Facebook bans India politician
US POLICY towards south Asia under president Richard Nixon was influenced by his hatred of Indians, newly declassified White House tapes have disclosed.
He described Indians “most sexless”, “nothing” and “pathetic”, according to the tapes and made disparaging remarks about women in the country.
Nixon, a Republican, was the 37th president of the US, serving from 1969 until 1974.
“As Americans grapple with problems of racism and power, a newly declassified trove of White House tapes provides startling evidence of the bigotry voiced by President Richard M Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser,” Gary Bass, a professor at Princeton, wrote in an opinion piece titled ‘The Terrible Cost of Presidential Racism’ in The New York Times last weekend.
“The full content of these tapes reveal how US policy towards South Asia under Mr Nixon was influenced by his hatred of, and sexual repulsion towards Indians,” Bass wrote. He is the author of The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, which describes the role of Nixon and Kissinger in the 1971 atrocities in Bangladesh that led to war between India and Pakistan.
Among the declassified White House tapes is a “stunning” conversation between Nixon, Kissinger and then White House chief of staff HR Haldeman in the Oval Office in June 1971 when Nixon asserts in a “venomous tone” that Indian women are “undoubtedly the most unattractive in the world.”
“On November 4, 1971, during a private break from a contentious White House summit with prime minister Indira Gandhi of India – a rare woman leader at the time – the president harangued Mr Kissinger about his sexual disgust at Indians,” Bass wrote.
Referring to Indians, Nixon said to Kissinger “To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me.” Bass writes that while Kissinger’s response is inaudible in the tapes, “it did not discourage the president from his theme.”
That same month, during a discussion about India-Pakistan tensions with Kissinger and secretary of state William Rogers, after Rogers mentioned reprimanding Gandhi, the president blurted, “I don’t know how they reproduce!”
Bass wrote in The New York Times that while Kissinger portrayed himself as being above the racism of the Nixon White House, the tapes show “him joining in the bigotry, though the tapes cannot determine whether he truly shared the president’s prejudices or was just pandering to him.”
For instance, on June 3, 1971, Kissinger was “indignant” at the Indians as the country sheltered millions of Bengali refugees who had fled the Pakistan Army. Kissinger blamed the Indians for causing the refugee flow and then condemned Indians as a whole, as he said, “They are a scavenging people.”
Kissinger had said Indians are “superb flatterers” and “are masters at flattery. They are masters at subtle flattery. That’s how they survived 600 years. They suck up – their great skill is to suck up to people in key positions.”
Nixon was furious with his ambassador to India, Kenneth Keating, who two days earlier had confronted Nixon and Kissinger in the Oval Office, calling Pakistan’s crackdown “almost entirely a matter of genocide.”
Bass said Nixon and Kissinger had “staunchly supported” the military regime in Pakistan as it killed hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, with 10 million refugees fleeing into neighbouring India.
Voicing prejudices about Pakistanis, Kissinger had in August 1971 told Nixon that “the Pakistanis are fine people, but they are primitive in their mental structure.”
He added, “They just don’t have the subtlety of the Indians.”
“These emotional displays of prejudice help to explain a foreign policy debacle,” Bass wrote, adding that Nixon and Kissinger’s policies toward south Asia in 1971 “were not just a moral disaster but a strategic fiasco on their own Cold War terms.
While Nixon and Kissinger “had some reasons to favour Pakistan, an American ally which was secretly helping to bring about their historic opening to China, their biases and emotions contributed to their excessive support for Pakistan’s murderous dictatorship throughout its atrocities,” Bass said.
“But these declassified White House tapes confirm a starkly different picture: racism and misogyny at the highest levels, covered up for decades under ludicrous claims of national security.
“A fair historical assessment of Mr Nixon and Mr Kissinger must include the full truth, unbleeped,” Bass wrote.
In December 2012, Bass filed a legal request for a mandatory declassification review with the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
The Nixon archivists released a few unbleeped tapes in May 2018, July 2019 and this May “after considerable wrangling”.
FACEBOOK banned a member of India’s ruling party for violating its policies covering violence and hate, as Mark Zuckerberg’s company finds itself caught in a debate over how it handles political content in its biggest market.
The company said last Thursday (3) it had banned politician Raja Singh (above) from Facebook and Instagram under its “dangerous individuals and organisations” policy.
When contacted for comment, Singh, who is from prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, sent a video message saying his followers and other party workers had opened up pages using his name and that he plans to contact Facebook so that he can open an account.
“I want to use social media following all norms,” he said.
Last Thursday, Facebook said it will also remove pages, groups and accounts set up to represent Singh and Facebook events when it comes to know the individual is participating, but will continue to allow wider discussion of him, including praise and support.
“The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove his account,” the company stated.
Facebook is facing a crisis in India after the Wall Street Journal reported an employee, Ankhi Das, opposed applying its hate-speech rules to profiles in Singh’s name, which had called Muslims traitors.