Cultural revolutions are underway in two nation-states — India and Israel — founded by secular nationalists in the late 1940s. Right-wing demagogues, emerging in both countries from among previously unrepresented masses, seek to forge a new national identity by stigmatizing particular religious and secular groups.
There are eerie similarities between the Hindu thugs who assault Muslim males marrying Hindu women and followers of the far-right Israeli group Lehava (Flame), who try to break up weddings between Muslims and Jews.
More importantly, religious-political chauvinism is now amplified by figures in power as well. Last week, Israel's minister of religious services claimed that Reform Jews were not Jews. A minister in Narendra Modi's government has described Indian Muslims and Christians in India as "bastards."
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