The Corbyn Collaboration: Is The ‘Breaking India’ Tag Chasing Congress Or Is Congress Running Towards It?

Yesterday (Thursday, 10 October), there was a lot of outrage as members of the UK unit of Indian Overseas Congress met Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in London. Subsequently, Corbyn tweeted that they “discussed the human rights situation in Kashmir” in a very productive meeting.

There is more to this meeting than the political battle that is being fought over the issue. It is not a mere Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) versus Congress fight, making allegations against each other.

In 1998, Dalit Solidarity Network-UK (DSN-UK) was established, not by any Indian scheduled community member but Methodist minister David Haslam.

In 2000, DSN-UK expanded into International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN). Now, its headquarters is in Denmark. The DSN-UK was funded “primarily from Christian Aid, with additional support from the Methodist Relief and Development Fund and the Anglican USPG”.

In 2001, DSN-UK was sponsored by Christian Aid to lobby against the Indian government in the 2001 Durban Conference.

In 2004, DSN-UK had become powerful enough to use the International Development Committee of the UK Parliament to raise caste issues with the government of India during the committee's visit to the country. In the same year, DSN-UK also held a meeting in the Labour Party Conference.

In 2005, an organisation called London Institute of South Asia (LISA), which was run by late retired Brigadier of Pakistan Army Usman Khalid, honoured V T Rajshekar, the editor of the virulently-racist anti-semitic and anti-Hindu magazine Dalit Voice with an international award.

Brig Khalid was widely known as an agent of Pakistani intelligence. However, top officials in Islamabad have denied it, particularly after it was alleged that Brig Khalid was the one to reveal the hideout of Osama bin Laden to the US intelligence. The language that LISA used on its website then in 2005 is astoundingly similar to the language later author Arundhati Roy and far-left 'intellectuals' would use.

For example, consider this:

The LISA award was handed over to V T Rajshekar by none other than Reverend David Haslam, who also declared that it was through the writings of Rajshekar that he hit upon the Dalit cause. Rajshekar wrote in many of the articles of Dalit Voice how Jews and Brahmins were racially connected, and his magazine even advertised sales of 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.

As early as 2011, Breaking India (Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan) revealed all these and Corbyn’s connection to these.

And it may not be entirely a coincidence that while Rev Haslam, the founder of DSN-UK, names and honours a virulent anti-semitic racist author as his mentor, Corbyn became the chair of DSN-UK. After all, it is under Corbyn that anti-semitic elements became so bold with his militant anti-Israel stand. The Jewish leaders have pointed out the hate politics played by Corbyn:

The conclusion of the Jewish community leaders is something that Hindus themselves can very well say to Corbyn:

This is an instance of radical left embracing the extreme right-wing hate in the context of antisemitism.

When ‘blood-libel’ and charge of deicide cannot be used in the post-Holocaust age to damn the Jews the ‘liberals’ of the West use Palestinian issue to channel their antisemitism.

This is also a classic case of how the ‘secular’ West would go back to its colonial crusade mode and join hands with Islamists in its hatred against “idol-worshiping heathen Hindoos”. Of course, in post-colonial world one cannot damn Hindus for ‘idol-worship’ and ‘being pagan’. Instead, the ‘liberals’ of the West use ‘caste discrimination’ libel to channel their colonial spirit of crusade to civilise and Christianise.

So, now one can understand how anti-Hindu forces have been working for decades on people who would come to power, imbibing in them anti-Indian stereotypes, reinforcing colonial prejudices and feeding Christian hatred through secular categories. It is only natural that Corbyn would take a stand against integration of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh with India.

But why should Congress, an Indian party, even if in opposition, support this? While under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and to a large extent Rajiv Gandhi, the party only used vote bank politics but would usually stand by the oneness and indivisibility of India. So what has now changed with the ascendancy Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi?

An international organisation called the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia-Pacific (FDL-AP) was founded in 1994. Its website, almost inactive, has an alert on “the crisis of Kashmir” (not the present one though).

The alert informs the visitor that it is meant “to illuminate lesser known struggles in the Asian neighborhood, which are also committed to self-determination, human rights and social justice”. It declares in bold font “Kashmir Independence” as the “Key to Defusing the Indo-Pakistani Nuclear Standoff”. It also has a hyperlink to an interview by Imran Khan which states “Islam means Justice and Justice means Rights”.

And guess who is one of the four ‘co-presidents’ of this organisation?

Sonia Gandhi!

Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, whatever their faults and historical crimes may be, still believed in the fundamental oneness of India. Rajiv Gandhi was largely so though he had started speaking about the rule of Bible in the North East. He also allowed the invisible hand of what was then called kitchen cabinet to interfere with the administration.

But with the ascendancy of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as leaders of the Congress, the axiomatic belief in the oneness of India, and its existence as one nation culturally, ceased to exist. This transformed the Congress into a ‘Breaking India’ party — and then they ruled India for 10 long years: 2004-2014.