Post by Souriquois on Oct 28, 2017 10:27:58 GMT -4
Listening to a very interesting thing on BBC:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09b19y4
I was aware of some connections between India and the far right in the past, but I am surprised at how similar there are in developments in South Asia and the West today.
I have been scratching my head too, about why so many South Asians in Canada are on the front lines of far-right street protests... but I guess this kind of makes sense to me now, there is a kind of history there.
A lot of this makes sense, the pro-far-right sentiment in India in the 1930s came from British colonization, and Hitler was the enemy of their enemy (this kind of makes sense too, as to why Naziism was so popular in Latin America and French-speaking parts of Canada in the 1930s... and today, I see this rising in French Canada, not so sure about Latin America, though), and South Asians, like Europeans, were both trying to bypass the Semitic influence on their cultures and also, connect themselves to civilizations that have surpassed them in power. A lot of these folks back then also opposed the approach of people like Ghandi to independence. My takeaway from it is that they kind of saw people like Ghandi as a "lefty cuck".
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09b19y4
Savitri Devi-devotee of Hitler, proponent of Hindu nationalism, associate of both the British BNP and the American Nazi party-was a prolific author and energetic member of the international Nazi network after the Second World War. Now, her paeans to the mythical Aryan race and apocalyptic theories of history are circulating once again, revived by European white nationalists and the American alt-right.
Born in France in 1905 to an English mother and Greek-Italian father, Savitri Devi moved to India in the 1930s, took a Hindu name, and married a prominent Brahmin. She believed that India's caste system had preserved the purity of the so-called Aryans, and that Hinduism was a living survival of the pagan religion destroyed in Europe by Judeo-Christianity. In her saffron-edged sari and large swastika earrings, she traveled the country promoting Hindutva, the Hindu nationalist ideology espoused by India's ruling party today. Devastated by the fall of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War, she entered occupied Germany to distribute Nazi propaganda; convinced that Hitler was an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, she spent the rest of her life preparing for his eventual return.
Maria Margaronis travels to India to meet Savitri Devi's nephews and former neighbours and explore the origins of her bizarre theories. Drawing on never-before-broadcast interviews with Savitri Devi herself and conversations with historians and activists, she asks what we can learn from this eccentric figure about today's extreme right movements, their strategies and their appeal.
Produced by Shabnam Grewal
Illustration inspired by photograph Courtesy of the Savitri Devi Archive.
Born in France in 1905 to an English mother and Greek-Italian father, Savitri Devi moved to India in the 1930s, took a Hindu name, and married a prominent Brahmin. She believed that India's caste system had preserved the purity of the so-called Aryans, and that Hinduism was a living survival of the pagan religion destroyed in Europe by Judeo-Christianity. In her saffron-edged sari and large swastika earrings, she traveled the country promoting Hindutva, the Hindu nationalist ideology espoused by India's ruling party today. Devastated by the fall of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War, she entered occupied Germany to distribute Nazi propaganda; convinced that Hitler was an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, she spent the rest of her life preparing for his eventual return.
Maria Margaronis travels to India to meet Savitri Devi's nephews and former neighbours and explore the origins of her bizarre theories. Drawing on never-before-broadcast interviews with Savitri Devi herself and conversations with historians and activists, she asks what we can learn from this eccentric figure about today's extreme right movements, their strategies and their appeal.
Produced by Shabnam Grewal
Illustration inspired by photograph Courtesy of the Savitri Devi Archive.
I have been scratching my head too, about why so many South Asians in Canada are on the front lines of far-right street protests... but I guess this kind of makes sense to me now, there is a kind of history there.
A lot of this makes sense, the pro-far-right sentiment in India in the 1930s came from British colonization, and Hitler was the enemy of their enemy (this kind of makes sense too, as to why Naziism was so popular in Latin America and French-speaking parts of Canada in the 1930s... and today, I see this rising in French Canada, not so sure about Latin America, though), and South Asians, like Europeans, were both trying to bypass the Semitic influence on their cultures and also, connect themselves to civilizations that have surpassed them in power. A lot of these folks back then also opposed the approach of people like Ghandi to independence. My takeaway from it is that they kind of saw people like Ghandi as a "lefty cuck".