Skip to main content

Narendra Modi at the White House:

Imperialist Godfather Welcomes Theocratic Fascist to the “Democracy” Team

What’s wrong with this picture?

Biden US India Image ID : 23173571401736 President Joe Biden and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands in the Oval Office of the White House, June 22, 2023, in Washington.

 

U.S. President Biden meets with Indian Prime Minister Modi, June 22, 2023.   

Since the war in Ukraine began, Biden has consistently presented it as part of an epoch global struggle between “democracy” and “autocracy.” For instance, in February, as the first anniversary of the war approached, Biden proclaimed:

Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow, and forever. … [Putin] thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft. And then, he met the iron will of America and the nations everywhere that refused to accept a world governed by fear and force. … Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased. They must be opposed.

For a deeper understanding of the unscientific and self-serving nature of the “democracy vs. autocracy” cover story, see Bob Avakian,

Now flash forward for a glimpse of the reality of the international alliance Biden is forging.

In late June, the Biden administration organized a lavish welcome for Narendra Modi, the Hindu-fascist prime minister of India, who has  held power and shaped India for over nine years. (India is now the most populous country in the world and a major regional power in South Asia, bordering China.)

Modi was treated to a private dinner with Biden, a pomp-filled welcoming on the White House South Lawn, and a star-studded state dinner.

At a joint press conference, Biden sang the praises of

the friendship and partnership between India and the United States … A partnership that is among the most consequential in the world, that is stronger, closer, and more dynamic than any time in history.

Biden went on to say that this “partnership” was built on “democratic values of universal human rights … press freedom, religious freedom, tolerance, diversity.”

But even by the rather loose standards of Biden and other defenders of U.S. imperialism (when judging the “democratic credentials” of themselves and their allies), Modi is a shockingly brutal and dangerous “authoritarian,”—a Hindu-fascist who believes India should be ruled by and for Hindus and ruthlessly crushes any opposition even from within the Indian ruling class.

India’s 200 million Muslims are persecuted both by discriminatory laws aimed at denying them citizenship, and through the unleashing of Hindu-fascist mobs that burn mosques and homes and have killed dozens of Muslims, including many burned alive; Indian police do nothing. Modi’s home minister refers to Muslims as “termites” who should be “thrown into the Bay of Bengal.” 

Modi also illegally invaded and occupied the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, locking down the entire population in their homes, arresting thousands, barring foreign journalists and shutting down the internet for five months.

Throughout India, opposition politicians, students, lawyers and journalists who dissent are hounded and sometimes jailed for years. In February of this year, the BBC office was raided. India ranks 161 out of 180 for “freedom of the press.”

And this is just scratching the surface.

It’s not that Biden is unaware of all this, or even that he “approves” of it. It’s just that when it comes to forging an international military and political alliance to defeat other imperialists—Russia and China—who are challenging U.S. global domination, how Biden defines “autocracy” and “democracy” is actually determined by what serves that American global domination.

The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism-imperialism and political structures to enforce that capitalism-imperialism. What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism.

BAsics 1:3

New Delhi, India: mourners for Mudasir, lynched by anti-Muslim mob unleashed by Modi.

 

March 1, 2020: Relatives mourn Mohammad Mudasir, 31, one of dozens of Muslims lynched by anti-Muslim mobs in Delhi, India’s capital, that were unleashed by Modi’s Hindu-fascist party.    Photo: Manish Warup/AP

We are at a turning point in history. The capitalist-imperialist system is a horror for billions of people here and around the world and threatening the very fabric of life on earth. Now the election of fascist Trump poses even more extreme dangers for humanity—and underscores the total illegitimacy of this system, and the urgent need for a radically different system.

The website Revcom.us follows the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian (BA), the author of the new communism. Bob Avakian has scientifically analyzed that we are in a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible in the U.S. He’s charted a strategy for making that revolution, and laid out a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for “what comes next” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Revcom.us projects BA’s voice, leadership, and vision throughout society. It posts his timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists) and the whole movement for revolution, including his social media posts, and curates his whole body of work. 

Our website applies the scientific approach BA has developed to analyze major events in society and the world—why they are happening, how they relate to each other, how all this relates to the system we live under, where people's interests lie, how revolution is in fact the solution to all this, and what the goals of that revolution are.

Revcom.us acts as a guiding and connecting hub for the revcom movement nationwide: showing what’s being done, digging into what’s right and what’s wrong, and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force. As part of this, revcom.us feature and promotes the weekly The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube.com. 

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but rises to a whole different level!

DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!

Your donations contribute to: