Indian Christians Betrayed

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/23/trump-modi-mainstream-faces-global-far-right

The American Evangelical hero-president stands on stage with the persecutor of India's Christians. Modi's Hindutva regime has subjected Christians to mob violence and terror. And yet he's welcomed in the United States, the nation that purports to stand for human rights and religious freedoms.

This of course is some sort of obscene joke. The United States stands for nothing of the kind unless it is convenient to invoke these values to meet foreign policy goals. If said goals come into conflict with the values, the values are set aside, ignored or even rejected.

Modi is a champion of Neo-Liberal economic policy. Wall Street loves him and just as important so does the Pentagon. While he hasn't been the perfectly obedient satrap they might wish and has flirted with Moscow and others they wish he wouldn't, he still is overall on board with their regional plans. India has many deep historical disputes with Beijing and the two nations have gone to war over their boundaries. India harbours the Dalai Lama and during the Cold War was more or less an ally of Russia which by the 1960's was a rival and enemy to Maoist China. The enmity between India and China runs fairly deep and over the past ten years the US has shifted away from its old ally (and China's close ally) Pakistan and has established a more natural relationship with New Delhi.

India is now a frontline state in America's 'Pivot to Asia' doctrine and its massive and growing economy is looking for investment just as Western investors are desperate to access new markets. Modi is the figure that brought all these impulses and forces together.

Except for one dirty little secret. He's part of a movement that is ultra-nationalist and certainly contains elements of what can only be described as being Hindu Fascism. To the Muslims he's the governor (Chief Minister) of Gujarat that turned a blind eye to Hindu-on-Muslim violence and what many consider to be a massacre.

To the Christians of India he is a Hindu bigot that tacitly (and sometimes overtly) supports the RSS militias that persecute them, destroy their buildings, commit savage acts of violence against them, engage in rape and in collaboration with the police arrest them.

But no matter. American Christians have made their priorities clear. They decry the persecution of Indian Christians but at the end of the day the almighty dollar and certainly the American Empire (and its games) must come first. You cannot serve God and mammon. American Evangelicals made their choice long ago.

For the Christians of India, how can this be anything less than a betrayal? Mammon, nation, power and prestige come first. How many American Evangelicals via their stock portfolios and employment in the corporate sector, the US state and its military apparatus actually profit from a regime which persecutes and exploits their brethren? This is a deeply shameful thing.