NARENDRA Modi is no stranger to genocides. He acquired the moniker ‘Butcher of Gujrat’ for presiding over anti-Muslim pogroms as chief minister in 2002. By undertaking a highly choreographed official visit to Tel Aviv, Modi is both rubber-stamping the Netanyahu regime’s genocidal assaults on Gaza and cementing the alliance between the fanatical creeds of Hindutva and Zionism.

The Christian Right has already upended ‘normal’ politics in the US by projecting a millenarian vision of the world that can only be achieved by totalitarian and violent means. Trumpism is now an entrenched, grassroots phenomenon that will very likely outlive Donald Trump. Meanwhile, various shades of both secular and religious right are running riot across Europe, with fearmongering about cultural invasions by the proverbial immigrant.

Despite their best pretensions, Muslim countries do not buck the trend. Reac­tio­n­a­­ry politics and repressive state nationalism are the order of the day across large swathes of the Arab world, Southwest Asia and the world’s largest Muslim state, Indonesia. The current hybrid regime in this country presents itself as a leader of this putatively coherent bloc of countries.

Some believe that this notional ‘Muslim’ bloc, along........

© Dawn