The news out of India is disturbing, violence and repression of those opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) daily occurrences.
Recently reelected to a third five-year term, but with diminished support that’s resulted in a loss of his parliamentary majority, Modi must now rely on a coalition government to maintain power.
This hasn’t proved a roadblock to his recent cabinet appointments, none of them Muslim, though India has a burgeoning Muslim population exceeding 200 million, presently 14% of the country’s population. Nor has it tempered his embrace of a Hindu hegemony (Hindutva).
Speaking out against his policies and the BJP risks severe consequences.
Many of his political opponents have been jailed on trumped up charges of corruption, while others are under investigation.
In March, 2024, Modi’s government froze the bank accounts of its main adversary, the Nationalist Congress Party, alleging non-payment of taxes.
In 2023, it eliminated the country’s chief justice as one of three commissioners overseeing elections. The BJP now enjoys a majority vote.
For another example, there’s the ongoing harassment of Waheed-Ur-Rehman, arrested in 2019 and held for two years, much of it in solitary confinement, for his opposition to the crackdown on Kashmir resistance to the suspension of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status.
Now comes the BJP’s newest outrage in pursuing prosecution of 1997 Booker Award winner Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) for her remarking in 2010 that Kashmir was never a part of India.
Kashmiri academic Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who appeared with her at the rally in Delhi, will also be prosecuted under India’s Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (1967).
Roy has been a longtime critic of Modi policy.
If media pundits thought the Modi government would learn from its election setback, they’re sadly mistaken.
The BJP has become even more vindictive—more arrests, more violence.
In 2023, the Biden administration gave Modi a lavish welcome, replete with a state dinner. Talk about Kissinger, expediency is still in vogue.
Entrepreneurial moguls Bill Gates and Elon Musk, who view India as an investment quarry, sent their congratulations to Modi on his win.
At the just concluded G7, a lengthy queue assembled to do acquiescence to its invited guest.
The casualty is India’s secular constitution.
—rj
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