India backs Russia’s UN resolution on combating Nazism & neo-Nazism

India has voted in favour of the Russia-sponsored draft resolution in the UN on ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’.

The draft resolution put to vote on Friday at the UN General Assembly was backed by 105 countries. Fifty-one states (largely Nato and European states) voted against, while 15 states abstained.

The resolution is expected to be put to the General Assembly for voting in December. The resolution was co-authored by Azerbaijan, Belarus, Venezuela, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Mali, Nicaragua, Syria, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa among others.


The draft resolution expressed "deep concern about the glorification, in any form, of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials and holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism".

It also called on states to ban any festivities in honour of the Nazi regime, its allies and affiliated organisations. Apart from it, the resolution expresses deep concern about cases of desecration or demolition of monuments to those who fought against Nazism during World War II.

Recently, rallies were organised in western Ukraine in support of figures sympathetic to Nazism. Earlier this year, hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists held a torchlight march in Kyiv to mark the birthday of Stepan Bandera, leader of a rebel militia that fought alongside Nazi soldiers in World War II. Bandera’s supporters claim that they sided with the Nazis against the Soviet army in the belief that Adolf Hitler would grant independence to Ukraine.