Thursday 28th March 2024,
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The Liberal Neo-Colonial Mindset

The Liberal Neo-Colonial Mindset

Whenever the Indian elections are underway the western media is even more panicked than usual about the impending doom faced by the world’s largest democracy as it falls into the abyss of Hindu fascism, fundamentalism, nationalism, and other assorted ‘reactionary’ forces. The parrot-fashion use of such worn-out phrases and the lazy reliance on the chattering class elite of Anglophone commentators not only finds itself at odds with the reality but exposes the deep-seated anti-Hindu prejudice of these self-styled liberals. In fact when it comes to Hinduism they are not very liberal at all. Their reliance on the same old faces and ideas which distorts their view of India is tantamount to asking KGB agent Kim Philby or notorious Nazi propagandist William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) about their views on Britain. Or basing one’s views of the USA on the testimony of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg before they were fried on the electric chair.

But then this liberal elite in the west have much in common with the chattering classes in India whom they deeply connect with. With the decline of social mobility in Britain and warning of the rise of a rentier class, the chasm in wealth and opportunities which was supposed to belong to the time of Queen Victoria has returned with a vengeance. But the liberal mindset is trapped in the Protestant ethos from which it sprang for which the future must be progress. Hence ridiculous ideas such as the ‘End of History’ which was spouted at the end of the Cold War; a result of the messianic liberal pretensions and the teleological cul-de-sac from which it cannot escape.

The liberal mindset bemoans social ills yet stuck in ivory towers or celebrity dinner parties where the cult elite gulp down French champagne and expensive canapés (ironically while highlighting poverty and hunger) while cut off from the masses who are force-fed a junk diet of reality television shows and advertisements encouraging them to get into more debt, in their darkened window limousines and burly private security guards. This heightens the unwritten distinction that now exists between privileged citizens and the masses of ‘subjects’ who are effectively locked out the decision making processes that govern their lives. That is not too different from India where the neo-colonial kleptocrats live hermetically sealed off from the masses. With western countries such as Britain in socially regressive freefall the point of convergence into a Third World rentier state may not be that far off. Hence why the two self-righteous elites make common cause against the same enemy. Hinduism.

In espousing the rights of indigenous people and with their shallow preference for ethnically exotic chic, both human and material, one would have thought the liberals would actually find affinity with Hinduism. But like the Enlightenment from which they sprang there is a dark side. Secularism and humanism did not shed the religious eschatology just because it rejected the idea of a supreme deity. In like manner the self-styled liberals did not reject the colonialist mindset even while the protest their orthodox anti-racism. But this and the politically correct multiculturalism that does with it is in fact highly racist and prejudiced. Indeed with Hinduism it finds a very real threat because here we have the world’s longest surviving civilisation and culture which offers a real challenge to notions of western cultural superiority.

That is the unwritten rule. It must be diversity and acceptance, but on western terms. But while liberal values are said the promote inclusivity and democracy, they also lead the rule of the mob, anarchy and social dysfunction. Individual freedom quickly disintegrates into atomised individuals subject to the all-powerful state or corporate interest which like a vampire drinks its victims dry through taxation, inflation, rents and fees. Social breakdown into selfish egotism leads to the flotsam element morphing into nasty tribalism of the gang as the masses find their own means to deal with being shut out and left to rot. Utopia quickly becomes dystopia.

If this sounds like some nightmarish vision of the future it is not. It is in fact the history of liberalism itself. Buffeted by social forces it refused to comprehend, ideas of ‘progress’ in the late nineteenth century quickly germinated eugenics and Social Darwinism, in which whole races, nations and classes of people were designated as unfit to live. From this came what is amorphously called ‘fascism’. Yet it is this same swear label which liberals now foist on Hindus.

Unable to understand the concept of Dharma, they choose the cheap option of denigrating everything Hindu as ‘fascist’, obscurantist or regressive, while all opposing ideas are ‘progressive’. This includes ideologies like Marxism which have caused the annihilation of 100 million people worldwide. But since that is progress and not Hinduism that does not present any problems. Ironically these liberals remain staunch defenders of very fascist ideas such as that of the Aryan race which in their fantasy world conquered India in some primeval past.

To deny this racist idea first touted (and later retracted) by German Indologist Max Muller gets one labelled as racist and having Nazi sympathies. The nauseating fact is that such ‘liberal’ ideas would find their natural home in the Third Reich not in India. But then not so long ago it was ‘progress’ to wipe out indigenous peoples such as the Tasmanian Aborigines, incarcerate poor people in the workhouse, forcible sterilise by court order in many states of America and traffic British orphans and children of single mothers in order to boost the white populations of Australia and Rhodesia. Before the liberals start to warn about Hindu ‘fascism’ in India, they would be better advised to use introspection in their own backyard and the very societies which are now crumbling under the impact of ‘progress’.

It was Instead they parade their supposed anti-racism by associating with Indian-born and NRI chattering class self-styled ‘intellectuals’ who spew forth incredible myths about the Hindu threat, and in doing so create unnecessary enmity between India and other democracies. While these self-hating Kim Philby types will defect back into their ivory towers once the damage has been done what will be fallout? Already Indian students pay hefty fees to save the crumbling infrastructure of many British universities that are struggling to stay alive and indeed relevant. Do they want the best and brightest to go elsewhere, taking their talent (and above all finances) elsewhere? Let us look at recent examples to give a clearer picture. It was western liberals listening to a few chattering class elite that hailed the Arab Spring. What they got was the Arab Winter, which is what happens when you believe you can just export western values by defriending Mubarak or Gaddafi on Facebook.

listening to a few chattering class elite that hailed the Arab Spring. What they got was the Arab Winter, which is what happens when you believe you can just export western values by defriending Mubarak or Gaddafi on Facebook. But perhaps Russia demonstrates the most poignant example when market-style reforms set to democratise Russia under Yeltsin led to mass poverty, falling life expectancies and spiraling inflation, with people turning to selling sex to survive, or seeking solace in vodka, while a tiny minority bought up state industries to become hated oligarchs. The result of that was the rise of Putin who harnessed this bitterness in creating a strong state which the West antagonises at the risk of losing essential gas supplies. If western liberal want to needlessly antagonise India because a minority of anti-Hindu ‘gangster’ intellectuals have appointed themselves as experts on Hindu social, political and religious issues in a bottleneck of information similar to that of North Korean television, then it will be the West which will lose out.

 

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About The Author

Ranbir Singh : Writer and lecturer, HHR chairman : BA (Honours) History, MA History from School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London : , Have lectured previously at De Montfort University, London School of Economics, Contributor to various political and human rights discussion outfits.

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