JUNAID AHMAD, [currently in Britain] junaidsahmad at gmail.com

Director of the Center for Global Dialogue and professor of Middle Eastern politics at the University of Lahore, Pakistan, Ahmed was recently featured in “Will India’s Occupation of Kashmir Become Colonization?” on The Real News.
He said today: “The theatrical display of camaraderie between President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi in the ‘Howdy Mody’ event in Houston is representative of the shared bonds between two of the leading icons of ultra-right wing, xenophobic, quasi-fascist, nationalist tendencies emerging in the world today. The Hindu supremacist political party of Modi, the BJP, is a mirror image of the white supremacy that Trump’s ideology epitomizes. Modi and the BJP’s genealogy is of course based on a century of fascist mobilization and thought, inspired by European fascism.

“Despite the horrendous record of Modi both internally against Muslims and other minorities in India, his grotesque decision to illegally annex the internationally disputed territory of Kashmir, his stripping way of citizenship from millions of the most destitute Indians, as well as his recklessly dangerous bellicosity toward Pakistan, Trump has hosted and put on a show for this world leader like no other. Trump wants the financial and electoral support of wealthy Indian-Americans, wants American goods to have more access to Indian markets, wants India to invest heavily in buying more American goods and especially in the energy sector, expects more compliance with Washington’s demands with regard to India’s relations with Iran, etc., and ultimately, wants Modi to once again re-commit its loyalty to American plans to encircle, contain, and subvert the rise of China. For Modi, just the photo-ops and such political theater alongside Trump are sufficient for him to try to divert the attention of Indians back home and the world from the criminal Indian state actions he has been implementing.”