Yoga guru Ramdev has taken a tough stance against the US and Israel in their war on Iran, in a video that is now going viral. He was asked in a news program on YV channel whether India should side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who was killed on the first day of the war on February 28.
“You can kill a person, but you cannot kill his ideas, his philosophy, his mentality, his spirit, his valor and his heroism,” responded Ramdev, known as a prominent Hindu spiritual leader, “Baba,” and a proponent of Ayurveda in India.
His stance on Iran comes at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi – whom Ramdev has supported over the years – is facing criticism for his alleged siding with Israel, especially because he visited the country two days before the war began. Officially, India declared “strategic independence”.
“I don’t know much about Iran, but I do know a lot: These (Iranians) are people of the actual lineage of the Prophet Muhammad – known as Shiites (a sect of Muslims) – and no one can force them to bow down, no one can erase them, no one can defeat them,” Ramdev said on the TV show last week, speaking in Hindi.
He said that among Iran’s population of about 90 million, “more than 10 million people embrace Khamenei’s ideology with their entire being.”
“So, how do you eliminate that?” Ramdev argued.
When the anchor asked him if he had anything to say about Netanyahu, he said that US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu “are both made of the same cloth; as the saying goes, Chor chor mausir bhai (“Thieves are cousins” or “Thick as thieves”).”
He added: “I am not calling anyone a thief, I am just citing a proverb – it means that they are of the same species, and I consider them war criminals. I consider them criminals against humanity, and I consider them criminals against nature and the environment.”
Ramdev said the United States and Israel “erected a Himalayan-sized mountain of political mistrust.”
“For the next 50 to 100 years, Israel and America will have to bear the consequences,” he said in the widely circulated clip from an ABP news program. “In this conflict, America and Israel cannot emerge victorious, and Iran cannot be defeated.”
