Search for "Narendra Modi"

In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

By Luke Whitmore

…aster prevention and disaster relief, has rebuffed the efforts of Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, to be officially involved with the rebuilding of Kedarnath. Modi is one of the most famous faces of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main national rival of the Congress party. At the same time, Uttarakhand has announced that the rebuilding of Kedarnath will take place in partnership with the Archaeological Survey of India, a national organiza…

Why Did Facebook and Instagram Ban #Sikh on the Anniversary of an Infamous Massacre?

By Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal

…5, when Zuckerberg hosted a town hall meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Facebook has shared an intimate connection with India, which happens to be the largest market for Facebook outside of the United States. Many Sikhs in the diaspora have, in fact, been concerned about this relationship for some time as Modi, who was complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots and embraces a Hindu nationalist agenda, continues the systemic oppression against re…

To Fight White Supremacy We Must Resist Essentialism: The Author Responds

By Andrea R. Jain

…nt simplistic pictures of yoga as Hindu, for example, we throw a wrench in Narendra Modi and Baba Ramdev’s ongoing efforts to weaponize yoga, for power and for profit, against religious and sexual minorities in India. We also sabotage the scare tactics of Hinduphobes who warn of the subtle ways yoga challenges the Christian commitments of naïve American yoga practitioners. It is not the scholar’s place to establish or verify claims about origins o…

To Fight White Supremacy We Must Resist Essentialism: The Author Responds

By Andrea R. Jain

…nt simplistic pictures of yoga as Hindu, for example, we throw a wrench in Narendra Modi and Baba Ramdev’s ongoing efforts to weaponize yoga, for power and for profit, against religious and sexual minorities in India. We also sabotage the scare tactics of Hinduphobes who warn of the subtle ways yoga challenges the Christian commitments of naïve American yoga practitioners. It is not the scholar’s place to establish or verify claims about origins o…

Burma’s Spirit Festival, and More in This Week’s Global LGBT Roundup

By Peter Montgomery

…an’s Turkey, water cannons were used to disperse an Istanbul Pride parade. Narendra Modi’s India has re-criminalized homosexuality (though transgender rights have been preserved). In Egypt, where gays experienced new freedoms in the brief interlude of democracy after the 2011 revolution, they are now, under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s dictatorship, subjected to constant harassment and surveillance and hundreds have been arrested. Poland: Climate for LG…

Biggest, Best & Worst LGBT Religion Stories of 2016 and more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…se of the Indian legislature in 2015, but the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced its own watered-down version of the legislation earlier this year that transgender activists have widely condemned. Our in-person survey in India — which was conducted just before the government rolled out its legislation in August 2016 — found overwhelming support for the original Supreme Court ruling, with 47% saying they “strongly agree” with the…

Why Don’t Muslims Condemn Terrorism?

By Hussein Rashid

…ere was also 30 people/day. The complicity of Indian state actors, notably Narendra Modi, resulted in a denial of entry into the US. However, the loss of life over those months has not entered our consciousness. We are creating a hierarchy of the value of lives. We have already ignored genocide, but seem to have learned nothing from the experience. We need to be better than that. If life is valuable, it is valuable, there are no qualifiers. We nee…

Right-Wing Religion, Anti-Globalism, Authoritarian Rule: America Catches Up With the Rest of the World

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…n the Philippines, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt, Recep Erdogan in Turkey, Narendra Modi in India, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. No surprise that one of the first responses around the world to Trump’s victory were scenes of cheering right-wing Hindus in India and admiring Russians in Moscow. One of the first notes congratulating Trump came from an enthusiastic Duterte in Manila who only weeks earlier called Barack Obama a “son of a whore.” Now tha…

Bishop Says Gay Couples Cannot Be Part of Parish Life; Does Rising Evangelical Political Power in Brazil Contribute to Anti-LGBT Violence?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…y them as a non-issue. This is part of a broader pattern that has seen the Narendra Modi government not back any LGBT-friendly resolution in the UN in its two years in power…. Contrast India’s response to that of Mexico that marshaled the resolution through numerous hostile amendments and spoke out in length on the necessity of a watchdog to protect LGBT rights, no doubt motivated by the murder of seven people at a gay bar in May. Or to the decisi…

North America Has a Hindu Nationalist Problem, and Scholars are On the Frontlines of These Right-Wing Attacks

By Manan Ahmed, Rohit Chopra, and Audrey Truschke

…n, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (of which the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member), imagine the Indian past as an era of Hindu glory that was destroyed by despotic Muslim conquerors. This vision trades in crude tropes and demonizes Muslims, who have participated in Indian cultures for well over 1,000 years and are subjected to increasing Hindutva violence in the 21st century. The Hindutva revisionist historical project seeks to…