The parade celebrating the victory of the culturist Indian BJP political party, started with a bang – literally. A “bomb” firework about eight feet from me exploded. As embers went down my shirt they burned my upper right back. I call the BJP culturist because they hold to a variation of “Hindu Nationalism,” (which I’ll detail in another article). Celebrating this culturist victory in the streets of India was exhilarating. If I have a scar from celebrating the BJP political victory, I’ll wear it proudly.
The “bombs” and 30 foot long, six explosive wide, strings of fireworks, were repeatedly detonated as we wound our way through the small north Indian town of Rishikesh. This aspect of the parade mimicked the main celebration of the major Hindu holiday “Diwali.” We also painted each other red to duplicate the main activity of another major Hindu holiday’ “Holi.” Thus, this combination of fireworks and paints replicated Hinduism’s two main holidays and so reinforced Hindu culture.
We marched to the constant pounding of 3 large Indian drums. The traditionally-dressed women paraded behind the men as a group. The genders frequently broke out in dance independently from one another. And though the genders got jostled as we avoided “bombs” through narrow streets, traditional Hindu gender roles got reenacted via this aspect of our celebration. Raised in progressive circles, the women celebrating a party dedicated to traditional roles, pleasantly warred with my assumptions. But women frequently left their homes to dance with the parading women.
Often on the route, the hippie tourists would come out of their hotel rooms to look at the parading crowd and wave. Between the bombs, drums, colors, and dancing, we made quite the impression. The left leaning youth support, “the people,” in pseudo-Marxist solidarity. If they actually knew that this was a local celebration of culturist nationalism, they would have hidden in revulsion. Just earlier a close leftist friend had warned me that the June National Culturist Conference would contain NAZIs.
Most nations have been and are culturist. The people support the traditional majority culture’s right to protect, promote, and defend itself. The era of all indigenous peoples feeling bullied by the Cold War ended decades ago. Culturist celebrations and identity trump the “globalist” social justice model the left assume “humanist,” “global citizens” desire. India is an overwhelmingly Hindu nation, thus the hippies should have guessed that a political party celebration would be for a culturist Hindu party.
As we wound through the streets, the winning candidates and the crowd stopped at Ashrams (Hindu monasteries). As Rishikesh is a holy city on the Ganges, my town is packed with them. At each the ashram head would emerge and exchange blessings with the new political bosses. Hippies, as they see Hindu political figures as holders of ancient wisdom far superior to the West’s, would have found this mix of nationalism and religion counter-intuitive. But, Yogis must have contributed to my state’s Hindu Nationalists landslide – the BJP takes their culture seriously.
I danced and marched with the BJP for about two hours. In every part of the town locals came out and waved and exchanged greetings with us. At one point a child tore down a poster belonging to the opposition party. The elders scolded him. I detected no hostility by the culturist celebrants towards any minority group, Muslim or other. Good feelings and respect appeared to be the order of the day. No NAZIs, my leftist friend would have been shocked to see, appeared.
As a member of the National Culturists, this a culturist victory parade bolstered my spirits. Our political philosophy can lead to electoral victories and incredible parades. The BJP is one of the two biggest political parties in India. The National Culturists are not alone.
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