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> the government elected can range from moderate to leftist Isn't the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party that now runs the country, right-wing? I know they are o

> the government elected can range from moderate to leftist Isn't the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party that now runs the country, right-wing? I know they are openly anti-Muslim in some times and places.

chimeracoder 11y ago
> I know they are openly anti-Muslim in some times and places. What makes 'anti-Muslim' inherently right-wing? Certainly in the US and Western Europe, there's no shortage of Islamophobia to go around in the left-wing parties.
- hackuser 11y ago
  Hmmm ... could you give examples? In my experience nationalism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice overwhelmingly are only on the agendas of right wing parties.
  - Manishearth 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#Usage_in_Western_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#Us... "right wing" in the US has a very different meaning than the rest of the world. At its core, left/right is a statement about social (in)equality and the government's involvement in the same. It often is tied with conservative or nonsecular politics (inextricably so in the US, less so elsewhere), but that does not define it. India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality. Whilst people disagree about the intentions and/or impact; we have plenty of policies trying to break down this inequality. We're also more on the socialist side of the capitalist-socialist spectrum (the constitution, for example, explicitly calls India socialist). As far as cross-party agreement on government "interference" in equality is concerned, India has it much more than the US AFAICT. Whether this makes the main parties left-wing; I don't know, but it's not clearly right-wing. Then again, Wikipedia seems to call the BJP right-wing. .... terminology sucks. (IMO this dichotomy isn't particularly useful in India.)
    - sremani 11y ago
      Especially when the Sangh is for Swadeshi and actively for Protectionism. RSS happens to Hindu Nationalist but have Fabian socialist tendencies.
    - hackuser 11y ago
      > India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality. Is the current BJP administration trying to do that, or is that the long-term trend? Also, is the BJP trying to help the Muslim minority or only Hindus?
      - Manishearth 11y ago
        It's a long term trend. As far as the Muslim minority is concerned, there haven't been any changes in law that I am aware of regarding them (besides, India has a bunch of laws that make it hard to remove laws pertaining to minorities without involvement from minority leaders. Or something like that). There probably have been internal policy changes. I don't know. One would expect them to focus on fixing "Hindu rights" issues over Muslim rights, sadly. I'm not sure what they have done so far in that direction (and there's a lot of debate over this right now; whether or not the atmosphere in the country has changed due to them). I'd rather not get into that debate here.
        iofj 11y ago
        The thing I don't get about Indian politics is this : given what has happened to the Hindu majority in Pakistan and the Hindu minority in Bangladesh [1] [2] [3]. Given that, how can you possibly defend that muslims in India are anything but a clear and present danger to both national security itself (ie. the democracy, but generally all state institutions and Indian territory), but more importantly, to the very lives of a majority of Indians ? (judging by what happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh, even to a very significant fraction of their own lives) Note that you might say that those were rebels, specific leaders, but accounts of the various massacres say differently, and all say roughly the same thing: it was ordinary muslims, neighbors, friends, villagers, who suddenly started massacring everyone. It wasn't armies, it was certainly not an organised military force, it was ordinary muslims (this is the same thing being reported from the isis/daesh areas in Iraq and Syria however). And whilst I don't mean to say Hindus never commit violence upon muslims, far from it (even increased recently), the scale of it just doesn't compare. No massacres (plenty of events that were fights between mobs being reported as massacres on muslims, especially in Western press, but nothing that anyone can reasonably consider a massacre : people going to houses and executing whoever they find inside). If you say 100 million Hindus were killed or forcibly oppressed in the last century in India, that's a conservative figure. You'd never get anywhere near 10 million muslims being affected. The general population certainly doesn't see things this way, when I find it extremely hard to argue anything else, given recent Indian history. I don't understand why. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Pakistan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Bangladesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Banglade... [3] article, as illustration: http://news.yahoo.com/hindu-temple-set-fire-pakistan-over-blasphemy-142524012.html http://news.yahoo.com/hindu-temple-set-fire-pakistan-over-bl...
  - whybroke 11y ago
    You correct. Perhaps that is why you are being downvoted. Indeed you can trivially get a rough idea of political leanings of European parties from the university of Bergen. For example http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/country/uk/parties.html http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/country/uk/... Obviously googling will quickly show each party's stance on any issue of interest. There are a finite number of significant parties in the EU and they are not secretive about what they stand for. And it's hard to imagine anyone being unaware of a US politician's alignment or the difference between say Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump on say the issue of xenophobia. But perhaps chimeracoder is such a person. I do not know about India but chimeracoder only mentioned Europe and the US In fact, the US definition of left vs right is nearly identical to the European understanding of that difference. What differences there are would stem from the prominence of far right ideas in the US: In Europe, parties form all sides generally agree on issues such as firearm regulation, climate change, the wisdom of the metric system and the right to medical care
  - DanBC 11y ago
    UK labour party had mugs before last election with anti-immigration messages. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/labours-diane-abbott-condemns-partys-anti-immigration-mug-as-shameful-10142149.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelectio...
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      They were Thatcherites and couldn't honestly be described as left wing.
- nl 11y ago
  No doubt there is. But Internationalism[1] is a left wing doctrine, and while it can be quite anti-religious it promotes unity across ethnic and religious divides. It's probably fair to say most left-wing anti-Muslim movements are anti-religion in general. I'm sure the exceptions to this will be pointed out to me soon (The Zionist movement is probably worth noting here. Interestingly the early (pre-WW2) socialist Zionist weren't particularly religious and generally had quite good relations with Muslims). Left-wing nationalism[2] is worth examining in this context. For example the Indian National Congress is generally seen as a left-wing nationalist party, and primarily endorses social liberalism – seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, and secularism – asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_nationalism [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress
tn13 11y ago
BJP is right-wing hindu but the only party in the country to demand uniform civil code.
- hackuser 11y ago
  Right-wing parties often sell themselves as bringing more order. Famously, Benito Mussolini, who openly embraced fascism in Italy, promised to make the trains run on time. (It's order for the groups the fascists represent but state-imposed disorder for the minorities and others that are oppressed.)
  - fennecfoxen 11y ago
    Because this is Hacker News and we can have opinions with more nuance and respect people with intellectual differences to improve our understanding of the world... we should also note that, at its best, there can be wonderful things that you get from certain principles of order and uniform civil codes and right-wing thought, such as the Rule Of Law (Not Of Men) and the idea of Equality Under The Law. but we shouldn't. These principles, if combined, mean that no one is unfairly oppressed by the legal system and the government (that most powerful of all potential oppressors) and that no one is favored with special rights and privileges and handouts. This is not the sole essence of freedom in and of itself in isolation, but it's an important component of the foundation of freedom, and a powerful check on dictators like Mussolini. Our strong tradition around these principles here in the Anglosphere is why our tyranny rate has been so incredibly low for centuries.
    - hackuser 11y ago
      If you are attributing to me any disrespect toward conservative members of HN, please point out the words. We need to be able to say things that are critical of ideas without people jumping to the conclusion that it's personal disrespect. I absolutely agree that order and many other ideas that are more associated with the right, such as the free market, are extremely valuable. I don't happen to agree that everything you named is actually right-wing, including the rule of law, equality under the law, or resistance to tyranny. As a simple example, conservatives in the US supported slavery and segregation for centuries, and still work to limit voting and other rights of minorities.

chimeracoder 11y ago

> I know they are openly anti-Muslim in some times and places. What makes 'anti-Muslim' inherently right-wing? Certainly in the US and Western Europe, there's no shortage of Islamophobia to go around in the left-wing parties.

hackuser 11y ago
Hmmm ... could you give examples? In my experience nationalism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice overwhelmingly are only on the agendas of right wing parties.
- Manishearth 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#Usage_in_Western_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#Us... "right wing" in the US has a very different meaning than the rest of the world. At its core, left/right is a statement about social (in)equality and the government's involvement in the same. It often is tied with conservative or nonsecular politics (inextricably so in the US, less so elsewhere), but that does not define it. India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality. Whilst people disagree about the intentions and/or impact; we have plenty of policies trying to break down this inequality. We're also more on the socialist side of the capitalist-socialist spectrum (the constitution, for example, explicitly calls India socialist). As far as cross-party agreement on government "interference" in equality is concerned, India has it much more than the US AFAICT. Whether this makes the main parties left-wing; I don't know, but it's not clearly right-wing. Then again, Wikipedia seems to call the BJP right-wing. .... terminology sucks. (IMO this dichotomy isn't particularly useful in India.)
  - sremani 11y ago
    Especially when the Sangh is for Swadeshi and actively for Protectionism. RSS happens to Hindu Nationalist but have Fabian socialist tendencies.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    > India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality. Is the current BJP administration trying to do that, or is that the long-term trend? Also, is the BJP trying to help the Muslim minority or only Hindus?
    - Manishearth 11y ago
      It's a long term trend. As far as the Muslim minority is concerned, there haven't been any changes in law that I am aware of regarding them (besides, India has a bunch of laws that make it hard to remove laws pertaining to minorities without involvement from minority leaders. Or something like that). There probably have been internal policy changes. I don't know. One would expect them to focus on fixing "Hindu rights" issues over Muslim rights, sadly. I'm not sure what they have done so far in that direction (and there's a lot of debate over this right now; whether or not the atmosphere in the country has changed due to them). I'd rather not get into that debate here.
      - iofj 11y ago
        The thing I don't get about Indian politics is this : given what has happened to the Hindu majority in Pakistan and the Hindu minority in Bangladesh [1] [2] [3]. Given that, how can you possibly defend that muslims in India are anything but a clear and present danger to both national security itself (ie. the democracy, but generally all state institutions and Indian territory), but more importantly, to the very lives of a majority of Indians ? (judging by what happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh, even to a very significant fraction of their own lives) Note that you might say that those were rebels, specific leaders, but accounts of the various massacres say differently, and all say roughly the same thing: it was ordinary muslims, neighbors, friends, villagers, who suddenly started massacring everyone. It wasn't armies, it was certainly not an organised military force, it was ordinary muslims (this is the same thing being reported from the isis/daesh areas in Iraq and Syria however). And whilst I don't mean to say Hindus never commit violence upon muslims, far from it (even increased recently), the scale of it just doesn't compare. No massacres (plenty of events that were fights between mobs being reported as massacres on muslims, especially in Western press, but nothing that anyone can reasonably consider a massacre : people going to houses and executing whoever they find inside). If you say 100 million Hindus were killed or forcibly oppressed in the last century in India, that's a conservative figure. You'd never get anywhere near 10 million muslims being affected. The general population certainly doesn't see things this way, when I find it extremely hard to argue anything else, given recent Indian history. I don't understand why. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Pakistan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Bangladesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Banglade... [3] article, as illustration: http://news.yahoo.com/hindu-temple-set-fire-pakistan-over-blasphemy-142524012.html http://news.yahoo.com/hindu-temple-set-fire-pakistan-over-bl...
- whybroke 11y ago
  You correct. Perhaps that is why you are being downvoted. Indeed you can trivially get a rough idea of political leanings of European parties from the university of Bergen. For example http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/country/uk/parties.html http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/country/uk/... Obviously googling will quickly show each party's stance on any issue of interest. There are a finite number of significant parties in the EU and they are not secretive about what they stand for. And it's hard to imagine anyone being unaware of a US politician's alignment or the difference between say Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump on say the issue of xenophobia. But perhaps chimeracoder is such a person. I do not know about India but chimeracoder only mentioned Europe and the US In fact, the US definition of left vs right is nearly identical to the European understanding of that difference. What differences there are would stem from the prominence of far right ideas in the US: In Europe, parties form all sides generally agree on issues such as firearm regulation, climate change, the wisdom of the metric system and the right to medical care
- DanBC 11y ago
  UK labour party had mugs before last election with anti-immigration messages. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/labours-diane-abbott-condemns-partys-anti-immigration-mug-as-shameful-10142149.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelectio...
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    They were Thatcherites and couldn't honestly be described as left wing.
nl 11y ago
No doubt there is. But Internationalism[1] is a left wing doctrine, and while it can be quite anti-religious it promotes unity across ethnic and religious divides. It's probably fair to say most left-wing anti-Muslim movements are anti-religion in general. I'm sure the exceptions to this will be pointed out to me soon (The Zionist movement is probably worth noting here. Interestingly the early (pre-WW2) socialist Zionist weren't particularly religious and generally had quite good relations with Muslims). Left-wing nationalism[2] is worth examining in this context. For example the Indian National Congress is generally seen as a left-wing nationalist party, and primarily endorses social liberalism – seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, and secularism – asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_nationalism [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress

tn13 11y ago

BJP is right-wing hindu but the only party in the country to demand uniform civil code.

hackuser 11y ago
Right-wing parties often sell themselves as bringing more order. Famously, Benito Mussolini, who openly embraced fascism in Italy, promised to make the trains run on time. (It's order for the groups the fascists represent but state-imposed disorder for the minorities and others that are oppressed.)
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  Because this is Hacker News and we can have opinions with more nuance and respect people with intellectual differences to improve our understanding of the world... we should also note that, at its best, there can be wonderful things that you get from certain principles of order and uniform civil codes and right-wing thought, such as the Rule Of Law (Not Of Men) and the idea of Equality Under The Law. but we shouldn't. These principles, if combined, mean that no one is unfairly oppressed by the legal system and the government (that most powerful of all potential oppressors) and that no one is favored with special rights and privileges and handouts. This is not the sole essence of freedom in and of itself in isolation, but it's an important component of the foundation of freedom, and a powerful check on dictators like Mussolini. Our strong tradition around these principles here in the Anglosphere is why our tyranny rate has been so incredibly low for centuries.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    If you are attributing to me any disrespect toward conservative members of HN, please point out the words. We need to be able to say things that are critical of ideas without people jumping to the conclusion that it's personal disrespect. I absolutely agree that order and many other ideas that are more associated with the right, such as the free market, are extremely valuable. I don't happen to agree that everything you named is actually right-wing, including the rule of law, equality under the law, or resistance to tyranny. As a simple example, conservatives in the US supported slavery and segregation for centuries, and still work to limit voting and other rights of minorities.