The current decision
by Israel to withdraw from Gaza at the cost of irritating the
9000 settlers is not some altruistic charity. There are over a
million Palestinians who would become voters if Israel absorbed
them. Israel’s dilemma is between to continue being a democratic
but Jewish state or expanding its territory to include a
majority of Palestinians deprived of vote and power and thus
become a slave state. It had hoped that the return of the Jewish
Diaspora would be sufficient to swamp the statistically
increasing growth of the predominantly Muslim Palestinian
population. Individuals unfortunately vote with their feet
primarily for economic security which trumps freedom, civic
rights, ethnic and religious identity, as the migrations of
Muslims to Europe, division of British India and the further
fissions and turmoil of Pakistan demonstrate.. The example of
African-Americans choosing to stay on in racially segregated
America of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the
clinging of discriminated Indians to dishonorable second class
citizenship in apartheid South Africa in the twentieth century,
clearly prove that freedom and civil rights take a subsidiary
position to economic security. As the Sanskrit adage states, "Bubhukshitam
kim na karoti papam". What sin will a hungry person not
commit? What it implies is not fully appreciated by literal
translation, like much deliberately ambiguous dual meaning
wisdom, that is the charm of Sanskrit. For in defining a hungry
person, it reflects superficially on the fullness of the
contents of the stomach, while implying metaphorically the
insatiable nature of the appetite of desire, often never
satisfied.
There are other factors about demographics that determine far
more important aspects of nation states and their foreign
policies. One of the lesser known examples is Mexico’s
encouragement of white migrants into its territory of Texas in
the earlier part of the nineteenth century. This led to a
majority of American whites in the region, with their eventually
increased economic power and the inevitable desire for political
power. Texas, then became an independent republic and eventually
a state of the US, together with Arizona, New Mexico, Utah,
Arizona and California to the detriment of Mexico and loss of
half its territory. The current legal and illegal immigration by
Mexicans is a major worry for the US to prevent reversal of this
past serendipitous good fortune.
The need for cheap labor and jobs that natives are unwilling to
do, creates a conflict between economics and politics. The rise
of vigilante groups to extra judicially police the borders of
America with Mexico, is a direct consequence of this conflict.
There is another legitimate worry that the demographic rise of a
Latino minority will force the proverbially unprincipled
politicians to pander to them for the vote banks and thus weaken
the political and economic power of the dominant Anglos. The
overwhelming economic and media power of a numerically
insignificant Jewish lobby in America has tilted its foreign
policy towards Israel. An equally important factor is the need
to dominate and control the energy rich Arab states with the
collusion of their corrupt leaders and the complete absence of a
significant economically and politically powerful Arab or Muslim
voting power bloc in America. Thus, minorities with power can
guide the foreign policies of a nation to its long term
detriment due to the willingness of elected officials and their
lust for perpetuation of their power.
This conundrum is what Europe faces. France with a nearly 10%
Muslim population has significantly moderated its foreign policy
to be pro-Arab to prevent domestic unrest and terrorism. India’s
pro-Palestinian foreign policy for nearly fifty years was based
on preventing unrest in its large Muslim minority and to prevent
domestic unrest, rather than some high moral standards or an
unflinching commitment to them. It was the failure of this
policy to win any fairness or reciprocity from the Organization
of Islamic States committed to blindly backing the Islamic Ummah
and their refusal of participatory or observer status to India
at Pakistan’s behest, that led to final disillusionment and
re-evaluation of reflexive and failing policies.
There is however, another long term time bomb that Europe is
beginning to face and worry about. It is a fact of life that
economically and educationally disadvantaged persons tend to
have higher birthrates and because of its backward and orthodox
nature, Islam fits the bill. This means that Muslim populations
in all countries have far higher growth rates. In democratic
countries this inevitably leads to greater political influence
and a temptation for politicians who are almost universally scum
buckets to sell out ideals, future and country to cater and
pander to these captive vote banks. India which has suffered
prior partition should be acutely aware of this problem, but
still suffers from this malady with resultant winking at illegal
migration from Bangladesh for economic reasons. It provides
venal office seekers with a captive vote bank and election
victory, translated into individual personal gain by politicians
who are almost uniformly vermin. It is immaterial to the power
hungry that this is a major threat to the integrity and security
of the nation.
Denmark, Britain and Netherlands, formerly liberal countries
have taken the Draconian step of restricting or making
immigration for new spouses of immigrants. While marriage
between Indian and Pakistani Muslims is not a significant
problem, the flooding of Bangladeshi immigrants is a dangerous
demographic disaster to the detriment of a secular India. No
intelligent liberal wants to take the Israeli position of
religious discrimination. The militant antipathy of those
converted by bribery and the constricted nature of Abrahamic
religions with their arrogant certitude, proselytizing
philosophy and narrow minded derogatory and hostile attitudes to
native religions, is a worrisome danger difficult to counter by
a secular or tolerant Hindu majority. There are Indian
Christians, Muslims and leftist Hindus in America who make a
concerted effort to condemn India and sabotage any co-operation
between the United States and India to the point of national
harm. While they pontificate their high ideals, most are either
stupidly impractical, misguided idealists or self-loathing
zealots like male chauvinists willing to commit suicide to make
their wives discriminated and socially handicapped widows.
Earlier, I had rejoiced that India did not have immigrants in
the West who hated their own country like Cubans, Iranians or
Vietnamese, whose reasons are more economic than political, but
there are a growing number of such zealots who receive funding
and encouragement from vested interests and local partisan
American zealots. One must give credit to Ashley Tellis and his
similar cohorts of first generation Indian immigrants who have
switched allegiance without severing emotional ties or a sense
of fairness, but there are a lot of Amichands and Mir Jaffars
willing to betray for instant benefits, a few minutes of
limelight or a religious hostility for no rational reasons.
While it is important to be vigilant and counter their false
propaganda, it is of greater importance for India and Indians to
be inclusive, eliminate discrimination, uplift the masses to
prevent conversion by bribery, which could lead to further
partition or dismemberment of India. This is the aim of our
enemies, some of whom are wolves in sheep’s clothing,
masquerading as do-gooders and well-wishers. The intent is not
to become paranoid or conspiracy theorists like some of our own
Hindu fanatics, but to be consistently cognizant, perennially
vigilant and skeptically analytic, without becoming obsessively
suspicious, destructively cynical, pathologically xenophobic or
incurably bigoted.
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