(Alagan Elavalagan, December 7, 2024)

The US President-elect Trump has nominated Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence (DNI) for his second term. If Congress approves this nomination at least 18 United States intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA, will report to Tulsi Gabbard from 2025.

Tulsi Gabbard is a very controversial person on several fronts. In 2016, when she was a Democratic Party politician, she endorsed Bernie Sanders, one of the most ‘radical left’. She then jumped to the Republican Party and in 2024 endorsed Donald Trump, one of the most right-wing. That is how her politics work.

One of her hilarious podcasts she did in 2021 regarding Bangladesh may make you scratch your head or drop down and lol – whichever comes first.

In that podcast she said she introduced a resolution to the US Congress that called for the protection of Hindus in Bangladesh.

In that podcast, she said “March 25th, 1971 was the beginning of a systematic targeting of Hindus in Bangladesh by the Pakistani military”. Wait a minute, who was this ‘Pakistani military’, was it the West Pakistan army? Does she even know America’s role in that war? Sure, she was born about 10 years later, but still she should know what she speaks. Even if it was written by a ghostwriter, shouldn’t she verify it first?

During the (East+West) Pakistani election of 1971, the East Pakistan-centric Awami League party won 160 seats, a total of 162 with its alliance, and it was enough for a simple majority. The American-friendly West Pakistan-centric Pakistan People’s Party won only 81 seats, a total of 138 with its alliance.

But democracy-loving America didn’t like these results. America wanted the much obedient West Pakistan to retain the power. With America’s full military, finance, and political support, West Pakistan attacked East Pakistan. Defrauded East Pakistan started to work on separation and that eventually became Bangladesh. That was the Bangladesh war of 1971 which Tulsi was talking about. That was when the Hindu India was the number two enemy of the US, just after the USSR. And the Hindu India’s Prime Minister ‘Hindu’ Indira Gandhi was called a ‘bitch’, ‘witch’ and ‘bastard’ by then President Nixon and Kissinger – in an Oval Office meeting.

The West Pakistani military dictator Gen. Yahya Khan who was responsible for the slaughter of more than a million Bangladeshis was referred to by President Nixon as “a decent, honorable man”.

At the peak of the war, President Nixon directed the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier into the Bay of Bengal with Task Force 74, and to not focus the attack on the so-called “Pakistani Islamist terrorist”, but to confront Hindu India instead. The USS Enterprise turned back only because the Soviet directed a nuclear powered sub under the command of Admiral Vladimir Krugyakov to protect the Hindu nation of India.

After all this, now Tulsi wants to protect Hindus from Pakistani terrorists? And no word of America’s bloodiest hand on that war? Is that how we civilize?

In her talk she also mentioned “In the early 1900s Hindus made up roughly 33% of the Bangladeshi population. Because of this persistent Islamist campaign targeting Hindus, just 8% of Bangladesh’s population are Hindus today”.

Does she know about the first Partition of Bengal in 1905 by an evil colonial master while all of South Asia was under their control? And then the second Partition of ‘British’ India took place in 1947 and that created East Pakistan, just before the colonialists were leaving. The 1947 partition forced about 12 million people to move across the borders. The British-appointed Cyril Radcliffe created the partition based on religious affiliation. Only in 1971 did East Pakistan became Bangladesh. And now Tulsi chooses to dump all these events on the Pakistani military? Is that how we civilize?

And who can forget the Air India Flight 182 bombing? On 28 of July 1984, in front of more than 4,000 followers in Madison Square Garden in New York, Ajaib Singh Bagri, a Canadian Sikh, had said “…until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest…”. But the US and Canadian law enforcement looked the other way. A year later on June 23 of 1985 Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747, from Montreal to Delhi, was bombed at 31,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 people. Bagri was one of the suspects.

After all this, Tulsi Gabbard is crying for the Hindus and wants to protect the Hindus from Bangladeshi and Pakistani terrorists? And that is how we civilize?

Note: Tulsi Gabbard has almost no ancestry to India or Hinduism. She was born on the American Samoa island of Tutuila. Her father was born in American Samoa and her mother was born in the US. Her mother’s interest in Hinduism led her to name her kids Hindu names. The name Tulsi was derived from the Sanskrit word Thulasi or holy basil.