Christmas saw the USA’s Africa Command launch what US President Donald Trump called ‘powerful and deadly’ strikes against the Islamic State in Nigeria’s Sokoto state, assuming a posture reminiscent of European states in the 19th century, even as there was no reaction to a slew of anti-Christian incidents in India, including a mall attack in Chhatisgarh, on a school in Assam, and raising of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ slogans in front of a church in Rae Bareilly in UP. This is not to mention the Kerala Education Minister getting schools intending to celebrate Christmas cancel the festivities.
In the 19th century, Russia and France made a big issue of protecting Christian minorities in Ottoman Turkey, especially in the Levant, against the so-called oppression of the Ottoman government. Now, it seems, the USA has arrogated that role to itself, as Mr Trump had earlier accused Muslims of persecuting Christians in Nigeria. It is to be noted that the Africa Command did not claim to have targeted the Boko Haram, the militant group which had carried out the most highly publicized attacks in the past, mainly mass kidnappings from boarding schools. While Mr Trump was playing to his Evangelical supporters, he ignored the increasingly targeted attacks on Christians in India. It is almost as if the BJP government, led by Narendra Modi, who was labelled as the ‘Butcher of Gujarat’ for his role in the anti-Muslim pogrom with which his Chief Minstership began, has turned from Muslims, which it has been busy suppressing, to other non-Hindu minorities, in this case Christians, against whom there have been other incidents. Looking at the incidents in India through a Muslim lens, these incidents are condemnable, even if no Muslims are harmed, because non-Muslims are supposed to be protected by the state. While Christians have had the experience of being freely allowed the celebration of Christmas in Pakistan, Hindus here earlier experienced the same freedom in the recent Diwali celebration.
Whereas the USA did not spare Nigerian sovereignty while conducting the attack, with government permission the result of behind-the-scenes armtwisting, its failure to engage with India is symp;tomatic of the innate racism of the Trump Administration. Though India has sqwuacked because of the tariffs imposed by the USA, and though the riots are suspiciously close to that, the USA still continues to deal with India with kid gloves, with the recent minister-level defence agreement showing that the USA still slavers for Indian friendship, no matter how many Christians it kills.
