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Khalistan and Palestine, commonly bound by similar champions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan_movement#/media/File:Punjab_1909.jpg
Punjab province in 1909: source wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan_movement#/media/File:Punjab_1909.jpg

June 4th marks  the infamous Tiananmen Square anniversary. On that day peaceful student protests in Beijing were brutally squashed by the military of People’s Republic of China. June 4th of this year 2024 is also a milestone for China’s neighbour,  India. That day saw the final results of India’s massive general elections, an impressive month-long mass process through which the personal choices of over 600 million Indians voters were freely expressed and scrupulously tallied.

Mainstream intellectuals in the global West don’t like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Among his biggest detractors is Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Only two days ago a Canadian parliamentary panel declared India to have “emerged as the second-most significant foreign interference threat to Canada’s democratic institutions and processes”,  dislodging Russia.

Though on June 9th 2024 Modi will be swearing in for an unprecedented third term as Prime Minister, the elections in India have actually delivered him a blow. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to achieve the parliamentary simple majority mark of 272 parliamentarians, a measure which it comfortably held in Modi’s previous terms. Modi will now need to rely on his political allies: a strongly secular Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the pro-poor Janata Dal Party which controls India’s poorest state, Bihar.

The dynastic Congress Party led by the Nehru-Gandhi family scions (currently the mother- and-son duo Sonia and Rahul with daughter Priyanka in the background) doubled its margin to 99 seats. This “cutting down to size” of Modi was celebrated in the anti-Modi West, but has paradoxically proved that India is a vibrant democracy where the Voter is supreme and Power must bow to his will. During the past ten years Modi has been portrayed as a fascist dictator, a Mussolini in the making, while India has been labeled as a de-facto illiberal democracy. Inside India, the Congress Party has vociferously accused Modi of suppressing freedoms and cracking down on the opposition. This election instead proves that India’s democracy is free and that, unlike its Chinese neighbor, the world’s most populous country chooses its own popular destiny.

Canada vaunts its credo of human rights protection and political correctness but paradoxically shelters Sikh terrorists and has been at the forefront against Mr. Modi’s government. The killing of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar has been blamed on the Indian government. Though the facts of the case are still not clear, the Trudeau government has taken an  aggressively anti-India and anti-Modi stance. It is noteworthy that the presence of a large Sikh population in Canada is actually the  consequence of a brutal campaign against that community in India undertaken in the day by the Congress Party (Modi’s sworn enemy). This after two Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi back in 1984. Today the Khalistan movement exists prevalently Canada and in the United States, often mixing cross border organized crime with separatist political interference to India’s detriment. Canada continues to harbour these violent activists, allowing them to threaten India’s security and integrity. All in the name of human rights and freedom.

The Indian Congress Party has a large global following in the West. It is particularly loved in the radical-chic cocktail circles of Western capitals. Here folks lash out at Modi but graciously ignore the darker sides of the Congress Party: its imperialistic past and dynastic present, its record of rampant, pervasive corruption, and a brutal suppression of minorities which starkly disproves decades of narration and Soviet inspired propaganda. All members of the Nehru-Gandhi family are Western educated, appear suave, and connect strongly with Western intelligentsia, Western experts, Western human rights activists and philanthropists who support “Palestine”.

This is a time of paradoxes.  Like the paradox of feminists supporting an androcentric Islamic terrorist group. And like the paradox of soi-disant woke political leader Trudeau supporting not only a violent, confessional political sect, but also a centuries-encroached power dynasty like the Nehru-Gandhis.

India with 1.4 billion inhabitants is where the largest universal suffrage on the planet takes place. Yet it is a democracy surrounded by suspicion. It doesn’t get good press. Above all, members of a cosmopolitan intellectual and artistic élite, well represented in the living rooms and media establishment of the West, go out of their way to portray India in dark tones. [These are] writers, directors, filmmakers, celebrities whose names you surely know because they have a worldwide audience” says Federico Rampini while complimenting India’s democracy on Italy’s main newspaper  “Il Corriere Della Sera”.

Israel appears to also live its own paradox: that of its very own intellectual and artistic élite which – instead of supporting the attempts to rescue the hostages and destroy Hamas – sheds a bad light on Israel and on its attempts to defend itself.

Our global élite has its own, selfish version of democracy. Consequentially, when its heroes, front men, and candidates are not elected, it quickly brands the winners as fascist and anti-democratic. When will we finally say “enough” to this global influence peddling?

Notwithstanding all the above, truth prevails: Modi’s election has eloquently proven the strength of India’s democracy. India is too big and too unique to be corralled. For another five years, Israel will continue to have a strong, like-minded ally in South Asia.

About the Author
Carlo Lombardi is a Canadian Italian Chartered Accountant during the day. His passions are India and Israel and the deep philosophies that bind ancient people. He likes to study geopolitics and is associated with Fondazione Fare Futuro, an Italian think-tank. He is bilingual in Italian and English.
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