Norway massacre: Breivik manifesto attempts to woo India's Hindu nationalists

The Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik writes in a manifesto that he acquired some 8,000 e-mail addresses of “cultural conservatives” not just across Europe but North America, Australia, South Africa, Armenia, Israel, and India – ensuring scrutiny of anti-Muslim groups far beyond Europe.

Mr. Breivik’s primary goal is to remove Muslims from Europe. But his manifesto invites the possibility for cooperation with Jewish groups in Israel, Buddhists in China, and Hindu nationalist groups in India to contain Islam.

"It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical," he wrote.

In the case of India, there is significant overlap between Breivik’s rhetoric and strains of Hindu nationalism – or Hindutva – on the question of coexistence with Muslims. Human rights monitors have long decried such rhetoric in India for creating a milieu for communal violence, and the Norway incidents are prompting calls here to confront the issue.

“Like Europe’s mainstream right-wing parties, [India’s] BJP has condemned the terrorism of the right – but not the thought system which drives it. Its refusal to engage in serious introspection, or even to unequivocally condemn Hindutva violence, has been nothing short of disgraceful,” writes senior journalist Praveen Swami in today’s edition of The Hindu.

“Liberal parties, including the Congress, have been equally evasive in their critique of both Hindutva and Islamist terrorism,” he adds.

Last week, Breivik detonated a bomb in downtown Oslo and opened fire at a youth camp of the ruling political party, killing at least 76 people. He reportedly said in court today that the rampage was “marketing” for his manifesto, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.”

The manifesto

Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto calls preserving traditional European culture by cutting it off from immigration from the Muslim world. While he is against setting up a Christian theocracy, he envisions a revival of Christendom, where the church helps unify Europeans around a shared cultural identity.

In the manifesto, Breivik references India dozens of times. He included a five-page paper written by a man named Shrinandan Vyas that argues the Muslim invaders committed a “genocide” of Hindus in the Hindu Kush region of present-day Afghanistan. Efforts to track down Mr. Vyas have failed.

Invasions by Muslims into South Asia did include bloodshed, but use of the term “genocide” is highly controversial.

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