had been boasting about getting 400 seats in the 543 seat Lok Sabha - the lower house of parliament. It ended up with just 240 with its allies winning 53 for a total of 293 seats. It is a modest working majority but is way down from the 353 seats won by the BJP & allies in the previous election.

Climate was certainly not the only issue in the election but experiencing a severe heat wave in which people were dropping dead at polling places is bound to have an impact. Politicians in India may now be more open to moving away from fossil fuels. The opposition would be wise to make climate change a bigger issue.

[everything-is-crab]

:))

This is what I meant when I said both rightoids and liberals in India are equally dumb as fuck. Both are pro imperialists. She's not even lower caste and yet she's speaking on behalf of us. I have seen this trend in a lot of "anticasteist" upper caste women (who unfortunately have more voices than people like me, actually women from oppressed castes).

How are these people different from the white supremacists who say brown people are intellectually and socially inferior?

"At least the goras let us have meat" oh okay we're gonna ignore the 3 million lives lost in Bengal famine caused by Churchill's policies (after which he blamed it on us instead of his own greediness). Did he let those people eat meat then? Unhinged shit. They wouldn't let people fill their bellies cause sometimes instead of food crops they wanted our ancestors to grow cotton, indigo, spices, tea. Which also left areas prone to land disasters. Commercial stuff that they could sell at much cheaper prices in their own countries and others in the Western world as well. Also levied extremely unreasonably high taxes. Leaving us with no money. Delusional world these middle/upper class liberals live in where the British let us have meat. They didn't even let us have rice.

The British protected the caste system. Read Sharmila Rege's work about how the British introduced the process of "Brahmanisation" in colonial India.

This is the exact thing Hindu nationalists are doing rn! And have been doing forever! Protecting Western imperialists! Why do you think Modi is bootlicking the US so much? Do you think the farmers' protests and the after effects of globalization after 1991 are disconnected from Western imperialism?

Just because nationalists claim to be against white dominance doesn't mean they practice what they preach.

And this folks is why you need to incorporate class and gender in your analysis and not read about the work of only the middle class men of a community :)

Women and poor people matter too.

But unfortunately many earlier anti caste activists who were middle or upper class were anti Marxists and only later few like the Dalit Panthers and R.B More realized the importance of Marxist analysis for understanding modern caste based oppression more. Yes many Indian Marxists ignored casteism. But that does not mean we must dispose it as a useless theory.

But who tf cares about the Dalit Panthers or anyone else? Have you even heard of any other names that aren't Phule or Ambedka? Everyone followed and still follow people like Periyar, Ambedkar, Phule who were all from relatively well off family. And why will people who uncritically follow these people not think colonization was as bad? All of them attended British school and went for higher studies as well. The British was staunchly anti communist. They constantly resisted communist activists in colonial India. This is a privilege even today many people from oppressed castes cannot enjoy.

I have seen all these upper caste women, ignore people like me pointing this out. They think we're against education of oppressed castes (why would I advocate that for my own community?). But rather we take issue to these men ignoring their economic and male privilege and speaking on behalf of all of us.

A reminder that Periyar criminalized devadasis and read Ambedkar's arguments against Hindutva solutions to the Partition (hint: he cared more about the money that could be wasted in missionaries rather than the violence and human rights and unironically called Muslim people "tyrannical" and referred to "Muslim oppression" on Hindus). He was anti casteist, but he was Islamophobic.

To avoid with this kind of thinking, follow Dalit feminist theory. Dalit femininism from its inception has been pro Marxist (cause women make most of poor here). And they explain the effects of colonization on lower caste women (how the British introduced evidence act, a law that justified rape against lower caste women and let me remind you gang rape of lower caste women by upper caste men is a national issue. Ex the Manipur case, the rape of Phoolan Devi, the Hathras case etc). And how dowry (that earlier used to be a practice mainly amongst upper castes was now becoming dominant in lower castes as well due to capitalization of economy during colonial era). Maybe then you will understand why the British abolished sati but not any temple prostitution or other issues faced exclusively by women from oppressed castes. In fact they called upper caste women those who deserve to be protected but lower caste women were inherently deviant in their justification. But please go ahead and argue how imperialism brings "good things" sometimes.

Just read about caste reformation during colonial era. The choice isn't between hindutva and colonial era. The choice is between hindutva and hindutva along with colonial rule. Why do most liberals pretend the British never favored the Brahmins over everybody else?

White supremacy is so much better than Hindu supremacy for women of lower castes am I right guys?

This is so much better?

Also reminded of the "breast cloth" controversy. Do not mistake that anti caste activism is always anti caste for both Dalit men and women. Sometimes it favors Dalit men. And oppresses Dalit women further. Cause usually the colonizers never cared about oppressed castes but when they did, it was only for the men.

Ik many upper caste Marxists are not good at anti caste politics but I cannot separate Marxism from my anti caste or feminist politics. And as a Marxist from a formerly colonized country, I cannot ignore the imperial divide between the West (that is white dominated) and the global south (that includes India). You cannot separate the conditions of brown and black people today in the global south from the past dynamics of the colonizer and the colonized.

Lower caste women are obviously very poor. The poorest of all with least social protection. These upper caste women can sit on their asses and write papers and blogs on how much white supremacy was much cooler. But the ones from oppressed castes and working class? They don't have this privilege. They have the same burden of upper caste women related to marriage and domestic work and everything. But on top of that they have to do labor as well. And after globalization, when condition of "blue collar jobs" degraded (wages lowered, subsidies cut, worker protection rights gone etc) , the percentage of women in these fields increased. That's not a coincidence. Men always force women into lower earning occupations that have little job security. I am not gonna ignore this.

Fuck Hindutva. But fuck white supremacy too. For me neither is better. Both go hand in hand in fact. Look at the Hindu nationalists in France allying with white supremacists over shared conservative interests.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich at Substack:

Friends, Elon Musk and entrepreneur and investor David Sacks reportedly held a secret billionaire dinner party in Hollywood last month. Its purpose: to defeat Joe Biden and reinstall Donald Trump in the White House. The guest list included Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Milken, Travis Kalanick, and Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury secretary.

Meanwhile, Musk is turning up the volume and frequency of his anti-Biden harangues on his X platform. According to an analysis by the New York Times, Musk has posted about President Biden at least seven times a month, on average, this year. He has criticized Biden on issues ranging from Biden's age to his policies on heath and immigration, calling Biden "a tragic front for a far left political machine.” The Times analysis showed that over the same period of time, Musk has posted more than 20 times in favor of Trump, claiming that the criminal cases Trump now faces are the result of media and prosecutorial bias. This is no small matter. Musk has 184 million followers on X, and because he owns the platform he’s able to manipulate the algorithm to maximize the number of people who see his posts.

No other leader of a social media firm has gone as far as Musk in supporting authoritarian leaders around the world. In addition to Trump, Musk has used his platform in support of India's Narendra Modi, Argentina's Javier Milei, and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro.  Some of this helps Musk’s business interests. In India, he has secured lower import tariffs for Tesla vehicles. In Brazil, he has opened a major new market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. In Argentina, he has solidified access to lithium, the mineral most crucial to Tesla’s batteries. Musk has slammed Biden for his decisions on electric vehicle promotion and subsidies, most of which have favored unionized U.S. auto manufacturers. Musk and his Tesla are viciously anti-union. But something deeper is going on. Musk, Thiel, Murdoch, and their cronies are backing a movement against democracy. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier, has written, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

@Robert Reich nails it with this piece: Oligarchs are joining up with the anti-democracy MAGA movement to look out for themselves and aid the collapse of freedom.

[anarchistin]

The Fight Against Hindutva Is Congruent With The Fight Against Zionism

If you have been following the situation in Palestine and have come across virulent Hindu nationalists online – known as Sanghis for their rabid support for the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) i.e. the National Volunteer Organisation – please know that they've been wreaking havoc of a whole new level in India since 2014, when the electoral arm of the RSS, the BJP came to power at the centre with Narendra Modi at the helm after serving three terms as the Chief Minister in his home province, Gujarat. That is where the party and its key ministers honed its methods and genocidal tactics which it is now very casually bringing to almost every other region of India.

It has an eye on "eradicating" Muslims and Christians from India, and on claiming back territory it considers "lost" to the states of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Its founders admired Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini and wants to emulate many of its ideas and practices.

This regime is friendly with Israel because both of them share supremacist values, in particular a burning hatred for Muslims. What the Zionists do to Palestinians the Sanghis do to the Muslims in India. Both regimes share knowledge and weapons and pursue ethnic cleansing.

One must remember that while Muslims in India face grave persecution at the hands of fascist Sanghis, Kashmir is meted out an especially cruel treatment. The fascist Hindu state has set in motion a settler colonial campaign not unlike the Zionists' to cleanse the region of Muslims, who form 90 percent of Kashmir's population.

One would be remiss to not mention that the "upper-caste" Hindus (especially Brahmins), and not just the ones who support the regime, have been dishing out this kind of treatment to those they deem to be of a lower caste and even untouchable (who actually form the majority of the population of the subcontinent), for over 2000 years.

Brahminism/Hinduism is a system of apartheid and slavery and has been battled all this while, with the newest and strongest movement against it being the one waged by Dr BR Ambedkar in the 20th century. His pamphlet Annihilation of Caste is a must-read if you want a quick peek into what the Hindu/Brahminical religion is about.

[hieronymph]

Hey, so I saw your most recent post and I don't want to argue because I completely get where you're coming from, I'm not trying to change your views or your mind, I'm just trying to show you a Hindu perspective :)

The reason people celebrate Hindu holidays so much in India is because that's a part of the culture, EVERYTHING is celebrated big. I do agree it's too much sometimes most of the time, and I also firmly believe governments should not be religious ANYWHERE, but the reason for this is because Indian Hindus are really really happy to finally be able to express their culture again! When the Mughals came, you were killed if you didn't convert, and being Hindu was frowned upon. When the British came, being anything but white, and most of all Hindu, was atrocious. We were killed and tortured and our history was erased all because of that. More people have died in the Bengal famine curated by the British than Jews in the Holocaust. That's how much we've lost. That's the reason India is in such a shitty place right now. In terms of numbers, India has lost more to colonization than ANY other country, and people want to avenge that by celebrating! I'm not saying it's an excuse, but I'm saying it's justified in a way.

Also, about Rama just saving Sita for pr and then leaving her, that isn't actually part of the Ramayana. And also, it was written to criticise Rama, and it was to show how powerful Sita was. She was able to walk through fire in that story, because she was so pure. In the beginning of the Ramayana, the reason her dad wanted to see who could lift the bow was because Sita lifted it when she was a baby. She was able to survive under the kidnapping of a man who took armies to defeat.

Once again, you're very much entitled to your opinions, but I do want to share my personal thoughts on behalf of the Hindus™ :))

I am literally a born Hindu 😂

We have been able to express our religion much better than other people at least in our country.

I am an atheist now after realizing how awful our religion is to women and people of lower castes.

The amount of victimization and supposed oppression you are talking about is not even a thing of today or at least for the past 100 years. Hindus have always been a majority in India.

I am in no way doubting Sita's strength. I'm calling out the supposed pure and noble God to be a deadbeat husband. It doesn't matter if he was forced or misled. He had enough power to support his wife and he didn't. If anyone does that in today's time, we would wholeheartedly be angry at them.

I don't know who you are fooling with such delusional thoughts. The government nor the religion has your back. They are as bad as organized crime.

Believing in Hindu Gods is one thing and celebrating supposed festival to such an extent that it causes people problem is another. Especially, when the supposed festival is clearly a PR move for vote bank politics by Modi who is very famously anti secular.