Avengers

Apologies if you came here looking for something about the movie! This entry is not about the movie. I just borrowed the name since it looked quite apt. How? Well I will try to explain that towards the end, hopefully!

The planet and the landmass in it, with their many, man-made, disputed, virtual, borders, which we popularly refer to as countries, is going the right way. What is wrong in going the right way? Well it is not the ‘Right’ as in Right/Wrong, but, it is the ‘Right’ as in Right/Left. Still how is it wrong? I am not saying it is wrong, I am just worried that the Right way might be the wrong way.

Full Disclosure: So am I just another paranoid leftist (communist) advocating Karl Marx while enjoying the fruits of Adam Smith? Nope, I see myself more of a Centrist! A mixture of Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati, if you may.

The world, right from the Land of the Free, The United States of America to the other countries to its east ending with Land of the Rising Sun, Japan are already in or witnessing the steady rise of the Right. Agreed there are a few places where the Left are still left, most recent example being the Syriza in Greece and the Liberals in Canada. But the Right’s rise is what captivates and concerns me. Possibly because the most important countries are helmed by the conservatives or those with a conservative mindset.

Anyone who is following the US presidential election campaign would be familiar with the faces from the Conservative, Grand Old Party (GOP), The Republicans. This is the party that counts a lot of conservative leaders in its fold including Governor Bobby Jindal, the Indian-American who renounced his Indianness in as many words and Jeb Bush from the no-introduction-required Bush family.

And in comes Donald Trump who shook the conservative leaders and followers of the GOP through his Ultra-Conservatism. Trump, I learnt, was considered too conservative by some conservatives of the conservative party. Perhaps similar to how Islamic State was considered as too radical by the radicals at Al-qaeda. And guess what, the American public seems to like him. Considering the anti-incumbency of the Democrats in the White House, it is likely that the Republicans would be given the spectre and there is a chance, however slim, for Trump to be crowned Commander-in-Chief.

Not far across the Atlantic, the Americans’ old colonial masters who too in 2015 decided that they would like to be ruled by Conservatives rather than Labour much to the chagrin of the liberals. In a tightly fought election where pundits predicted a hung parliament rode the Conservative *White* knight with a majority of his own . Just like how in 2014 their former colony, the crown jewel of the British Empire, India, quite similarly elected the *Saffron* savior in the Hindu Nationalist party, the BJP, with a majority of its own contrary to what the pundits had predicted.

The Syrian refugee crisis brought the contention among European conservatives out in the open. Led by Hungary which conveniently sidetracked the whole humanitarian angle by claiming that the Government didn’t have the mandate to change the demographics which would be the outcome of letting in the Muslims, a charge often echoed in India by the far right though not backed by much empirical evidence. German conservative behavior was also blamed for the near collapse of the Greece bailout.

On the other side of Europe we have Russia led by Vladimir Putin, Tzar of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) who wanted to retain Russia’s buffer zone of the old soviet states. Russian adventurism in Ukraine and more recently in Syria brings back the cold war era to mind. Who knew when Obama and Putin spoke of the ‘Reset’ button they wanted cold war v2.0?

Shinzo Abe, author of the Abenomics and Prime Minister of Japan, is from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and don’t let the liberal in the name fool you. The LDP is a major conservative political party in Japan. Abe has not only been credited with the small successes Japan has had in getting out of the decade old deflation, but, also been called ‘far more right than most of his predecessors’ and his interpretation of history has been controversial. No wonder the current ruling dispensation in India who also are quite vociferous of imperfections in history found a great friend in Abe and have moved ahead in forging a formidable alliance, economically and militarily.

This is not just evident in democracies across the world where people who have the power to elect their rulers have given overwhelming support to those who have promised to restore their past glory but also authoritarian regimes. China recently commemorated the 70th anniversary of defeat of Japanese forces in WW2 with a massive show of force. Its flexing of muscles with neighbors especially in South China Sea and India haven’t gone unnoticed.

So what are the common things that unite most of the conservatives. Well most resort to restoring the lost glory through re-writing history and AVENGE their imaginary enemies. The last time it happened it led to something called Holocaust. And that's what worries me!