Russia Accusations a Distraction From Gabbard’s Actual Troubling Ties

by Ari Paul

When 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (Campaign HQ, 10/17/19) accused Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a long-shot Democratic primary candidate, of being a Russian-groomed foil, the media reverberations were sweeping. Coverage of the row prompted more coverage, with some takes defending Gabbard’s moral compass and others prolonging the obsession with the idea that Russia is interfering in American politics.

Lost in the noise is the reality that Gabbard’s most troubling attribute is her documented connection to the far-right Hindu nationalist, or Hindutva, movement known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of India’s ruling BJP party.

There is no evidence that Gabbard, who rarely polls above 3%, is any kind of Russian agent, plucked by Moscow to sway the 2020 election toward the reelection of Donald Trump. But those silly accusations eventually mix into the media as they look to explain how an idiosyncratic candidate like Gabbard can gain the support not only of anti-war leftists who see her as a champion of nonintervention, but also of far-right white nationalists like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

NBC (8/2/19) presented Tulsi Gabbard as a possible catspaw of the “Russian propaganda machine.”

The New York Times (8/2/19) portrayed her as an idealistic crusader for peace, and then came out (10/12/19) framing her stances as part of, intentionally or not, a Moscow-led disinformation campaign. NBC (2/2/19) sounded the alarm about an “upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard,” saying she had become a favorite of the “Russian propaganda machine.” In a profile in Rolling Stone (8/9/19 ), Matt Taibbi scoffed at Gabbard’s critics, summing her up as “simply opposed to bombing the crap out of, and occupying, foreign countries for no apparent positive strategic objective, beyond enriching contractors.”

Lost between these hit jobs and puff pieces is the RSS’s influence on Gabbard, despite the evidence that this is much more a part of her life than Russian intrigue. The best chronicle of her affiliation with the Indian right comes from the Indian publication Caravan (8/1/19). Religion News Service (1/27/19) had earlier outlined her connections to Hindu nationalist groups, and how these affected her votes and political positions. The Intercept (1/5/19) also covered the issue.

Anyone interested in Gabbard should read these articles in their entirety, but the key take away is this: The RSS draws much of its power from its followers in the Diaspora, and Gabbard has been crucial to revamping the image of the Hindu nationalist in the United States, and has in turn received crucial financial support from the Indian-American far right. (Gabbard, who is of Samoan and European descent, is a practicing Hindu.) Much of that RSS support has come from donations from Indian-Americans who are part of the movement’s US efforts—think of them as like US Zionists who aren’t just pro-Israel, but pro-Likud. “Gabbard’s donors have publicly applauded her for supporting Modi before he was elected, for speaking against the US decision to deny him a visa after 2002 and for working against congressional efforts to recognise human-rights violations in India,” the Caravan article states.

Gabbard seemed to blame the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots (India Abroad, 10/6/19).

She has even brought her Modi connection into the primary: As India Abroad (10/6/19) reported, she defended Modi’s role as chief executive of Gujarat during 2002 anti-Muslim riots, quoting one Indian minority rights advocate who accused Gabbard of engaging in the “‘most abominable form’ of victim-blaming.”

It has long been known that she has a close relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has launched a military assault on Kashmir and has stripped millions of Muslims of citizenship (Telegraph, 7/30/18); at a meeting between the congressmember and the prime minister in September 2014, she gave him her childhood copy of the Bhagavad Gita , the copy of the sacred text she had taken on her deployments to Iraq and which she had sworn her oath of office on. But what these articles outline is that Gabbard was pivotal in a global public relations effort on the part of the Hindutva movement to remake Modi from an outcast for his complicity in the Gujarat violence of 2002 to the legitimate statesman the West considers him today.

From various political angles, Gabbard has been painted almost like Democratic Party’s version of Ron Paul, a marginal force but one who is seen both on the left and the right as principled opponent to US-led war and intervention. This is why her RSS affiliation is so damning, since it very much validates a regime carrying a large-scale military occupation that many observers interpret as being rooted in anti-Muslim animus. This is hardly jumping aboard the peace train.

Caravan (8/1/19) presented one of the most in-depth accounts of Gabbard’s ties to the Indian far right.

Modi could have been a forgotten piece of the past. Instead, he’s hobnobbing with the global power elite while India’s Muslim minority shakes in the face of state terror. The Caravan article lays the case out at length, but in short: “The greatest diplomatic triumph for the American Sangh was rehabilitating Modi’s tainted reputation in the United States. Gabbard played a significant part in that project.”

As Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of the South Asian progressive community Equality Labs, told FAIR:

Gabbard’s connection to the RSS/BJP matters most urgently now because the Democrats have positioned themselves not just as the resistance against Trump, but also to white nationalism and all sorts of other populisms that are destabilizing democracy everywhere. She was one of the first Democrats to platform Modi, using her role as congressman to jettison bipartisan legislation that would have addressed the issue of Gujurat riots and religious freedom in India. At every step, her foreign policy interventions around India has been to gaslight Indian minorities who are in crisis because of the attacks of the Modi government. And that is not the act of a progressive.

Gabbard’s connections to the Hindu right are well-documented. She has shared the dais on many occasions with leaders and members of India’s right-wing political party, the BJP, the electoral front of the Sangh Parivar, a family of organizations affiliated with the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); and has actively fundraised from its affiliated platforms in the United States, including the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and the American branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP-A).

These are not innocuous faith-based organizations; they are supremacist groups whose Indian counterparts have been identified as “militant religious organizations” by the CIA. They use violence against religious and cultural minorities in their pursuit of a “Hindu nation.” By standing with these extremists, Gabbard stands against vulnerable minority communities in India.

And that record isn’t just important to what she’s done for the right-wing government of India; this history is central to understanding Gabbard’s expressions of anti-Islamic sentiment (Islam being seen as the prime obstacle to a Hindu-nationalist India), as well as the rest of her enigmatic political tenure, which includes voting to restrict refugees from Syria and Iraq, as well as joining Republicans in attacking then-President Barack Obama for not using the term “radical Islam.”

Allegations of Russian affiliation are conveniently apolitical, in the sense that they can deployed against the left, using long-outdated fears about Soviet competition and the idea that disloyalty to the US empire is orchestrated by a Communist cabal, as easily as against the right, seeing xenophobic nationalists around the world as part of a new international led by Vladimir Putin. Such a catch-all can be used by anyone against anyone, as Clinton did with Gabbard, and can create headlines and rile emotions with no expectation that the accuser will have to come up with a real argument about why the accused should be seen as repugnant.

But Gabbard’s RSS connections are far more real, with very earthly consequences. Her history of Islamophobia becomes more frightening when viewed through her support for a political movement that has supported anti-Muslim violence and discrimination in India. If she were to become president of the United States, how would she respond to the Indian military’s brutality in Kashmir?

It’s much harder for the media to focus on Gabbard’s very real connections to the Indian far right than on her more fanciful connection to Moscow,  because “RSS” simply doesn’t stir emotions the way “Russia” does in a population still seemingly influenced by decades of Cold War propaganda. Russia talk of any kind sparks discussion from all sides on social media, and can rally coverage in places like MSNBC, but the factions of Indian politics don’t carry the same weight in US media.

And digging too deep into Gabbard’s connection to Hindutva presents an ideological quandary for the press. The far-right government of India is most known for its ethnic politics, but it’s also responsible for neoliberal restructuring of the national economy. The latter isn’t so offensive to top editors.

And much like acknowledging the role of Israel’s influence in US politics can invite accusations of antisemitism, writers might fear being branded as anti-Indian or anti-Hindu—even if there are countless Hindus in India and worldwide who support secular democracy over Hindu nationalism—if they make much of a connection between Gabbard’s faith and her political ties.

Gabbard lags far behind the frontrunners in the primary, namely Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. She matters little in terms of the race for the White House. But she is young, ambitious and enjoys enthusiastic support from a small but loyal core of supporters. Thanks to her presence in the 2020 race, Gabbard may have a louder voice in the House of Representatives for years to come, and may seek higher office.

Clinton may have done Gabbard a favor by putting her into a news cycle despite her low polling, and the Russia buzz drowns out reporting on more pressing issues about her candidacy. The media would do well to spend less time speculating about her connections to Putin and more time examining her association with the Indian far right, and how that might be shaping her policy worldview.