An understandable objection that may be hurled at my essay is that I am not an American citizen, on account of which, I must not extend unwarranted comments thereon.
However, I write this for the simple reason that I see an eerie similarity between the extant fiasco in Minneapolis and the fiasco that germinated in my country, India, after the government enacted legislation granting citizenship to persecuted religious minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
I must elucidate at the outset that the murder of George Floyd is indeed abominable. I would not be surprised at, and would not outright disagree with, the assertion that the riots stem from the pent-up detestation towards racism in the United States. It is equally true, however, that this form of violence does little to help the cause of those passionately fighting against racism using constitutional means.
I am given to understand that protesters have looted an entire Apple store in DC. It took seven minutes before cops arrived. There have also been visuals of the protesters dealing damage to the CNN office. The critics, of course, did not hesitate to point out, “Hey CNN! Peaceful protesters at your door!”
This is an indubitable state of anarchy, something which I witnessed in my country during the unwarranted protests and riots against a harmless piece of legislation constitutionally passed by the government. I apologize, for I shall steer off-topic for a while, but I find it felicitous to clarify the context. The contention was that the government had included religion as grounds of providing citizenship which goes against constitutional principles of secularism, and the express ban on discrimination by the Constitution. They, however, failed to understand that it was not just in one, but in numerous verdicts by the Supreme Court, that exceptions to these constitutional provisions were enumerated. For if Articles 14 and 15 were followed in spirit, even affirmative action would have to be struck down as unconstitutional (interested readers may read Samaraditya Pal’s books on the Constitution). No protester and vested interest, however, bothered to examine such nuances. They went about blocking roads with unadulterated shamelessness, without any regard whatsoever for public order. As if that did not suffice, a mother brought her two-month old infant at the protest site and engaged herself in symbolic protests, leaving the infant to die! And then they had the temerity to say that it was Allah’s will.
I see the same materializing in the United States today. I considered it essential to highlight the context because I do not find Americans really bothering about issues in other countries. It is an age-old and a vexatious propensity to dismiss everything as silly third-world bickering. The Minneapolis incidents may well bust this bubble of imagined civil superiority. As renowned author Hindol Sengupta says:
Had this happened in our part the world, the American Press would have been the first to describe it as ‘civil war’.
It may be said that the outburst of sentiments are legitimate. No matter what, however, one cannot condone such anarchy. The issues, of course, are widely different in India and in the U.S. But those who have provided the anarchists with an intellectual shield are those claiming to fight for ideals; against racism in the U.S. and against imagined majoritarianism in India.
These principles are very much cherished by those with leftist inclinations in both countries. I am, therefore, compelled to agree with the United States Attorney General William Barr that it appears as if the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic left extremist groups. Far-left extremist groups, using Antifa-like tactics.
A film director in India who goes by the name Vivek Agnihotri has coined an apt term for these eminent personalities in the media, entertainment industry, bureaucracy, universities etc. who provide intellectual cover for such anarchists whose actions reek of the revolution as must have been imagined by Marx. The term he has coined is, “Urban Naxals”. For the uninitiated, Naxals are by and large terrorists who swear complete allegiance to the communist ideology. They force gullible and poor villagers into fighting for their venomous cause. An interested reader may read up on the history of the Naxalites online.
The adjective used for them is “Urban Naxals” because they, unlike the gun-toting Naxals, do not directly take up arms, but use the intellectual medium to indoctrinate the youth and have it sympathize with the far-Left ideology. I suppose many Americans would find eerie similarities between SJWs in the U.S. and such youth in India.
I use, in an almost verbatim manner, the words of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who is celebrated as the Father of the Indian Constitution, when I say, “Urban Naxals form a close corporation, and the distinction that this corporation makes between self-proclaimed intellectuals and dissidents is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. There is a fraternity, but the benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.”
Dr. Ambedkar had used these words in the context of the Islamic society in India as it existed in the days of India’s independence movement. I found his description very apt for today’s Urban Naxals.
A noteworthy feature of this corporation is that it transcends geographical, ethnic and religious boundaries. The only purpose of its existence is the devolution of the state of affairs across nations to total anarchy. It hides its lack of intellect with impassioned public eloquence, and brazen cunning that is employed in order to misguide the infertile young minds who, at such ages, are bustling with hormonal peaks.
The members of this corporation wax eloquent about freedom of speech and expression, but they possess an intrinsic lack of acceptance towards criticism. Criticism, even in civilized and respectful language, forthwith invites the most abominable linguistic barrage from them.
They do not let it known, but they follow Antonio Gramsci even more than they follow Karl Marx. What Marx conceptualized was purely based on economics. It failed because it was evident that labour problems are not the same across the world. The class divisions were also not as rigid; they certainly are not so today. Gramsci’s idea pertained to attacking the cultural institutions in countries for Marxism to thrive. So long as indigenous culture thrived, Marxism would appear esoteric and make little sense to the local population.
I have not much of an idea as regards the tactics employed by Gramsci’s adherents to demean cultural institutions in the U.S. but I guess the burning of the Star Spangled Banner could be construed as such. It would not be an overstatement to say that the situation in India is exponentially worse. It commenced with the propagation of what the British, during the colonial era, deemed fit as India’s history, denying to it its cultural heritage that was at minimum estimates 9500 years old. The mother river of the ancient civilization, Sarasvati, was dismissed as a figment of imagination. The education system of India offers little to no insight into ancient Indian mathematics, science, metallurgy, surgery, architecture, philosophy, meditation etc.
Thus, one sees today, primarily in Indian cities, an English-speaking millennial generation attempting its best to ape the west by means of dresses, accents and food habits, with no clue about cultural heritage. I am totally for cultural integration, but not at the cost of indigenous culture, Ironic that Marxist thought, which would ideally have opposed colonialism for its bourgeoisie character, ended up colonizing the minds of India’s youth. The unfortunate immediate reaction to such extremist deniers who hold that ancient India was only a mudhole with zero contribution to the world, is the rise of those extremists who insist that every good thing took birth in India, that ancient Indians travelled to Mars and the like. The truth, of course, is in the middle of these two extremes.
Why did I write such a prolix essay, much of which has little to do with the rioting in Minneapolis? I did so because Minneapolis is not a one-off incident. It is but a statistic which is part of a pernicious game being played by the global cabal of Urban Naxals. It is not a conspiracy theory that these people have deep pockets; why else is George Soros saying something to the effect of pledging $1 billion to fight fascism in India?
So far as the governmental response is concerned, I am in no position of authority to comment. Some Americans on Twitter demand that the military be called in, but I suspect that the Trump administration shall do nothing of that sort. How it shall respond is anybody’s guess.
We would do well to not dismiss it as an incident of anarchy. The destabilization of the state apparatus is the singular aim of such people. I do not know what they seek to achieve thereafter, but whatever it is, it manifestly cannot be a welcome proposition.