A theory of everything extreme

India is witnessing a fresh round of protests. Indian farmer unions are protesting to demand the repeal of three laws for the past two months. As expected, the BJP government has used the national mainstream media to malign protesters by calling them Khalistani separatists or stooges of Pakistan or China. When this was not enough, and media’s attempts to reduce the nationwide agitation to minority populated small pockets failed, guess who was seen coming to the rescue. Indian media that is under BJP’s total control suddenly started reporting that Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi and the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party, was under house arrest. Purpose? Make him a martyr and help him in hijacking and driving this independent movement into the ground. If you have not been paying attention, on various occasions Kejriwal served the BJP’s interests in plain sight. For instance, the 2011 Anna Hazare movement against alleged corruption which brought its surrogate Kejriwal to power in Delhi in 2013, and his constant advocacy against Congress and the left, paved the way for Modi’s success in 2014 by thoroughly dividing and confusing India’s secular voters. Whether Kejriwal will be allowed to damage this movement or not is still to be seen, but you can see how a vast range of contingency plans come into action whenever Modi is in hot waters. It’s as if a mega-mind is helping him plot against his rivals. More on this later.

Let’s go to another country, another continent. In the United States, a mega disinformation and influence campaign is underway. When it’s clear that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election with a comfortable majority, the paranoia of the incumbent President’s supporters, the Republican Party’s lack of spine, and Trump’s own infinite narcissism are being employed to rip America apart. Before the election, there was chatter about the coming civil war. Boogaloo Bois draw their name from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and believe the next civil war would be a poor-quality remake of the first one. Trump’s blind followers in QAnon conspiracy cult call it the “storm” ending in the “great awakening”. Charles Manson called it Helter Skelter and William Pierce’s Turner Diaries the day of the rope. Call it by any name it is a neo-Nazi fantasy that foresees a civil war in the US transforming into a race war which later spills into other parts of the world and kills all non-white people.

When over 50 legal challenges failed to reverse the election results in favour of Trump, the state of Texas went to the Supreme Court seeking annulment of election results in four battleground states where the incumbent lost, invoking its original jurisdiction. Texas was soon joined by the attorney generals of 17 red states and the federal government. If you go through the petition you realise it is old wine in a new bottle and has little chance of succeeding. The purpose seems to be to arm the red-blue state fault-line, to use it later as a pretext for secession or worse a civil war. Indeed Kyle Biedermann, a Republican Texas state representative, has already announced he is about to introduce a bill for Texas’ secession. Jon Voight, a Hollywood star, a Trump surrogate, and father of Angelina Jolie is already repeatedly calling for a civil war. Meanwhile, in Boise, Idaho, the Anne Frank Memorial was tagged with the Nazi swastika and a message reading “WE ARE EVERYWHERE”. Message received.

Modi and Trump’s supporters have one thing in common. They treat these leaders as absolute monarchs, often deify them and believe anyone opposing them is a traitor. But to understand the deeper connection you will have to visit another continent — Europe.

The 2010s witnessed the rise of ultra-right proto-fascist elements in Europe’s politics. Many have made it to power echelons and are now facing even fiercer neo or proto-Nazi challengers. Amazingly, an interesting link developed when Modi’s strategic blunder in Kashmir (the abolition of Article 370) could not garner international support. All of a sudden, all hyper-right elements ranging from Netherland’s Geert Wilders to France’s Marine Le Pen started lining up in support. And then we witnessed the hurried visit of 27 far-right MEPs to Kashmir in a private capacity. When this did not pass the stink test it led to further investigation. Consequently, an NGO called EU DisinfoLab has unearthed a massive network of zombie NGOs and over 750 fake media outlets peddling Indian far-right propaganda abroad and even deceiving the UN and EU for the past 15 years. Recently, a FinCEN files dump flagged 44 Indian banks involved in shady transactions of over $1 billion. And these transactions are known because their source and destination could be identified. Who knows how many others took place? Could some of these funds be directed to support neo-Nazi movements abroad?

In this space, I have explained how a European convert to Hinduism, Savitri Devi, united monism with Nazi ethos declaring Hitler Vishnu’s avatar and advocating the creation of a hierarchal, casteist society and return to Europe’s pagan past. I’ve also pointed out that John B Morgan, the man who brought her works to Nazi circles, was based in India between 2010 and 2014. I failed to mention he lived in an Ashram as a Hindu convert. Benjamin Teitelbaum’s War for Eternity reveals this. Despite the author’s desperate attempts to obscure and rationalise their conduct it shows how Trump’s former associate Steve Bannon, Putin’s ally Alexander Dugin and Bolsonaro’s spiritual advisor Olavo de Carvalho are connected to a single tradition that believes in the Hindu myth of yugas, hierarchal caste-based ordering of society and like Savitri Devi, the reconstruction of pre-Christian Indo-European identity. The author calls them Traditionalists. I find it a euphemism for disguised neo-Nazism. And all these elements seem to have a soft corner for India’s RSS, whose political front, BJP, now rules India. This connection would make little sense if you view Nazism through the white Anglo-Saxon lens but if you interpret it through the Aryan myth everything falls in place. 

Another book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, by Brian C Muraresku reveals how deep the desire to disregard Judeo-Christian influence on the West and attempts to piece together pre-Christian Indo-European tradition goes. The book talks about the historic use of psychoactive drugs to experience the divine. I’ve no knowledge of such an experience. But psychoactive drugs for sure can be used for indoctrinating impressionable minds.

It seems the Indian far-right has worked hard to influence Western thought to discredit the Abrahamic faiths and connect Savitri Devi’s desire to return Europe to pre-Christian roots with a broader Aryan identity. Investing in systematic destruction of European and US structures, Muslim cultures, and even the Jewish state by empowering extremists there, would make perfect sense. This class now has the money, influence, and strength of one or more most powerful states in the world at its beck and call.

Do you think you’re immune to such psychological and societal manipulation?