No one ethnic group makes up more than 10% of their supporters. They are religious populists.
Hindutva may be more about culture than biology but the best descriptor I can find is "völkisch nationalism" which doesn't have a good English translation ("Volk" being a more abstract idea than ethnicity but more tangible than cultural identity): the idea of Muslims as a residual contaminant of Islamic colonialism that must be excised to restore the purity of a Hindu India strongly resembles the "blood and soil" ideology of Nazi Germany which sought to restore the "birthright" of the "Aryan race" despite the majority of Germans not being considered "pure Aryans" (and declarations of "Aryan-ness" often being more pragmatic than scientific because the entire idea was based on mythology not actual history).
I could have called them fascist as many scholars agree that Hindutva should be considered a fascist ideology in its structure and application despite having no direct lineage from Italian fascism but then someone would have pointed out that "it's not actually fascism" and we could have debated that definition instead.
It's a nationalist populist movement that attempts to displace one cultural and ethnic minority it deems as invasive by empowering another it deems pure while maintaining a pretense of secularism and democracy and it does so by promising to restore an imagined historical greatness and a return to "tradition". Call it ethnonationalist or fascist, either way it would be the obvious bad guy in any piece of historical fiction. That other bad guys exist at the same time doesn't negate this point (after all, we don't need to defend 1930s/1940s Japan, Italy or Spain to point out that Germany was bad or vice versa).
I hate Congress too.
These comments from this post:
>> EVERY government does this
>> Pretty sure Cong will do the same.
>> And do you think that is different from politicians in other countries?
>> Interestingly the US is busy pushing the EARN IT act again right now.
I might be totally wrong by the way
But BJP coming 3 terms in a row is not good for India. IMO
You would rather have that fool at the helm with rampant corruption, I am glad the majority thinks otherwise.
Isn't corruption slightly better than potential genocide and religious hate?
I grew up in India. I have seen first hand how shitty INC and the Gandhi family are.
Tell me something: why don't they have democracy in INC itself? Who made the Gandhi family the head of INC? Why isn't there any challenger to them? The last person who challenged them in a tiny fashion was Narasimha Rao, who was cast away like a leper and died unsung, even though he was an ex-PM of India.
Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln. Parties change through their life.
We are talking about grey stuff and you claim to see black and white things. There’s no way I or anyone else can convince you otherwise
So please tell us what are the differences? I don't see many. It's the same dynastic party that was 120 years ago.
Himachal Pradesh - the state a significant portion of my family is from - only got the INC in 2022 because the party grassroots had an internal revolt against having a Gandhi apparatchik made CM (Prabhita Singh) and selected Sukku+Agnihotri instead.
In neighborhing Punjab, Gandhi family meddling to undermine Amrinder Singh+Sunhil Jakkar and attempt to put their lackey Navjot Singh Sidhu in charge lead to the INC losing Punjab to the AAP and grassroots Mazahbi+Punjabi Hindu INC members to join the BJP.
In neighboring JK, where the other half of my family is from, internal bickering between the Gandhi family's clique and their opposition lead the former CM of JK (Ghulam Nabi) to quit the INC and he will probably join the BJP out of spite.
The INC lost the entirety of Northeast India because conflicts with Rahul Gandhi in 2014 caused the current CM of Assam (and current contender for heir to Narendra Modi) - Himanta Biswas Sarma - to defect to the BJP and help organize the BJP in Northeast India to completely decimate the INC there.
Personality clashes between the Gandhi family and mid-level INC members has hollowed out the INC, as members either start their own parties (eg. National Congress in Maharashtra, Tiramool Congress in West Bengal, YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Janta Dal United in Bihar, Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh) or defect to the BJP (eg. Amrinder Singh in Punjab; Bommai, the BJP CM of Karnataka, is the son of a major ex-INC politician who started the Janta Dal after a fight with Sonia Gandhi; etc).
If INC wants to succeed at national elections again, they will need to drop the Gandhi family and bring back internal democracy within the organization. Lots of BJP politicians are half hearted in their support of the party and are only doing it out of spite against the current INC.
Alternatively, INC members are increasingly defecting to the AAP as well now too, but they have no shot at National Elections for 20 years at least.
India needs a healthy multi-party electoral system at the national level to prevent Authoritarian Democracy from taking hold, but the internal bickering within the INC is only enabling the BJP further.
lmao. that is one of the biggest reason he is hated here.
I hope they lose in Karnataka and other states in coming months.