20 years of appeasement

Between 1934 and 1939, three British Prime Ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain – did precious little as Hitler walked away with murder, often emboldening him through a valiant amount of cajoling and coaxing. This exercise in self-deception that brought Europe to the brink of suicide is often referred to as the policy of appeasement. This shamefaced policy of buckling down under minimum pressure was brought to fruition by misreading three trends. First, the UK saw the communist Soviet Union as the real and immediate threat and not the soon-to-be axis powers. In fact, it viewed the Nazi Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet expansion. Second, it seriously misjudged the intentions, the will and the capacity of Germany under Hitler. The post- Versailles hate was seen as the sign of true victimhood. Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels played an important role here and weaponised this emotional blackmail. And third was the misconception that if you turn a blind eye, the leopard may change its spots. It did no such thing. By the time the UK and the West regained their senses, it was already too late. Hitler had strengthened his fanatic regime by effectively playing the West and the USSR against each other. Millions would have to die bringing civilisation to its knees. It was only Churchill in the UK who saw that evils of certain vile things far surpass their marginal and accidental utility. But that is the tale of the past century. Let us return to ours.

History seems to repeat itself. Socialist China versus India. The choice for the West seemed simple in the late 1990s. One a socialist polity, the other a pluralistic democracy. But was the choice that simple? Since the Deng Xiaoping’s rule, China had constantly committed to the idea of reform and opening up on its own. It took considerable amount of convincing on the part of the West to compel India to give up the socialist trappings of its economy. But when it gave up socialism, secularism went with it. In my previous pieces, I have traced the history of the incumbent BJP and its worldview. Since the BJP is all but a political front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), by its own account a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation, it helps to understand its worldview. Not to put too finer point on it, if this organisation belonged to any other faith, it would have been declared a terrorist outfit by now. But surprisingly it has not been and it has taken over the Indian state.

MS Golwalkar was the second chief of the RSS and the founder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the band of thugs that brought Babri Mosque down and slaughtered many while doing so. At the risk of repeating, I am quoting from Golwalkar’s book We or Our Nationhood Defined extensively. As you read this surreal text please note and I swear I do not make this stuff up.

On page 88, he writes of Nazi Germany: “This natural and logical aspiration of Germany has almost been fulfilled and the great importance of the 'country factor’ has been once again vindicated even in the living present. Come we next to the next ingredient of the Nation idea — Race, with which Culture and language are inseparably connected, where Religion is not the all absorbing force that it should be. German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”

Page 105: “There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities’ problem... From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s rights.”

If you thought it was an outdated opinion of an ancient leader of the organisation, let us see how current or outdated his ideas are. Here is Modi, the sitting Indian PM on Golwalkar (referred to him as Guruji) in his book Jyotipunj (Beams of Light): “Dr Hedgewar did not stay up all night to tell Guruji what the nation’s condition was, how many bad things had entered Hindu culture after 1,000 years of slavery. He did not speak of this. He taught him no songs of patriotism. He said simply: ‘Madhavrao, you handle this work.” These ‘bad things had entered Hindu culture after 1,000 years of slavery’ are merely the small, insignificant, dispensable things like the Muslim, the Christian communities among other religious minorities. And here is the kicker. The country that Golwalkar is referring to does not end at India’s current borders. He is alluding to what Kautilya allegedly called Akhanda Bharata (Pure India), and includes most of South Asia. So, if you want India to start collecting territories of neighbouring nations, go ahead and embolden the BJP-RSS. Mind you, while you operate under the assumption that China might be a challenge in another two or three decades, a presumption totally rebutted by China and 5,000 years of its history, the saffron radicalism is a threat that is destabilising the region and the world right as you read these lines.

Now here is another part of the puzzle. Since the BJP first came to power in the late 1990s, except for the Kargil fiasco, we see an unbroken pattern of almost universal appeasement stretching over 20 years. We know the West took its sweet time in seeing who Hitler was. But what puzzles me the most is why Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France and the states of the former USSR fail to see what is going on?