Far right determines Europe’s position on Kashmir crisis after supporting India’s government

Shaimaa Hafezy

The Kashmir crisis that erupted again between India and Pakistan several months ago has sparked a debate about the European position on the ongoing dispute over the sovereignty of the region, but this controversy may have found its way towards resolution in favor of India. The “champion” of this trend is far right.

Beginning of the crisis

The recent crisis in Kashmir erupted when the government of India repealed Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which led to the cancellation of the status of the Jammu and Kashmir Autonomous Region, at a time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “driven by the turmoil in the region.”

The separatist insurgency has been in control of Kashmir since 1989, and Pakistan has played a major role in supporting violent separatist groups in the region. This was also India’s motive for this move, although Pakistan denies its relationship to terrorist groups, especially the Taliban.

India has suffered from terrorist attacks, most notably the Mumbai attacks in 2008 adopted by a Muslim group based in Pakistan and seeking to unite Kashmir with Pakistan.

Far-right escalation

At a time when fears of terrorist attacks by Islamist groups are increasing, the power of the far right is escalating in European countries. The helm of the crisis has been swaying towards India, despite Pakistani demands for international intervention.

Although the pretext for constitutional change was regional turmoil, there are broader goals, as Hindu nationalists have long sought to expand India’s regional reach to what was previously British-controlled India, including not only Kashmir but also Pakistan, Bangladesh and other parts of South Asia.

The European rapprochement towards the Indian side in the crisis can be explained in two directions, the first of which was the visit of European officials from far-right parties to Kashmir after India’s decision. The other is the common base from which the far right and Hindus view the Islamist threat and terrorist groups.

The white and Hindu nationalist parties view Islamist extremism as an existential threat, and the far right in India and Europe see their ability to govern according to a common ideological agenda rooted in Islamist terrorism and the call for nationalism developing in parallel.

Kashmir between the far right and India’s government

Right-wing support for India’s move not only appears from political leaders, but according to an analysis published by Foreign Policy, support also appears in European press and media, which have gone beyond mere recognition of the abolition of Kashmir’s autonomy to promoting that Hindus are victims of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir.

In October 2019, 23 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) visited Kashmir just two months after the Indian government removed the special autonomy status in the region. Most of the MEPs belong to far-right political parties, including France’s National Rally party (formerly the National Front) and Germany’s Alternative for Germany party.

This visit was the latest example of the growing relationship between the far right in India and Europe, a relationship rooted primarily in shared hostility toward immigrants and Muslims, and articulated in similar comprehensive nationalist visions.

With the rise of far-right populism in India and in many European democracies, the far-right agenda has become increasingly natural and part of the prevailing political discourse.

Right-wing populist leaders in India are appearing relatively recently. In the 1930s, Hindu nationalists collaborated with key figures in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to help advance their right-wing extremist projects.

Analyses of India’s far right indicate that Indian nationalists must properly consolidate and fight for victory and that European and Indian resistance movements must learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible, based on a convergence of interests.

The European delegation’s visit to India and its meeting with Modi demonstrate that the rapprochement is deeply rooted, after the members of the European delegation saw maps of the supposed terrorist training camps in Pakistan, where attacks were allegedly planned in Kashmir.

After that visit, several members of the European Parliament, including far-right Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský, used social media to share their experience in meeting the Indian prime minister and to support the Indian government’s policy in Kashmir, which they described as its “war against terrorists.”