Monday, May 19, 2014

Stop comparing Modi to Hitler—India is hardly Weimar Germany...

Over the weekend, an imposing and inscrutable photo of India’s incoming prime minister, Narendra Modi, was featured on the cover of Open Magazine above the headline “Triumph of the Will.”

This direct reference to Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 propaganda film, which fundamentally shaped the National Socialist image of effective, fateful, and absolute leadership, is not surprising. As the Bharatiya Janata Party ran an election campaign that was heavily centered on Modi’s leadership qualities and his performance as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, opposing parties frequently evoked comparisons between Modi and Hitler.

The chief minister of the state of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, railed against Modi as a “follower of Hitler and Goebbels,” and Congress prime ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi likened Modi’s leadership style to Hitler’s self-serving rule, which ultimately would benefit only industrialists. Already two years ago Keshubhai Patel, Modi’s predecessor as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, who subsequently left the BJP in protest, declared that Modi ruled Gujarat like Hitler in a “state of mini-emergency.” Modi’s political coming of age in the paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, his vegetarianism, and his... Full story...

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