tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/bharatiya-janata-party-14971/articlesBharatiya Janata Party – The Conversation2024-01-22T16:09:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2216352024-01-22T16:09:39Z2024-01-22T16:09:39ZIn opening a Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque, Narendra Modi is following an old Hindu nationalist ploy<p>Pronouncing the fulfilment of “the dream that many have cherished for years”, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurates-hindu-temple-on-site-of-razed-mosque-in-india">has inaugurated</a> a new Hindu temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh in the north of the country. It is built on the site of a mosque that was destroyed by Hindu nationalists more than 30 years ago. </p>
<p>When the Hindu nationalists demolished the 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque, they did so in the belief that it had been built by the Muslim Mughal emperor Babur on the site of an ancient Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of the god Ram. But the historical and archaeological evidence for the existence of this is <a href="https://thewire.in/history/babri-masjid-asi-excavation-ayodhya-ram-temple">hotly debated by experts</a>.</p>
<p>Modi has turned the consecration of the Ayodhya temple into a massive national event, inviting 8,000 VIPs including Bollywood stars, Hindu religious leaders, politicians and diplomats. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims also made their way to the town, which has received a US$3 billion (£2.35 billion) government-funded makeover. </p>
<p>Critics have condemned what they describe as a <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/ram-mandir-ayodhya-mamata-banerjee-bjp-politics-opposition-consecration-2486465-2024-01-09">politicisation of a religious event</a>, pointing to elections in April or May this year at which Modi will bid for a third term. Over his decade as prime minister, Modi has deliberately harnessed and encouraged Hindu nationalist aspirations for his own ends.</p>
<p>This event is undoubtedly aimed at energising Modi’s political base among Hindu nationalists. But there is more to this story than cynical electioneering.</p>
<p>The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of which Modi is now the leader, has been advocating for decades for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site at Ayodhya. </p>
<p>In 1992, the party was a relatively minor player in a country dominated by the secular Indian National Congress. But in 2019, with Modi as prime minister, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the temple could be built on the site. Plans for a new mosque were relocated nearby to a symbolically smaller patch of land.</p>
<h2>History of hatred</h2>
<p>Immediately after the mosque’s destruction in 1992, riots between Hindus and Muslims erupted across India. One Hindu nationalist vigilante later <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/06/travel.features">defended his violence</a> in curious political terms: “Muslims … had no compunction about killing people, while a Hindu would pause before killing and ask himself why he was doing it.”</p>
<p>The moral relativism of this remarkable statement reflects an attitude that has been at the heart of Hindu nationalist politics from its inception. It is centred on the twin paranoias of Hindu disunity because of the ancient caste system and the illusion of Islamic unity (Indian Muslims are actually <a href="https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/theorizing-modernities/modern-islam-story-south-asia/">doctrinally and politically divided</a>.</p>
<p>In 1923, these paranoias were systematically laid out by Hindu political philosopher Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentials_of_Hindutva#">Essentials of Hindutva</a>. This book is widely seen as a foundational text of Hindu nationalism. Imprisoned from 1911 to 1937 for sedition by the British, Savarkar rapidly shifted his revolutionary zeal from opposing the European colonisers to repudiating India’s Muslims. </p>
<p>At odds with his attempts to make Muslims out to be a polluting foreign influence is the fact that the majority were not external invaders but <a href="https://thewire.in/caste/caste-among-indian-muslims-real-why-deny-reservation">Hindu converts</a> attempting to escape the caste system. The caste system perpetuated ideas of purity and pollution within the hierarchy. High castes enforced a range of occupational, hygiene, religious, and dietary practices on the lower castes through shame, sanctions and violence. </p>
<p>Accordingly, Savarkar believed that Muslim unity came from an immunity to shame. Observing Muslim inmates in his jail, he glibly attributed the violence of Muslim prison gangs to an impulse inherent in Islam. </p>
<p>With the same breath, he implored his Hindu inmates to jettison shame, mimic these traits and contemplate a violent politics of “cruelty” towards Muslims. In doing so, they would distract from caste divisions.</p>
<p>Savarkar exhorted Hindu society to discard Gandhi’s philosophy of passive resistance. Instead they should pursue a violent and “shameless” <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/glory-and-humiliation-in-the-making-of-v-d-savarkars-hindu-nationalism/B196AD5F952FF78DF066CC25E0D058E8#fn1">quest for Hindu fraternity</a> in which caste distinctions would disappear. Meanwhile, the once united Muslims would live as a humiliated and cowed community that no longer had the self-belief to challenge Hindu political power.</p>
<p>The destruction of mosques and construction of temples became key strategies for uniting Hindus by banishing caste differences in <a href="https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/as-a-teenager-savarkar-tried-to-destroy-a-mosque-was-sad-hindus-werent-united/281796/">Savarkar’s ideology</a>. Some of the planned mega-temples would accommodate <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/glory-and-humiliation-in-the-making-of-v-d-savarkars-hindu-nationalism/B196AD5F952FF78DF066CC25E0D058E8">5,000 worshippers</a> from every caste. At the same time, tearing down Muslim heritage across India aimed to politically humiliate the seemingly unified Muslims and return political Hinduism “to its original glory”.</p>
<h2>Cynical politics</h2>
<p>Modi’s government and its Hindu nationalist surrogate organisations have put this ideology into practice. The inauguration of the Ayodhya temple has little to do with Hindu religious doctrine. Indeed, the government was criticised for trying to arrange the event before the temple’s “sanctum sanctorum” (holy of holies) was completed. </p>
<p>The BJP also failed to invite several key Hindu monastic organisations. Indeed, being overshadowed by high-caste Brahmin priests would distract from Modi’s populist brand built around him as a <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/modi-is-a-teli-ghanchi-obc-bjp/articleshow/34084111.cms">humble middle-caste tea salesman</a>. </p>
<p>Allied to this project are other strategies for forging Hindu unity while publicly humiliating Muslims. For instance, the arbitrary demolition of Muslim homes and businesses by mobs aided and abetted by local police. </p>
<p>These attacks occur when Muslims are deemed to have shown insufficient deference to Hindu sentiments – for example by eating beef or participating in anti-government protests. The bulldozer has since become a Hindu nationalist symbol and even internationalised by BJP troll-farms <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/9/4/modis-lesson-from-israel-demolish-muslim-homes-erase-their-history">supporting Israeli actions in Gaza</a>.</p>
<p>At first glance, the Ayodhya inauguration innocuously celebrates a new self-confident “Vatican for Hindus”. But we cannot forget its political motivations. If the violent destruction of a minority’s place of worship is given legal and political legitimacy in the name of Hindu nationalism, then democracy has given way to mob rule.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vikram Visana received funding from the British Academy in the form of a Small Grant of £5300 from 2019-2023. </span></em></p>Modi is running for his third consecutive term of office, but many believe he plans to remain in power indefinitely.Vikram Visana, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155242023-10-13T03:33:39Z2023-10-13T03:33:39ZCelebrated novelist Arundhati Roy faces prosecution in India – for a speech she gave in 2010<p>Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy, author of <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780006550686/the-god-of-small-things/">The God of Small Things</a>, has been charged, along with retired law professor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Showkat_Hussain">Sheikh Showkat Hussain</a>, for allegedly seditious comments supporting the separation of Kashmir from India. </p>
<p>They were speaking at a 2010 Delhi conference, the same year right-wing activist Sushil Pandit <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/why-is-the-indian-state-reigniting-a-13-year-old-case-against-arundhati-roy">filed the complaint</a> on which these latest charges draw.</p>
<p>Nearly 13 years later, on October 10, Delhi’s lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena, with the approval of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-man-who-dines-alone-26758">Narendra Modi’s government</a>, sanctioned the <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/delhi-lg-approves-prosecution-of-arundhati-roy-kashmir-professor-in-2010-provocative-speeches-case/article67403942.ece">prosecution</a>. Roy and Hussain are accused of making statements promoting social enmity, prejudicing national integration and inciting offences against the state and public tranquillity.</p>
<p>It’s the latest in a series of prosecutions and arrests using India’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Prevention)_Act">Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act</a>, which was amended in 2019 to allow the government to designate individuals as terrorists, without following any formal judicial process.</p>
<p>Roy and Hussain are not being prosecuted under sedition law, though. (In May 2022, the Indian Supreme Court <a href="https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/breaking-supreme-court-urges-centre-states-to-refrain-from-registering-firs-invoking-section-124a-ipc-198810">ordered</a> a hold on prosecuting such cases, while the Indian government reviews the colonial-era sedition law.)</p>
<p>As India hurtles toward the 2024 national election, liberal-left civil society and independent media have become prime targets of the Modi government.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/novelist-arundhati-roy-and-her-mission-to-inspire-in-the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness-80344">Novelist Arundhati Roy and her mission to inspire in the Ministry of Utmost Happiness</a>
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<h2>A ‘dangerous time’ for minorities</h2>
<p>A strident critic of Modi’s ruling <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party">Bharatiya Janata Party</a>, Roy used her September <a href="https://scroll.in/article/1055943/arundhati-roy-the-dismantling-of-democracy-in-india-will-affect-the-whole-world">acceptance speech</a> for the European Essay Prize to further condemn his government. </p>
<p>She criticised its normalisation of Hindu supremacism in public life and institutions, its crony capitalism, and India’s burgeoning economic inequality. She noted: </p>
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<p>elections are a season of murder, lynching and dog-whistling – the most dangerous time for India’s minorities, Muslims and Christians in particular. </p>
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<h2>The ‘Maoist conspiracy’ case</h2>
<p>On October 2, India’s National Investigative Authority conducted <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/nia-raids-62-andhra-pradesh-telangana-maoist">coordinated raids</a> against human rights activists in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, related to the “Maoist conspiracy” case in the village of Munchingiputtu. </p>
<p>TV journalist Pangi Nagannna <a href="https://menafn.com/1107181625/NIA-Arrests-Andhra-Pradesh-Resident-In-Connection-With-Munchingiputtu-Maoist-Conspiracy">had been arrested</a> by Munchingiputtu police in November 2020 for allegedly acting as a Maoist “courier”.</p>
<p>He was charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (and various sections of the Indian Penal Code), along with 63 others. He then reportedly named several activists associated with organisations linked to the outlawed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_India_(Maoist)">Communist Party of India (Maoist) </a> – thus revealing a conspiracy to aid a Maoist insurgency.</p>
<p>These raids involve the confiscation of electronic devices vital to activists’ work. They are designed to intimidate and suppress advocacy.</p>
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<h2>Newsclick raids</h2>
<p>On October 3, Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty, of the news organisation <a href="https://www.newsclick.in/">Newsclick</a>, were subjected to <a href="https://thewire.in/media/delhi-police-conducts-early-morning-raids-at-houses-of-journalists-satirists">police raids</a>. So were 50 other journalists and contributors – including historians, activists and satirists.</p>
<p>Purkayastha and Chakravarty were charged under the the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as well as with criminal conspiracy and promoting social enmity.</p>
<p>The basis appeared to be a two-month-old <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html">New York Times report</a> that alleged, with <a href="https://scroll.in/article/1057147/nyts-report-has-been-weaponised-against-indian-journalists-i-had-warned-the-paper-about-it">weak evidence</a>, that Newsclick had received funds from an American, Neville Roy Singham, to “sprinkle” its coverage with “Chinese government talking points”. </p>
<p>Since 2010, <a href="https://thewire.in/media/16-indian-journalists-have-been-charged-under-uapa-7-are-currently-behind-bars">16 journalists</a> have been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Most of these arrests have been in the Modi era. </p>
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<h2>An alleged conspiracy and a ‘puppet’</h2>
<p>In August, Bharatiya Janata Party politicians and ministers Nishikant Dubey, Anuraj Thakur and Rajeev Chandrasekhar used the New York Times report to <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/bjp-mp-nishikant-dubey-rahul-gandhi-newsclick-independent-journalists-chinese-links-nyt-report">allege a conspiracy</a> between the opposition Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi, Newsclick and the Chinese government, to “break India” and prevent “India’s rise”. </p>
<p>The Bharatiya Janata Party has also claimed Rahul Gandhi is a <a href="https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1709819569450471817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1709819569450471817%7Ctwgr%5E5c6f952b45acfff22946e46aab6e999906ebc58d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesstoday.in%2Flatest%2Fpolitics%2Fstory%2Frahul-gandhi-as-new-age-ravan-pm-modi-as-adani-puppet-poster-war-erupts-between-bjp-congress-401027-2023-10-06">puppet</a> of billionaire investor George Soros.</p>
<p>In March, Gandhi had been convicted over his comments that “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname”, which were deemed insulting to the prime minister. He was sentenced to two years’ jail, meaning he lost his parliamentary seat. An appeal to the Supreme Court saw his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/04/rahul-gandhi-wins-supreme-court-appeal-against-defamation-conviction">conviction suspended</a> on August 4 (the day before the New York Times report), allowing him to return to parliament and contest next year’s national elections.</p>
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<h2>Dissent shrinking under ‘flawed democracy’</h2>
<p>As Roy has long pointed out, India has always been a <a href="https://www.penguin.co.in/book/broken-republic-2/">flawed democracy</a> with overly centralised <a href="https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-authoritarian-roots-of-indias-democracy/">governance</a> structures that breed discontent, a <a href="https://scroll.in/article/951661/is-there-a-hindu-bias-in-indias-secular-constitution-a-2005-academic-paper-suggests-as-much">constitution</a> with elements favouring the Hindu majority, and laws that stifle free speech. </p>
<p>However, the space for dissent has dramatically shrunk in the past decade under Modi’s authoritarian populist leadership. </p>
<p>The government’s new information technology <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/global-net-freedom-on-the-decline-indias-censorship-regime-creating-uneven-playing-field-freedom-house-report/article67384799.ece">rules</a> require social media companies to use AI moderation to identify and remove fake, false or misleading news related to the government. In 2020, the government issued more than 9,800 take-down orders.</p>
<p>The subjects of these <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/6k-social-media-content-takedown-orders-this-year-101623014539309.html">orders</a> have included a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dkb144">BBC documentary that was critical of Modi</a>, criticism of the government’s COVID policies, and support of farmer protests against India’s agricultural policies. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Indian government’s social media take-down orders included a BBC documentary critival of Modi.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The government has used <a href="https://scroll.in/article/897932/income-tax-raids-on-raghav-bahl-quint-and-news-minute-raise-questions-of-media-intimidation">tax investigations</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/08/06/umar-khalid-india-modi/">accusations of terrorism</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/4/indias-supreme-court-suspends-rahul-gandhis-defamation-conviction">criminal defamation cases</a> against its critics and opponents. </p>
<p>Courts often <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/05/25/stifling-dissent/criminalization-peaceful-expression-india">dismiss cases</a> (like Rahul Gandhi’s) based on laws that criminalise peaceful expression. But their record is patchy, and the drawn-out legal process imposes heavy financial and personal penalties on the accused. This leads many to withdraw comments – with chilling effects on free speech. </p>
<p>Hailed as the world’s largest democracy, India risks becoming the world’s largest autocracy, with consequences for the whole world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priya Chacko receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Arundhati Roy’s prosecution is just one of a series of actions by Narendra Modi’s government against its opponents – including journalists, activists, students and opposing politicians.Priya Chacko, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1691302021-11-08T13:42:41Z2021-11-08T13:42:41ZHow one atheist laid the foundation of contemporary Hindu nationalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430383/original/file-20211104-19858-16kqm1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C0%2C3934%2C2646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh take part in a march in Ahmedabad, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-hindu-nationalist-group-rashtriya-news-photo/1235931212?adppopup=true">Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>India’s position as a secular nation is under threat. </p>
<p>Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the country’s <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/india-muslims-marginalized-population-bjp-modi">200 million Muslim minority</a> population has been increasingly targeted. Over the past few years, so-called cow vigilante groups have attacked Muslims for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36518974">consuming beef</a>, an act that many Hindus consider to be sacrilegious. </p>
<p>The ruling party has also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-politics-media-analysis/indian-journalists-say-they-intimidated-ostracized-if-they-criticize-modi-and-the-bjp-idUSKBN1HX1F4">come down heavily</a> on free speech. </p>
<p>Concerned by these developments, 53 American universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and Columbia, co-sponsored a three-day conference, “<a href="https://dismantlinghindutva.com/">Dismantling Hindutva</a>” in September 2021 in which scholars discussed the rise of Hindu nationalism.</p>
<p>India is the <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/hold-on-to-that-idea-of-india-the-worlds-largest-democracy-celebrates-its-75th-independence-day-tomorrow-where-are-we-as-a-nation-two-views/">world’s biggest democracy</a>. But according to several experts, that democracy is <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/02/global-democracy-has-a-very-bad-year">under threat</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/saba-sattar-797766224/">South Asian affairs</a>, I’d argue that it is important to understand that India’s move to a Hindu identity has roots in the early 20th century, when it was part of the British colonial empire.</p>
<p>In 1923, an anti-colonial revolutionary, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hindutva/XEdEQgAACAAJ?hl=en">Vinayak D. Savarkar</a>, first invented the term Hindutva, which loosely translates to “<a href="https://archive.org/stream/hindutva-vinayak-damodar-savarkar-pdf/hindutva-vd-savarkar_djvu.txt">Hindu-ness</a>.” This view emphasized that a native of India, even if not a Hindu, could fully embrace the geography, languages, and religions of “Mother India.” </p>
<h2>A movement inspired by a non-believer</h2>
<p><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spotlight/Atheist-fundamentalists/articleshow/6014430.cms">Savarkar was an atheist</a>, with little interest in religion, other than for political use. In 1910, he was <a href="https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/vinayak-damodar-savarkar">sentenced to life imprisonment</a> for his participation in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7s415.5">plot to assassinate</a> the British Assistant Secretary of State Curzon Wyllie. </p>
<p>It was during his <a href="https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/vinayak-damodar-savarkar">imprisonment</a> that Savarkar wrote his foundational treatise, “Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?”</p>
<p><a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/692">Christophe Jaffrelot</a>, one of the most noted scholars on Hindu nationalism, calls Savarkar’s work “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15zc7zj.45">the first charter of Hindu nationalism</a>.” Savarkar sought to unite religions native to India against Muslims and Christians, who were considered to be outside invaders. </p>
<p>Back then, Savarkar wanted to call the Indian subcontinent <a href="https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/veer-savarkar-hindutva-india/38073/">the great Hindu Rashtra</a>, or nation encompassing a common geography, religion and culture. Adherents of other religions, such as Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, would simply need to pay homage to Hindu culture and accept a national identity within the larger Hindutva framework. The same would apply to “foreigners,” such as Muslims and Christians, as long as they did not attempt to impose their own rule.</p>
<p>At first, the concept of a Hindu identity did not include a religious creed. Instead, it espoused bringing forward identity politics based on the perceptions of dominant ethnicity and nationalism.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Khilafat-movement">Khilafat movement</a>, a 1919 pan-Islamist campaign that encompassed the Islamic world and had a profound impact in uniting the Indian Muslim community, radicalized Savarkar. </p>
<p>The unity of Indian Muslims during this period in contrast to the divided caste-based Hindu community amounted to a threat, according to Savarkar, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7s415.5">gave rise</a> to a political party, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hindu-nationalism-and-indian-politics/2E218CFDC1A1052F511A311C45D5A3D2">Hindu Mahasabha</a>, in 1921, in which he was a leading figure.</p>
<p>Following his release from prison, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hindutva/ezS6SHt0hPwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=vinayak+savarkar+more+radical+after+prison+against+muslims&pg=PA143&printsec=frontcover">Savarkar’s rhetoric</a> became less inclusive and grew correspondingly hostile toward Muslims. </p>
<p>In his 1963 book “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Six_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History/IajTDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Six Glorious Epochs</a>,” written shortly before his death, Savarkar stated that Muslims and Christians wanted to destroy Hinduism. He also contended that India <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/4408848">should enforce the kind of authoritarian rule</a> that was imposed in totalitarian Germany, Japan and Italy during World War II. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man bows before a statue and a mural of a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430384/original/file-20211104-21790-1xwm8cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man pays homage to the leader of Hindu nationalism, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, in Pune, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-visit-to-the-hostel-room-of-veer-savarkar-on-the-news-photo/1146939046">Milind Saurkar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Savarkar also believed Muslims in law enforcement and the military were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244310000144">potential traitors</a> and their numbers needed to be kept in check.</p>
<p>Savarkar’s views became the foundation of contemporary Hindu nationalism. </p>
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<h2>The new shade of nationalism</h2>
<p>In 1925, another leader, K.B. Hedgewar, emerged near Mumbai and created the <a href="https://www.rss.org/Timeline.html">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS</a>. Today, the RSS is the umbrella organization of the <a href="https://www.bjp.org/en/ourphilosophy">BJP</a>, the ruling party.</p>
<p>By the 1940s, RSS membership base grew to <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/in-its-91st-year-rss-plans-to-reach-each-of-600-000-villages-of-india-115102101117_1.html">600,000 volunteers</a>. Today, it has well over <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/03/706808616/the-powerful-group-shaping-the-rise-of-hindu-nationalism-in-india">5 million</a>. Under Modi, Hindu nationalism has been <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rss-has-benefited-greatly-under-modi-government-1187765-2018-03-12">brought</a> to mainstream politics, and Hindu nationalists now hold prominent cabinet- and ministerial-level positions in government.</p>
<p>The RSS was twice banned as a political party. Once was after <a href="https://southasia.ucla.edu/history-politics/hindu-rashtra/nathuram-godse-rss-murder-gandhi/">Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by former member RSS Nathuram Godse</a>. The second time was more recent, following the <a href="https://thewire.in/communalism/rss-sangh-parivar-babri-masjid">demolition</a> of Babri mosque – a holy site in the north Indian city of Ayodhya – in <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/harsh-mander-on-bans-and-organisations-in-the-name-of-national-security/article7770177.ece">1992</a>. The demolition led to nationwide riots where 1,000 people, <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/babri-masjid-bloody-aftermath-across-india-147823-2011-12-05">mostly Muslims, were killed</a>. Hindu nationalists claim that the site is the birthplace of Lord Rama. In 2019, the Indian Supreme Court <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ayodhya-verdict-understanding-the-supreme-court-judgment/story-G7mzXfBFEDJ88PmuLj8CpL.html">allowed a Rama temple</a> to be constructed at the contested site.</p>
<p>After the first ban, the RSS and Mahasabha created their own political party called the <a href="https://theprint.in/politics/on-this-day-69-years-ago-200-leaders-formed-jana-sangh-it-is-now-the-bjp/528070/">Bharatiya Jana Sangh</a> – the predecessor to the current BJP – in 1951. The Jana Sangh ran on a platform of “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7s415.5">Indianizing</a>,” or assimilating, all minorities into a unified Hindu nation.</p>
<p>For centuries, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24590025">Muslims were perceived</a> by many Hindus as another ethnic group or a subcaste within South Asia, not as an external threat that needed to be warded off. But Savarkar did not believe so. He wanted to bring about an <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/savarkar-wanted-to-smash-caste-system-cooked-prawns-and-didnt-worship-the-cow/161016/">internal cohesion</a> among various Hindu groups to protect against any external invasion.</p>
<p>Savarkar’s treatise was the <a href="https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/maharashtra-bjp-manifesto-proposes-bharat-ratna-for-veer-savarkar">foundation</a> for the <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/01830/BJP_election_manif_1830927a.pdf">2014 BJP manifesto</a>, which set the party’s agenda to mend the “discarded vision” of a Hindu nation.</p>
<p>Secularism is written in India’s <a href="https://www.india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india">constitution</a>, but the BJP’s <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha-2019/analysis-highest-ever-national-vote-share-for-the-bjp/article27218550.ece">reelection</a> in 2019 demonstrates that India may be undergoing a fundamental change and embracing a Hindu identity. </p>
<p>The Rama temple construction is expected to be <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/ram-temple-may-open-to-devotees-ahead-of-2024-lok-sabha-poll-1016182.html#:%7E:text=The%20Ram%20Temple%2C%20which%20is,elections%2C%20due%20in%20May%202024.&text=Prime%20min">ready before the next parliamentary election in 2024</a>. The building and celebration of a Hindu temple on the grounds of a destroyed Muslim mosque is, I believe, emblematic of India’s transition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Saba Sattar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar on South Asian affairs traces the growth of Hindu nationalism, started by an atheist anti-colonial revolutionary, to the one adopted under Modi’s government.Dr. Saba Sattar, PhD Student in Statecraft and National Security, The Institute of World PoliticsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269012019-11-18T14:04:00Z2019-11-18T14:04:00ZWhy Hindu nationalists are cheering moves to build a temple, challenging a secular tradition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301817/original/file-20191114-26202-ggkyxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Hindu woman prays to the bricks that are expected to be used in constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya, following a verdict from the Indian Supreme Court.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Temple-Dispute/894390c5b6aa44d6bd2e1f9d31e2f364/2/0">AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A five-judge panel of the Indian Supreme Court has delivered its much-awaited verdict on the destruction of the Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque in the town of Ayodhya in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. </p>
<p>The court case had been lodged after a mob of Hindu zealots attacked and destroyed the Babri Mosque on Dec. 16, 1992. They <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/A/bo20847609.html">believed</a> that the mosque had been <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Ayodhya_City_of_Faith_Demy_Hb.html?id=s8mPwgEACAAJ">constructed on the ruins of a Hindu temple</a> during the reign of Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India in the 16th century. Hundreds were killed in a spate of riots that followed the demolition of the mosque.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/08/asia/ayodhya-dispute-india-ruling-intl-hnk/index.html">The court ruled</a> on Nov. 8 that the 2.77-acre site of the mosque should be handed over to the government, which could then form a trust to build a Hindu temple on that site. Simultaneously, it granted five acres of land in another part of the town for the construction of a mosque. </p>
<p>The court also conceded that the destruction of the mosque by a mob was unlawful and that the five acres granted for a mosque constituted a form of restitution. </p>
<p>This controversial ruling is considered a win for Prime Minister Modi and his party, which has come to be associated with rise in Hindu nationalism. As a <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/indias-watershed-vote-the-risks-ahead/">political scientist</a>, I believe the question now is whether India will remain committed to secularism, which is enshrined in its Constitution.</p>
<h2>A history of the dispute</h2>
<p>The dispute itself goes back to a time when India was emerging from British colonial rule. In 1949, Hindu activists surreptitiously entered the mosque and placed religious idols within it, claiming that Lord Rama had <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nation-world/ram-mandir-babri-masjid-issue-the-history-behind-the-dispute/dec-22-1949/slideshow/57774099.cms">returned to reclaim</a> his birthplace. The government, in an attempt to quell discord, had the doors to the mosque locked.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301822/original/file-20191114-26211-14yxoc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian Muslims in Ayodhya read about the Ayodhya verdict delivered on Nov. 8.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-India-Temple-Dispute/39a3d6f573c94c0c873cc51476906ba5/11/0">AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This ruling has brought these past divides to the fore. While the Sunni Waqf Board, a government-supported body that was the litigant on the side of the mosque, <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/respect-ayodhya-verdict-but-not-satisfied-says-sunni-waqf-board-lawyer-calls-for-review-1617324-2019-11-09">expressed disappointment</a> with the Supreme Court’s ruling, the right-wing ruling Bharatiya Janata Party expressed happiness.</p>
<p>As Lal Krishna Advani, a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party who had spearheaded the movement to build the temple in the 1980s, <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/lk-advani-supreme-court-ayodhya-verdict-1617442-2019-11-09">stated</a>:</p>
<p>“This is a moment of fulfillment for me because God Almighty had given me an opportunity to make my own humble contribution to the mass movement, the biggest since India’s Freedom Movement, aimed at the outcome which the Supreme Court’s verdict today has made possible.” </p>
<p>Advani’s statement reflects the broader sentiments of many in the ruling party.</p>
<h2>Crucial to ideological identity</h2>
<p>Why is the construction of Ram temple so important for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party? </p>
<p>The answer can be traced to Bharatiya Janata Party’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Brotherhood_in_Saffron.html?id=AVRuAAAAMAAJ">ideology and political developments in India</a> following independence from British colonial rule in 1947.</p>
<p>The Bharatiya Janata Party is a successor to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a political party founded in 1951. It sought from the outset to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hindu-nationalism-and-indian-politics/2E218CFDC1A1052F511A311C45D5A3D2">serve as a right-of-center, Hindu majoritarian alternative</a> to the dominant, secular, nationalist party, the Indian National Congress. </p>
<p>However, for several decades the Bharatiya Jana Sangh failed to make much headway. Its opposition, the Congress Party, was quite popular and remained electorally dominant. In 1980 the Bharatiya Jana Sangh was <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Hindu_Nationalist_Movement_in_India.html?id=Y2buDDwdgIsC">reincarnated as the Bharatiya Janata Party</a>. </p>
<p>The Bharatiya Janata Party, like its predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, shared an identical Hindu chauvinist ideological orientation. Not until the late 1980s did it embrace an overtly pro-Hindu ideology focused on the building of a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid. And it began to see electoral success. </p>
<p>Since then, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been nothing short of extraordinary. In 1984 the party had two seats in the 543-seat Indian Parliament. Today it has a commanding majority of 303. Much of this can be attributed to the successful mobilization and consolidation of the Hindu vote in the 1980s.</p>
<h2>Challenge to pluralism</h2>
<p>In an attempt to win back the Hindu vote the Indian National Congress Party in 1986 arranged to have the locks to the Babri mosque in Ayodhya removed to enable Hindu worshipers to <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Role-of-Arun-Nehru-Rajiv-in-opening-masjid-ignored/article16894059.ece">enter the premises</a> for the first time in 35 years. Hindu miscreants had placed idols in this site in 1949.</p>
<p>Following this decision, the Bharatiya Janata Party started a steady drumbeat of sentiment to construct a Hindu temple at the site in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, in September and October 1990, senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party Lal Krishna Advani took out a “rath yatra,” or a chariot consecrating Lord Rama across much of the country. This movement, which gathered steam over the course of a decade, culminated in the destruction of the mosque. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301819/original/file-20191114-26217-17cg2xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sweets are distributed after a verdict in over a disputed structure in Ayodhya, India, on Nov. 9, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Temple-Dispute/718af55ba1824e1fab9d55a33580c61a/33/0">AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the destruction of the mosque, the electoral fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party continued to improve. By 1998, it had become the dominant partner in a coalition government composed of a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/India_Government_and_Politics_in_a_Devel.html?id=pSyRgcSQhuIC">range of political parties</a> to form a government. </p>
<p>When the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power under Prime Minister Modi in 2014, it focused on other matters while occasionally paying some attention to the question of the mosque even though it had <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/indias-democracy-at-70-growth-inequality-and-nationalism/">been part of its election manifesto</a>. In effect, the Bharatiya Janata Party kept this issue alive in the public arena but did not undertake an active efforts to change the status quo at the site. </p>
<p>Now, in its second term, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been handed an unexpected victory with the Supreme Court judgment. I believe building a Hindu temple on the site of the destroyed Ayodhya mosque will bolster its following among the most fervid Hindu followers. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumit Ganguly receives funding from the US Department of State. I am a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and. Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.</span></em></p>India’s Supreme Court has allowed a Hindu temple to be built on the disputed site of a 16th-century mosque. The verdict could have long-term ramifications for India’s tradition of religious diversity.Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239462019-09-23T09:44:30Z2019-09-23T09:44:30ZHowdy Modi in Houston: why India’s Narendra Modi puts so much effort into wooing the diaspora<p>With President Donald Trump as his “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plays-unusual-role-of-warm-up-act-at-massive-rally-for-modi-in-houston/2019/09/22/18cf7a2a-dd50-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html">warm up act</a>”, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally of 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora at Houston’s NRG Stadium <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49788492">on September 22</a>.</p>
<p>Dubbed <a href="https://www.howdymodi.org/">Howdy, Modi!</a>, the event kicks off a busy week in the US for Modi, with <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pm-modis-us-visit-after-houston-its-a-busy-new-york-week/article29483461.ece">no fewer than 40 meetings to attend</a>. Apart from bilateral talks with Trump, he is due to speak at the UN General Assembly, attend a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, and appear at the UN’s Climate Action Summit. Modi will also <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/pm-modi-to-address-annual-un-general-assembly-session-on-september-27/article29373175.ece">collect a “global goalkeeper” award</a> from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for his government’s <em>Swachch Bharat</em> or “Clean India” initiative.</p>
<p>It is the Howdy, Modi event that will attract attention, however, and not just because of the praise Modi and Trump heaped upon each other. Few leaders hold these kinds of events when they travel. But Modi has a long history of speaking to gatherings of the Indian diaspora when travelling overseas. </p>
<p>In 2014, after the landslide election win that first brought his government to power, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1604020/its-narendra-modi-show-new-yorks-madison-square-garden">he appeared before a crowd of 18,000</a> at Madison Square Garden in New York, and then at another gathering, attended by a similar number, at the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-draws-thousands-to-sydney-olympic-park-20141117-11oe5f.html">AllPhones Arena</a> in the Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia. A year later, Modi was joined by his British counterpart David Cameron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/narendra-modi-cheers-wembley-reception-india">in front of an estimated 60,000</a> members of the Indian diaspora at Wembley Stadium in London.</p>
<h2>Campaign Modi</h2>
<p>Gatherings like Howdy, Modi are effectively campaign rallies, albeit organised abroad and involving people who, for the most part, cannot vote in India’s elections. They are organised by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), working with diaspora civil society groups, and not primarily by officials from the local embassies or consulates. They allow Modi to be seen by viewers back home in as positive a light as possible, fêted by an overwhelmingly supportive crowd made up of people whom ordinary Indians would consider savvy and successful. In this way, such events are part of Modi’s broader, ongoing effort to consolidate his position as the most dominant Indian politician of his era.</p>
<p>There is, however, more to these events than just public relations. In recent years, India’s elections have become colossally expensive. In 2014, an estimated <a href="http://india-seminar.com/2019/713/713_milan_vaishnav.htm">US$5 billion was spent by the candidates</a>. In 2019, some estimate that figure grew to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/04/12/indias-crowded-crazy-expensive-month-long-election-has-begun/#26819b9c5c37">at least US$7 billion</a>. Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP almost certainly accounted for the majority of the spending. Prior to the poll, it had <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/bjp-modi-political-funding-money">reportedly amassed</a> a considerable war chest. </p>
<p>A sizeable proportion of this money came from <a href="https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/financing-elections-india-scrutiny-corporate-donation-49750/">big corporations</a> and some from ordinary BJP members and supporters in India. But it’s likely that a significant amount came from the Indian diaspora, despite the fact that many cannot vote in India, either because they are no longer citizens or, if they are, because they were unable to travel back home to cast their ballot, as they must do under <a href="http://citizenmatters.in/nri-overseas-voters-election-voting-registration-9871">current electoral law</a>. </p>
<p>The Delhi High Court found that both the BJP and the opposition Congress Party <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Delhi-HC-finds-BJP-Congress-guilty-of-receiving-foreign-funding/articleshow/32880140.cms">accepted foreign donations</a>, including from foreign-based companies, prior to the 2014 elections. Since then, the <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/31/political-finance-in-india-d-j-vu-all-over-again-pub-78280">Modi government legislated</a> both to make it harder to trace the sources of campaign financing and to make it easier for foreign individuals and entities to donate money. Rallies such as Howdy, Modi are designed to thank past donors and to solicit future contributions, rather than to appeal for diaspora votes.</p>
<h2>Uniting the diaspora</h2>
<p>These events also serve as instruments of political consolidation. India’s diaspora is as heterogeneous as India. And abroad, people of Indian origin and Indian citizens often coalesce into groups that reflect regional, linguistic, caste and religious identities, as well as national, “Indian” organisations. These sub-national groups help preserve those identities, but arguably also weaken the diaspora as a political force. Forging India lobbies in places such as the US that might influence governments on New Delhi’s behalf is hard under such circumstances. </p>
<p>The BJP uses events like Howdy, Modi to try to address that problem, as a focal point around which various smaller groups can gather. The prime minister’s Twitter feed made that clear, posting video of Modi meeting the representatives of particular communities, such as the <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1175622970091479040">Shia Muslim Dawoodi Bohras</a>, the <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1175622121621479424">Kashmiri Pandits</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1175621406563979264">local Sikhs</a>. It is telling too that the organisers managed to attract sponsorship for Howdy, Modi from more than <a href="https://www.howdymodi.org/partners">six hundred diaspora groups</a> from across the US. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1175621406563979264"}"></div></p>
<p>Since 2014, the Indian diaspora has been one of Modi’s biggest supporters, politically and financially. Whether this backing will persist through his second term will be a key test. As India’s economy began to falter in 2017, <a href="http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/modi-fails-to-live-up-to-high-hopes/">some thought</a> that the diaspora would grow disillusioned, and withdraw their backing. During the recent election campaign, however, there were no signs of a mass defection from the cause, with diaspora Indians continuing to <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-the-bhakts-overseas-call/301372">contribute time</a> as well as money to ensure Modi’s BJP were returned to office. </p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249586/original/file-20181210-76983-1azl8ax.png?h=128">
<div>
<header>Ian Hall is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/ian-hall">Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy</a></p>
<footer>Bristol University Press provides funding as a content partner of The Conversation UK</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Hall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>India’s Prime Minister Narenda Modi shared a stage with President Donald Trump at an event for the Indian diaspora in Texas.Ian Hall, Deputy Director (Research), Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1211522019-08-29T17:02:33Z2019-08-29T17:02:33ZHow the National Citizenship Registration in Assam is shaping a new national identity in India<p>As the monsoon continues to strike several states in India, millions of residents face not only devastated homes and landscapes due to <a href="https://scroll.in/article/931127/these-satellite-images-show-the-severity-of-the-floods-in-assam-and-bihar">extreme flooding or drought</a> but also frustration, fear and hopelessness.</p>
<p>Residents living along the India-Bangladesh border have a long history of being considered “foreigners” in India, and <a href="https://graduateinstitute.ch/communications/news/boundaries-citizenship-former-border-enclaves-bangladesh-and-india">my doctoral research</a> demonstrates their centrality in understanding the state today. India as a political and bureaucratic apparatus and as a social process is working to homogenise borderlands with a goal of shaping of national identity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289867/original/file-20190828-184217-plhj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Assam is located at the border with Bangladesh, in India’s far east.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medium-india-political-wall-map-vinyl-moi4781121786238-original-imaezawqex9x5dbb.jpg">Imranism9/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), created in 1951 and which registers all identified as “genuine citizens”, is expected to <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/nrc-to-be-published-on-aug-31-says-assam-cm/articleshow/70745944.cms">be published</a> on August 31 for the state of Assam along the India-Bangladesh border. It will decide upon the future of millions of people in the state.</p>
<p>Why is this register crucial to understanding the way Indian politics are going today? What can it tell us about citizenship and identities, and how will it affect thousands of people in the South-Asian region?</p>
<h2>Unwanted people</h2>
<p>In the last four years the right-wing Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been particularly vocal about ridding the Indian territory of “Bangladeshi infiltrators”.</p>
<p>Assam became a starting point following prevalent “anti-infiltrator” sentiments in the state. Agitators demanded that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Citizens_of_India">1951 NRC</a> – conducted for the entire country – be updated. It led the Indian Supreme Court’s order of 2014 in directing the government to <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-nrc/cid/1352646">update the NRC in the state of Assam</a>.</p>
<p>The final draft of Assam’s updated NRC was approved on July 30 2018. It now classifies as an illegal immigrant and foreign national <a href="http://citizensagainsthate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Making-Foreigner.pdf">any individual who entered the state after March 24, 1971</a>.</p>
<p>More than 31 million people in Assam have since had to prove their <a href="https://scroll.in/article/932645/can-you-prove-you-are-an-indian-citizen-take-the-nrc-test">Indian citizenship</a>. Last year, four million found out that they would no longer be considered Indian citizens. Closely following the draft publication, on August 29, 2018, the state of Assam was declared a “disturbed area”, with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), being <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/afspa-extended-in-assam-for-6-months-1327051-2018-08-29">extended for another six months</a>.</p>
<p>It brought the entire state of Assam under the rule of the security forces, giving them special rights and immunity in carrying out operations. The whole state remains <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/politics/armed-forces-special-powers-act-to-continue-in-assam-for-at-least-a-year/articleshow/69815411.cms?from=mdr">under AFSPA</a>, making the ordinary people vulnerable to the power of the security forces.</p>
<h2>Sorting out human beings</h2>
<p>On July 17 2019, the Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, who belongs to the BJP, announced in the upper house of the Indian parliament that the government will identify illegal immigrants staying in any part of the country and <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/will-identify-and-deport-every-illegal-immigrant-amit-shah-1570496-2019-07-17">deport them</a> as per international law.</p>
<p>These pronouncements sound like the trumpet of Kafka’s <a href="https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/de/Kafka%2C_Franz-1883/Der_Aufbruch/en/34804-The_Departure"><em>The Departure</em></a>, an indication from political leaders to the settlers in Assam, many of whom are now being recategorised from Indian citizens as “illegal immigrants”.</p>
<p>The NRC process and lists have been considered <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/corruption-in-nrc-process-government-wants-to-engage-senior-officers-for-re-verification/articleshow/70302757.cms?from=mdr">highly questionable and erroneous</a>, which explains the delays in finalising and publishing the final draft.</p>
<p>Nearly four million people, <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/assam-outs-new-nrc-citizens-list-data-says-counting-process-compromised-2079014">constituting 12.5% of Assam’s population</a> await the final verdict. Many will face an uncertain journey that may very well lead them to <a href="https://scroll.in/article/932134/worse-than-a-death-sentence-inside-assams-sham-trials-that-could-strip-millions-of-citizenship">life-long exclusion</a> and marginalisation.</p>
<p>As soon-to-be noncitizens, they will be removed from the voters list and expropriated. Many may end up in jails and <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/over-110-declared-foreigners-sent-to-detention-camps-in-assam-families-claim-indian-citizens-being-harassed/story-QyAbBtgbqbCfKn3j2SnbAJ.html">detention centres</a> that are being built in Assam, according to <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/assam-mulls-10-centres-for-those-excluded-from-nrc/article28363214.ece">media reports</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Assam detention camps, The Print.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Instilling national fear</h2>
<p>Right-wing politics around the globe have been shaping a political narrative of “national fear”, identifying names and faces of the unknown “infiltrator”. In this scenario, created to politically control immigration, “foreigners” and “nationals” are increasingly being <a href="http://www.thegreatregression.eu/symptoms-in-search-of-an-object-and-a-name/">determined by their bloodline</a>.</p>
<p>Assam experienced <a href="http://www.raiot.in/the-spectre-of-citizenship-history-politics-of-nrc-in-assam/">migration from 19th century</a> onwards from the neighbouring regions of Bengal, Jharkhand, East Bengal (which later became East Pakistan and then Bangladesh), Nepal, among others. Census data from 1901 till 1971 shows large movement of population from East Bengal to Assam, but a <a href="http://www.raiot.in/the-spectre-of-citizenship-history-politics-of-nrc-in-assam/">drop in population growth since the 1971 creation of Bangladesh</a>.</p>
<p>The creation of the India-East Pakistan border in 1947 transformed the easy movement of settlers into Bengal delta into international migration. Millions of Hindus moved from East Pakistan to India and Muslims moved from India to newly formed East Pakistan. In 1971 it took the name of Bangladesh. These movements took place in waves. The narrative of homecoming identified new settlers under many labels: political migrants, repatriates, refugees and displaced persons. It blurred the distinction between “political” and “economic” settlers.</p>
<p>As Willem Van Schendel <a href="http://www.anthempress.com/the-bengal-borderland-pb">points out</a>, the border was instrumentalised in fuelling the anti-migrant settlement argument. It also nourished the Indian narrative of “infiltration”. The argument gained traction when it was discovered that many recent immigrants from Bangladesh were Muslims. It empowered the claim of Hindutva politics that such movement was a threat to Hindu India as it pegged Bangladeshi infiltration as a national issue.</p>
<p>Since the early 1990s, such a framing has led to many Bengali-speaking Muslim migrants in the Delhi region being rounded up on the suspicion of being Bangladeshis. Many were illegally deported to Bangladesh or <a href="https://scroll.in/article/843734/branded-bangladeshis-in-noida-anger-turns-to-fear-for-domestic-workers-after-police-raid">simply held under duress by Delhi police</a>.</p>
<h2>The Bangladeshi “infiltration” and Assam</h2>
<p>As Professor Debarshi Das has observed in his 2019 book, <em>The Saga of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC)</em>, (People’s Study Circle, Kolkata):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fear of outsiders has deep roots in the history of immigration into the state and the politics of son of the soil, which has had a sterling career in the state.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed the <a href="http://sanhati.com/excerpted/12468/#1">Assam Movement</a>, which took place between 1979 and 1985, was an agitation by the indigenous Assamese against large-scale migration of Bengali-speaking population from neighbouring Bangladesh. </p>
<p>The movement opened the Pandora’s box of Indian citizenship.</p>
<p>Since the late 1980s, certain persons who had voter status in Assam were recategorised as undocumented immigrants by the Foreigners Tribunals established in the state and reclassified as “doubtful” (D) category of voters.</p>
<h2>The art of inventing foreigners</h2>
<p>This political discourse shaped the Indian national identity through amendments to India’s Citizenship law since 1986.</p>
<p>The large numbers of people who do not figure on the NRC list today are a consequence of <a href="http://citizensagainsthate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Making-Foreigner.pdf">“foreigner-making”</a>. The NRC methodology indeed relies on documentary proof. But most of the targeted population lack official records or paperwork to back their claims. Many observers also denounced the register as flawed with bias against the poorest segment of the population. It includes landless nomadic tribes, Bengali-speaking Hindu and Muslim migrants and Assamese Muslims.</p>
<p>Trends indicate that the final list will see large numbers of people being <a href="https://amp.scroll.in/article/931530/humans-of-assam-this-bjp-leader-was-born-in-assam-in-1964-but-still-did-not-make-it-to-the-nrc">excluded from Indian citizenship</a>. This number is likely to include many genuine citizens, both Hindus and Muslims, who have been in Assam since before March 24, 1971.</p>
<h2>Fear, anxiety, suicides and violence</h2>
<p>The anxiety surrounding this issue is so huge that more than <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48754802">51 cases of suicide have already been reported</a>. </p>
<p>In some areas, such as the Morigaon district of Assam, Bengali-speaking Muslims <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/assam/nrc-deadline-approaching-families-stranded-in-assam-floods-stay-home-dont-want-to-be-rescued-5833091/">refused to vacate their homes</a> despite the heavy floods that devasted their villages. To them, physical occupation is their only way to support their claims to citizenship.</p>
<p>Whether or not the NRC achieves its aim of correctly identifying and segregating those who arrived in Assam after March 24, 1971, it will serve the purpose of the Hindu nativist agenda by segregating “outsiders” in India from indigenous Assamese people.</p>
<p>The new regime of legal and street-level scrutiny of citizens across the country has also being shaped with the enactment of the <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/why-does-assam-need-more-foreigners-tribunals/article27951416.ece">Foreigners (Tribunals) Amendment Order, 2019</a>, an institution – so far – unique to Assam (100 Foreigners Tribunals exist across the state). It empowers all state agents and district magistrates to set up tribunals for identifying a “foreigner” living in India “illegally”. The practice could extend to other states.</p>
<p>Migrants (particularly Muslims) from rural areas of West Bengal and the <a href="https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/nagaland-to-begin-its-own-nrc-process-from-july-10-4155521.html">north-eastern states</a> are most likely to bear the brunt of this nation-wide hunt for “foreigners”. Targeted residents are likely to live in constant fear of being suspected as India’s “Others” in what seems to be increasingly the emerging of a police state.</p>
<h2>Suffering, statelessness and intolerance</h2>
<p>The NRC is likely to neither stop the low-intensity transnational flow of undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, nor reduce the demand of their labour in India’s growing urban-construction industry. As <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/borders-and-walls-do-barriers-deter-unauthorized-migration">migration patterns globally demonstrate</a>, despite the growth of barriers, walls and enhanced border surveillance regimes, the continuous deaths due to drowning of boats in the Mediterranean and the large-scale apprehensions at the US-Mexico border have not stopped people from migrating.</p>
<p>At the very least, the NRC process is likely to cause large-scale and long-term human suffering materialising a culture of statelessness. It will alter the fabric of national society in India, fostering a regime of mutual suspicion, intolerance and the hardening of social and cultural boundaries between Indian citizens. It will make Indian citizenship far less stable as a cultural experience. India in trumpeting the collective fear of “foreigners” inside its borders, follows the footsteps of the populist turn globally, with majoritarianism fuelling nativism, to the exclusion and marginalisation of “Others”, who are invariably the minorities and the migrants, rescripting the relationship between population and territory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I currently do not receive funding from any organization. My Ph.D. field work between 2015-2016, received funding from the Cooperation and Development Centre(CODEV), EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, under their Flash Programme for India.</span></em></p>On August 31, the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state of Assam, along the India-Bangladesh border will decide upon the future of millions of people in the state.Anuradha Sen Mookerjee, Research fellow, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1218332019-08-15T20:12:09Z2019-08-15T20:12:09ZWhat’s behind the protests in Kashmir?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288020/original/file-20190814-136230-16iuqv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kashmiri Muslims shout slogans during a protest after Eid prayers in Srinagar.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Kashmir/3f8cebb4b6cc43428f88db5b93d4b993/33/0">AP Photo/ Dar Yasin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>India recently enacted a law which will end a special autonomous status given to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, known in the West as simply “Kashmir.” </p>
<p>Amit Shah, India’s minister for home affairs, <a href="https://qz.com/india/1681325/india-scraps-article-370-that-gives-special-status-to-kashmir/">announced in Parliament</a> that the Bharatiya Janata Party government was revoking Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in the name of bringing prosperity to the region.</p>
<p>Since 1954, this article has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/article-370-9780198074083?cc=us&lang=en&">governed federal relations between India and Kashmir</a>, India’s only Muslim majority state. </p>
<p>I’m a scholar of South Asian politics and have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139019477">written extensively</a> on the evolution of the India-Pakistan conflict in Kashmir. </p>
<p>Article 370 is woven into that history. </p>
<h2>History of Kashmir’s autonomy</h2>
<p><a href="https://in.news.yahoo.com/article-370-35a-history-origin-provisions-132348359.html">Article 370</a> originated in the particular circumstances under which the former prince and last ruler of Kashmir acceded to India shortly after the partition of the British Indian Empire into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947.</p>
<p>The prince, or maharaja, <a href="https://www.andrewwhitehead.net/full-text-a-mission-in-kashmir.html">agreed to have Kashmir become part of India under duress</a>. His rule was threatened by an insurrection supported by Pakistan.</p>
<p>Article 370 was designed to guarantee the autonomy of the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/kashmir-special-status-explained-articles-370-35a-190805054643431.html">Muslim majority state</a>, the only one in predominantly Hindu India. The clause effectively limited the powers of the Indian government to the realms of defense, foreign affairs and communications. It also permitted the Kashmiri state to have its own <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-with-jammu-kashmirs-special-status-scrapped-the-flag-it-no-longer-has-5882212/">flag</a> and <a href="http://www.jklegislativeassembly.nic.in/Costitution_of_J&K.pdf">constitution</a>.</p>
<p>More controversially, Article 370 prohibited non-Kashmiris from purchasing property in the state and stated that women who married non-Kashmiris would <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40897522">lose their inheritance rights</a>.</p>
<h2>Changes over time</h2>
<p>But the independence of the Kashmiri state has been declining for decades. Beginning in the early 1950s, a series of presidential ordinances, which had swift effect much like American executive orders, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/indo-pakistani-conflict/oclc/463849">diluted the terms of the article</a>.</p>
<p>For example, in 1954, a presidential order extended Indian citizenship to the “permanent residents” of the state. Prior to this decision the native inhabitants of the state had been considered to be “<a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9231-6">state subjects</a>.”</p>
<p>Other constitutional changes followed. The jurisdiction of the Indian Supreme Court <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=BfxtAAAAMAAJ">was expanded to the state</a> in 1954. In addition, the Indian government was granted the authority to declare a national emergency <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Kashmir_Article_370.html?id=DMEMAAAAIAAJ">if Kashmir were attacked</a>.</p>
<p>Many other administrative actions reduced the state’s autonomy over time. These have ranged from enabling Kashmiris to participate in national administrative positions to expanding the jurisdiction of anti-corruption bodies, such as the Central Vigilance Commission and the <a href="https://www.sbirealty.in/property/doc/CGST_Act_2017.pdf">Central Goods and Services Act of 2017</a>, into the state.</p>
<h2>What it means for India and the world</h2>
<p>What has happened as a result of the move to revoke Article 370? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288021/original/file-20190814-136217-1k7uv7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kashmiris living in New Delhi gather for a function to observe Eid al-Adha away from their homes in New Delhi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Kashmir/af8c1e6587ec43cc95190ec1cfea6d98/49/0">AP Photo/Manish Swarup</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The decision has been met with considerable unhappiness and resentment in the Kashmir Valley, which has a <a href="https://globalvoices.org/specialcoverage/the-kashmiri-people-versus-the-indian-state/">Muslim population close to 97%</a> – versus <a href="https://www.census2011.co.in/data/religion/state/1-jammu-and-kashmir.html">68% of the population of the state as a whole</a>. The government of Jammu and Kashmir, meanwhile, does not have the legal power to challenge the move.</p>
<p>China and Pakistan have expressed displeasure.</p>
<p>Pakistan has long maintained that <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/india-china-media-after-article-370-abrogation_in_5d525555e4b0cfeed1a245a9">it should have inherited the state</a> based upon its geographic contiguity and its demography. </p>
<p>India and Pakistan have fought <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/conflict-unending/9780231123693">three wars over Kashmir</a>. While I don’t believe Pakistan will initiate another war with India over this issue at this time, I doubt it will quietly resign itself to the changed circumstances. At the very least, it will seek to draw in members of the international community to oppose India’s action, as it has sought to do in the past.</p>
<p>China, which considers Pakistan to be its “<a href="https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/china-and-pakistans-all-weather-friendship/link">all-weather ally</a>,” has stated that the decision was “<a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3021712/china-calls-indias-move-scrap-kashmirs-special-status-not">not acceptable and won’t be binding</a>.”</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumit Ganguly receives funding from the US Army War College, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the US Department of State. </span></em></p>India recently revoked a special provision that ended the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Here’s the history of the constitutional provision, Article 370.Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177942019-05-27T17:13:47Z2019-05-27T17:13:47ZIndia’s Prime Minister Modi pursues politics of Hindu nationalism – what does that mean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276474/original/file-20190526-187143-1591cv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is garlanded after winning the elections.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Elections-Fresh-Mandate/084e245a09ec4254860de8ec291ad491/19/0">AP Photo/Manish Swarup</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Almost immediately after winning a second term in office on May 23, India’s Prime Minister Modi gave a speech <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/23/asia/india-election-modi-gandhi-bjp-congress-intl/index.html">making light</a> of parties and individuals who had espoused secularism over the past five years. </p>
<p>During the five years while the Indian government has been led by Modi and the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party – or BJP – several <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/vigilante-groups-attack-minorities">Muslims were lynched</a> on allegations of eating beef or even just transporting cattle for slaughter. As the number of attacks on Muslims grew, Modi mostly remained <a href="http://time.com/5586415/india-election-narendra-modi-2019/">silent</a>. </p>
<p>The consumption of beef in India has long been a divisive issue because many Hindus believe that <a href="https://theconversation.com/hinduism-and-its-complicated-history-with-cows-and-people-who-eat-them-80586">the cow is a sacred animal</a>. <a href="http://ijlpp.com/cow-slaughter-in-india/">Cow slaughter</a> and <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2088866/why-world-needs-sit-and-take-notice-indias-war-meat">consumption of beef</a> have long been banned in 24 out of 29 states across India. </p>
<p>Despite this concession to orthodox Hindu sentiments, India has a constitutional commitment to secularism. Unlike in the West, where secularism calls for a strict separation of church and state, Indian secularism is based on the premise of respect toward all faiths. </p>
<p>However, Modi and the political party he represents are adherents of Hindutva. What exactly is Hindutva and how is it different from the beliefs and practices of Hinduism?</p>
<h2>Colonial roots</h2>
<p>Hindutva is an ideology that states that India is the homeland of the Hindus. According to believers, those who profess other faiths can live in the country only at the sufferance of Hindus. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/ganguly-sumit.html">scholar of contemporary Indian politics</a>, I find this proposition to be profoundly disturbing and deeply antithetical to the the central tenets of Hinduism. </p>
<p>The roots of this ideology can, in considerable part, be traced to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7s415">growth of Hindu anxieties</a> in colonial India. In 1906, a Muslim political party – the <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1646">All-India Muslim League</a> – was created. Later, a charismatic politician, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, became its standard-bearer and subsequently the <a href="http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/governor_general.html">first governor-general of the state of Pakistan</a> following the British partition of India in 1947. Partition led to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-road-to-indias-partition-82432">division of the former British India</a> into the two independent states of India and Pakistan. </p>
<p>The creation of the All-India Muslim League caused some serious misgivings on the part of some segments of the Hindu population, leading to their political mobilization along religious lines, pitting Hindus against Muslims. In 1921, an organization emerged in northern India called the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hindu-nationalism-and-indian-politics/2E218CFDC1A1052F511A311C45D5A3D2">Hindu Mahasabha</a>. </p>
<p>It brought together people who opposed the secular outlook of the major political party at the time, the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi and others. The Mahasabha’s ideology <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/hindu-mahasabha-the-waning-fringe-outfit-shouting-to-stay-politically-relevant-5563082/">espoused the education and uplift of Hindus</a> and also the conversion of Muslims to Hinduism.</p>
<p>The ideology has its roots in the ideas of an important but controversial Indian nationalist, <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/vinayak-damodar-savarkar">Vinayak Damodar Savarkar</a>, who was not only ardently opposed to British rule in India, but advocated violence to end colonial domination and argued that India was the sole preserve of Hindus. </p>
<p>His ideas were fundamentally at odds with the principals of the Indian nationalist movement, Mahatma Gandhi and his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru, who would become the first prime minister of a free India. Gandhi, though deeply religious, had advocated Hindu-Muslim amity. Nehru, a staunch secularist, had supported religious pluralism. He died at the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2230807516633617">hands of a fanatic</a>, Nathuram Godse, a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, in 1948. </p>
<h2>Growth of the BJP</h2>
<p>The Hindu nationalists sought to make Hinduism, an ancient religion which has no common holy text, no overarching set of beliefs and no single place of pilgrimage, into a homogeneous, organized faith based upon a set of common religious tenets. </p>
<p>During the early years of the Indian republic, following its independence from British colonial rule in 1947, the ideology of Hindutva and its adherents found little appeal among the Indian electorate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276476/original/file-20190526-187157-18hpwu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BJP gained in strength since the 1990s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Elections/a08957f2b0ee482f8622012a6c34c751/39/0">AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, since the 1990s the <a href="https://www.orfonline.org/research/44401-understanding-the-rise-of-the-bharatiya-janata-party/">BJP has gathered strength</a> in both the electoral and social arenas. Electorally, it was in power as the dominant partner in a coalition regime from 1998 to 2004. Later, in 2014, it emerged as a majority party in Parliament. </p>
<p>It has also attracted substantial numbers of followers. In considerable part their disaffection stems from the willingness of secular governments to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-modis-india-shrinking-space-for-muslims/2019/05/12/7e6e47e2-5bb1-11e9-98d4-844088d135f2_story.html">pander to the Muslim minority</a>.</p>
<p>The Indian National Congress, on a number of occasions, especially in the 1980s, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174402?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">made a series of concessions</a> to orthodox Muslim sentiment in its quest for their votes. Among other matters, a Congress government <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-19566894">banned</a> Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses,” even before Iran had issued the fatwa against Rushdie. On another occasion, it overturned an Indian Supreme Court judgment that had <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/who-really-influenced-rajiv-gandhi-to-act-against-shah-bano-judgment/87263/">granted alimony to a Muslim woman</a>. Members of the Muslims orthodoxy were outraged with the decision, as they deemed it to be an affront to their religious beliefs.</p>
<p>The BJP deftly dealt with the myriad concessions made to sectarian Muslim demands. They argued that the majority Hindu community was being short-changed and that only the BJP would adequately protect the interests of the majority Hindu population. </p>
<p>These sentiments, it appears, struck a resonant chord with significant segments of the electorate and played a not inconsiderable role in propelling the BJP to victory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumit Ganguly receives funding from the following: The Smith Richardson Foundation, the US Department of State, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.</span></em></p>Modi and the political party he represents are adherents of Hindutva, an ideology. It is fundamentally different from the faith, Hinduism.Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations., Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177692019-05-24T18:32:51Z2019-05-24T18:32:51ZIndia Tomorrow part 7: what Narendra Modi’s landslide victory means for India<p>After the world’s largest ever democratic exercise, Narendra Modi has been re-elected as prime minister of India for another five year term. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured an <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-election-how-narendra-modi-won-with-an-even-bigger-majority-117476">even bigger majority</a> than in 2014. </p>
<p>In this, the final part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">India Tomorrow</a> series from The Anthill podcast, we analyse the results with a panel of academics to find out what such a large majority – of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/indian-general-elections-2019-latest-updates-190521080547337.html">more than 300 seats</a> – means for India.</p>
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<hr>
<p>Mujibur Rehman, assistant professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at Jamia Milia Islamia University in New Delhi, says the size of the victory has taken many analysts in the media by surprise. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The question is not about winning 300 seats, but the huge margin through which the BJP candidates defeated their nearest rivals … that is a huge, huge surprise.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nikita Sud, associate professor of development studies at the University of Oxford, says the fact that Modi ran an almost presidential campaign, harks back to the slogans of the 1970s, when prime minister Indira Gandhi ran on the slogan, “Indira is India and India is Indira”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is to be commended on the part of the BJP that we are back to this very, person-centric politics where (in) every constituency people are talking about Modi … In 2014, people were testing him, but now that he’s a known entity, I think this personality-centricness can go both ways … because everything now centres even more on him, especially after this thumping victory. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The opposition Congress Party, suffered a crushing defeat at the polls, winning fewer than 50 seats and its leader Rahul Gandhi <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/rahul-gandhi-loses-amethi-seat-biggest-upset-2019-polls-190523134545989.html">even lost his own parliamentary seat</a> in Amethi, a traditional stronghold of India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the Congress in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Rehman said the defeat was “massive” for Gandhi and the Congress party:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It signals that they are almost a non-entity today in the northern India politics, the heartland of Indian politics. Because he has a huge victory in (the southern state of) Kerala, but in the north they are almost a non-entity now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indrajit Roy, co-host of The Anthill’s India Tomorrow series and lecturer in politics at the University of York, says that while Modi’s victory is an example of populism, it also a victory for what he calls a “politics of passion”. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think if you look at the results, you just look at the huge majorities that the BJP has won, not only at the country level, but in the constituencies that they’ve won … that’s not possible unless you’ve touched people’s hearts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He stresses how different Modi’s journey to power is from that of US President Donald Trump, or Jair Bolsonaro, the newly elected president of Brazil – though he says there are similarities with Reccip Tayip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like Erdoğan, Modi very much belongs to the political system. He’s not an outsider. He was a chief minister of a state, he’s a fully fledged member of the party. He was groomed by the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh], which is the ideological mentor of the BJP, so he’s very much a part and parcel of the political system. I do think that these elections were of course about Modi, but it was also about the ideas that Modi holds and that the ideas that he expressed, which is something which his party and the RSS have been working on for nearly 90 years – the ideas of India being a Hindu nation. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>To find out more about the big issues facing India as Modi settles into his second term as prime minister, check out our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">episode guide</a> for this series. Do get in touch with any questions via podcast@theconversation.com or reach out on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/anthillpod">@anthillpod</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Credits</strong></p>
<p><em>The Anthill is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Editing by Alex Portfelix. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record The Anthill.</em></p>
<p><em>Picture source: BJP handout/EPA</em></p>
<p><em>Music: <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tranko/VA_-_Clinical_Jazz_excerpt_3/Flying_Cat_amp_Sitar">Flying Cat & Sitar by Tranko</a> via <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/">Free Music Archive</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>News clips:</em></p>
<p><em>India PM Modi wins landslide victory in world’s largest election, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odvN_nuJTzI&t=31s">France 24</a></em></p>
<p><em>Election Results: Total BJP Sweep, India Chooses Modi 2.0, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuYpojVJirM">NDTV</a></em></p>
<p><em>Narendra Modi thanks voters for ‘historic mandate’, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-48389130">BBC News</a></em></p>
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A panel of academic experts assess Narendra Modi's victory in the final episode of our India Tomorrow series.Annabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Head of AudioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1156732019-04-23T10:42:23Z2019-04-23T10:42:23ZIn India, WhatsApp is a weapon of antisocial hatred<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270156/original/file-20190419-28116-15hgsdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3699%2C2273&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smartphones are a conduit for misinformation about the Indian election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Elections-Fake-News/1d566136267e44f8af5ed6ad5a5d967e/5/0">AP Photo/Manish Swarup</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A general election in India, the world’s most populous democracy, seems a theoretical impossibility. Collecting the votes of nearly a billion people across a staggeringly diverse subcontinent has for more than half a century faced challenges of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/election-workers-in-india-traveled-300-miles-over-4-days-to-set-up-a-polling-booth--for-one-voter/2019/04/17/44b4eb46-5bb1-11e9-98d4-844088d135f2_story.html">logistics</a>, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/21/india-has-a-lesson-for-trump-national-emergencies-are-a-disaster-for-democracy/">politics</a>, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/inequality-in-india-oxfam-explainer/">economics</a>, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1365317/Indias-brutal-history-of-assassinations-and-conflict.html">violence</a> and <a href="https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/opinion-why-criminalisation-of-politics-is-unlikely-to-stop-2985601.html">law</a>. </p>
<p>This year, a new challenge has arisen in the form of social media – specifically the text messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. Hate speech, disinformation and scary rumors on the platform are already responsible for violence and deaths in India. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270154/original/file-20190419-1403-o0op9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A line of people wait to vote in the Indian election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-India-Kashmir-Elections/0ba2c4a16ada4952b1828367012c07bd/3/0">AP Photo/Dar Yasin</a></span>
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<p>I have been <a href="https://www.scu.edu/cas/communication/faculty/rohit-chopra/">studying the impact of the internet</a> on Indian political, cultural and social life for the better part of two decades. Under the strict protocols of the <a href="https://eci.gov.in/">Election Commission of India</a>, voting has proved one of the more <a href="https://scroll.in/article/911757/how-former-chief-election-commissioner-tn-seshan-tamed-the-criminalisation-of-indian-politics">robust signs of Indian democracy</a>. Voters turn out in large numbers, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-012-9115-6">particularly the poorer segments of the electorate</a>, making the process and its results a fascinating study and experiment in Indian politics. </p>
<p>The 2019 parliamentary elections, now underway, will show how social media affects Indian democratic life. They will also provide additional information about the nature of technological threats to democracy in general.</p>
<h2>Indian social media in 2014</h2>
<p>Two years before <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">Russian troll farms infiltrated Facebook</a> in an attempt to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump">tilt the 2016 U.S. presidential election</a>, social media played a critical role in Indian politics. It helped the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hindu-nationalist-narendra-modi-sworn-in-as-indias-prime-minister/2014/05/26/d6f9ba54-25a6-48ac-9693-932132416cf6_story.html">hard-line candidate for prime minister</a>, Narendra Modi, come to power, though in a different way than the U.S. experienced. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270164/original/file-20190419-28106-1vi53gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bharatiya Janata Party supporters rallied passionately in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Elections/bbe95d58de234c30b711f095576c7283/4/0">AP Photo/Channi Anand</a></span>
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<p>In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party ran a <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/social-media-emerges-as-a-key-tool-in-indias-election/1931238.html">formidable social media campaign</a> on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter. The party’s online efforts complemented and supplemented its equally well-orchestrated campaign on the ground. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s trained social media teams, and a veritable army of enthusiastic volunteers, ensured that <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bjp-way-ahead-of-competition-on-social-media-in-2014-says-stanford-university-study/story-6Uq81HOwstzCwgCmiSyMWI.html">the party’s online presence</a> was much more active than its rivals.</p>
<p>The Bharatiya Janata Party’s information technology group, as well as the party’s supporters, <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Congress-vs-BJP-The-curious-case-of-trolls-and-politics/articleshow/23970818.cms">exploited the political power of social media</a>. They unleashed an often abusive barrage of criticism at the Congress Party, then-incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Bharatiya Janata Party opponents.</p>
<p>In the lead-up to the 2019 election, social media is being used in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/11/tech/india-election-whatsapp-twitter-facebook/index.html">far uglier and more dangerous fashion</a>. The Bharatiya Janata Party even <a href="https://medium.com/disfact/narendra-modi-app-has-a-fake-news-problem-d60b514bb8f1">has its own official app</a>, which is <a href="https://qz.com/india/1534754/modis-namo-app-spreads-pro-bjp-fake-news-before-indian-elections/">rife with disinformation</a> and <a href="https://qz.com/india/1461262/indias-bjp-supporters-share-more-fake-news-than-others-says-bbc/">inflammatory propaganda</a> about non-Hindus, posted by party members and supporters. More broadly, WhatsApp is being used to disseminate rumors and disinformation to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/modi-india-election.html">spark fear among the populace</a>, particularly about people who are perceived as outsiders. </p>
<p>This connects with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s main message that Hindus should have first claim over India and that India should be a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/">culturally Hindu nation</a>, rather than a secular state governed by a diverse range of voices. The chief opposition, the Congress Party, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/fighting-whatsapp-disinformation-india-kerala-floods/569332/">seems to lack the Bharatiya Janata Party’s level</a> of reach and skills at weaponizing social media.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-1-fake-news-and-the-battle-for-information-113579">India Tomorrow part 1: fake news and the battle for information</a>
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<h2>Threats of violence</h2>
<p>Online, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/bjps-troll-army-bullies-abuses-and-fights-dirty-with-narendra-modi-as-the-general-1.1541941374832">volunteer army of internet trolls</a> blurs lines between troublemakers, genuine supporters and party officials. Their collective intensity, especially about Hindu nationalism, has <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/ahead-of-general-election-possibility-of-communal-violence-in-india-us-spymaster-119012901238_1.html">put everyone on edge</a> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2019-election-crucial-india-history-181120160323155.html">about violence</a> – including social media platforms, law enforcement officials and ordinary citizens. </p>
<p>The danger is real. By one count, the use – or misuse – of WhatsApp has already <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2187612/whatsapp-rumours-have-led-30-deaths-india-social-media">resulted in 30 deaths</a> in India. Many of these are not political events, but rather because of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44435127">fear of outsiders</a> spread through WhatsApp messages carrying <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2154436/indias-lynching-app-who-using-whatsapp-murder-weapon">fabricated warnings about strangers</a> allegedly coming to rural communities to kidnap children. </p>
<p>It’s not clear yet whether WhatsApp’s remedial measures, such as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/21/18191455/whatsapp-forwarding-limit-five-messages-misinformation-battle">blocking users from forwarding any single message more than five times</a>, will effectively counter the dissemination of dangerous and fake information. Earlier restrictions – including <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595478/whatsapp-message-forwarding-end-violent-lynching-india">limiting forwarding to 20 times</a> – did not.</p>
<h2>Getting benefits but avoiding responsibility</h2>
<p>Of course, media technologies do not make anything happen by themselves. Their effects depend on how they’re used. In the Indian context, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government and its digital allies have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-violent-toll-of-hindu-nationalism-in-india">legitimized an unusually high degree of bigotry</a> and virulence against minorities, particularly Muslims and the members of the lowest caste, called Dalits. </p>
<p>As a result, it’s easy for party members and social media volunteers to use digital platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/technology/india-elections-facebook.html">inflame sectarian sentiments</a>. In the run-up to the election, they have created a climate of <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/t/world/article/909746/162">general distrust</a>, fear and paranoia in which <a href="https://qz.com/india/1563318/indias-2019-election-is-threatened-by-fake-news-on-whatsapp/">disinformation</a> cannot be distinguished from credible facts.</p>
<p>My own research, <a href="https://harpercollins.co.in/book/the-virtual-hindu-rashtra/">explained in my forthcoming book</a>, suggests that the decentralized nature of online networks has allowed the Bharatiya Janata Party government to benefit from hateful and violent messages sent out by other hardline Hindu nationalist groups, while being able to avoid accountability or responsibility for those messages. It also enables the Bharatiya Janata Party to benefit politically from religious violence while at the same time diverting blame to WhatsApp or Facebook.</p>
<p>These developments in India raise deeper questions about the nature of social media communications. In particular, these abuses of social media may cause people to rethink the relationship between free speech – including forwarding messages from others – and violence. The outcome of the Indian election will be just one signal of how one society is beginning to wrestle with how new technologies are letting people reshape their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rohit Chopra is affiliated with Avaaz.org (as a consultant).</span></em></p>India’s parliamentary elections, now underway, will show how social media is affecting Indian society and government.Rohit Chopra, Associate Professor of Communication, Santa Clara UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128182019-04-11T10:44:10Z2019-04-11T10:44:10ZWhy giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous<p>Statues – big statues, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/world/asia/india-worlds-tallest-statue.html">largest in the world</a> – are being built all across India. </p>
<p>Like many public monuments, they attempt to <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/688696?mobileUi=0+%3F&">convey history in a concrete form</a>. But India’s new statues convey something else, too: the power and vision of one dominant group – and the vulnerability of others.</p>
<p>That’s because India’s biggest new public monuments all <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/narendra-modi-statue-of-unity-sardar-patel">pay tribute to Hindu gods and leaders</a>. </p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/38723/PRASAD-DISSERTATION-2016.pdf?sequence=1">social change in India</a>, I see statues as a projection of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-history-of-iconoclasm-tells-us-about-the-confederate-statue-controversy-82878">nation’s values</a> at a particular moment in time. For many Muslims and other religious minorities, then, these hulking public monuments of Hindu icons send an ominous message about their status in society.</p>
<h2>Rising Hindu nationalism</h2>
<p>The mammoth public shrines to Hindu nationalism are a <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Politics/kXqmnXhYbJMdFwEn4IUhzI/Narendra-Modi-lays-foundation-of-Shivaji-statue-off-Mumbai-c.html">pet project of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi</a> and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.</p>
<p>Since taking office in 2014, Modi has used his power to promote Hindu nationalism, a polarizing ideology that sees <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/">Hindus as India’s dominant group</a>. Yet India is a constitutionally multicultural country with the world’s second largest population of Muslims – comprising over 170 million people. </p>
<p><a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-census-religion-idUKKCN0QV0G520150826">Twenty percent of its 1.3 billion people</a> are Muslim, Christian or another religion. </p>
<p>By 2021 India, which is already home to the tallest statue in the world – Gujarat state’s 597-foot-tall “Statue of Unity,” commemorating <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/india-and-pakistan-win-independence">Indian independence hero</a> Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – plans to unveil two more record-breaking monuments, both portraying icons idolized by Hindu rightists.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/26/india-plans-725ft-monument-hindu-god-ram-would-break-record/">725-foot bronze likeness of the god Ram</a> planned for Uttar Pradesh state will soon surpass the Statue of Unity in size. And in Mumbai construction has been halted on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/14/india-to-break-record-for-worlds-largest-statue-twice">695-foot-tall likeness of the medieval Hindu warrior Shivaji</a>, pending the results of an <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/shivaji-memorial-after-supreme-court-notice-pwd-asks-contractor-to-stop-work-5540490/">environmental review</a>.</p>
<p>Guinness World Records also recently judged Tamil Nadu state’s 112-foot depiction of the face of the Hindu god <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/maha-shivratri-pm-modi-to-inaugurate-112-ft-shiva-statue-in-coimbatore-today/story-vxGITzzZoqu1N9yRAD4wXK.html">Shiva</a> as the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/adiyogi-shiva-statue-in-tamil-nadu-declared-largest-bust-by-guinness-world-records/set-the-record/slideshow/58681001.cms">world’s largest bust statue</a>. </p>
<p>All this is happening under Modi, who is up for re-election in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/asia/india-election-what-to-know-intl/index.html">monthlong general elections that start on April 11</a>. </p>
<p>He was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/narenda-modi-bjp-sweep-power-indian-elections">voted into office in 2014 on a platform</a> of “development for all.” Promising to boost the economy in a country where nearly 22% of people live in poverty and millions <a href="https://www.globalhungerindex.org/india.html">go hungry</a>, Modi and the BJP won an historic parliamentary majority over the center-left Indian National Congress, its main competitor.</p>
<p>Since then, India has improved in international “<a href="https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/behind-indias-leap-in-ease-of-doing-business/article25469900.ece">ease of doing business</a>” rankings, passing regulations that improve commerce and the protection of property rights. </p>
<p>But some of Modi’s boldest moves to improve cash flow and boost public revenues, including a <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/india-after-goods-and-services-tax-hundreds-of-thousands-lose-jobs-small-businesses-shut-down-1.2275204">2017 tax reform initiative</a> and a ban on <a href="https://theconversation.com/modis-bank-note-ban-has-inflicted-pointless-suffering-on-indias-poorest-69157">saving in certain high-value currencies</a>, have failed. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/asia/india-unemployment-rate.html">Unemployment</a> has risen under BJP rule, <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/rural-distress-deepens-wage-growth-dips-non-farm-jobs-hit-5619766/">particularly in rural areas</a>, and the national economy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/30/india-demonetisation-drive-fails-uncover-black-money">suffered during the “demonetization” process</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last five years, under Modi’s administration, India has also seen a startling rise of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-violent-toll-of-hindu-nationalism-in-india">Hindu vigilante violence</a>. </p>
<h2>Indian vigilante ‘cow killings’</h2>
<p>The attacks – often called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/holy-cow-as-hindu-nationalism-surges-in-india-cows-are-protected-but-minorities-not-so-much-76632">cow protection</a>” – are sometimes deadly assaults that target Muslims and other Indians who, unlike many Hindus, do not consider cows to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/hinduism-and-its-complicated-history-with-cows-and-people-who-eat-them-80586">sacred</a>. </p>
<p>Hindu militants <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/cow-vigilantes-in-india-killed-at-least-44-people-report-finds">killed at least 44 Indians and injured 280 in about 100 attacks</a> between May 2015 and December 2018, according to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/18/india-vigilante-cow-protection-groups-attack-minorities">the international not-for-profit Human Rights Watch</a>. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-politics-religion-cows/">Most of the dead were Muslims</a> in states run by Modi’s political party.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/world/asia/narendra-modi-indias-leader-condemns-vigilante-cow-protection-groups.html">prime minister and his BJP have faced criticism</a> for being slow to condemn anti-Muslim violence and for <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/12/05/bulandshahr-yogi-adityanath-wants-action-against-cow-slaughter-but-silent-on-cops-killers_a_23608835/">prioritizing legislation to safeguard cows, not the victims of vigilantism</a>. Cow protection violence has also crippled India’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/world/india-cattle-trade-hindu-anti-muslim-cows-narendra-modi-a8453216.html">beef</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-politics-religion-insight/cattle-slaughter-crackdown-ripples-through-indias-leather-industry-idUSKBN1951OE">leather</a> industries, since they are primarily Muslim-run. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/11/asia/india-love-jihad-intl/index.html">Muslim men who date Hindu women</a> are another common target of vigilante violence, as are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-court-sedition/indian-police-charge-student-leader-nine-others-in-sedition-case-idUSKCN1P82A8">students</a>, <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/gauri-lankesh-killing.php">journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/12/scholars-who-study-hinduism-and-india-face-hostile-climate">academics</a> and artists perceived to be critical of Modi’s leadership. </p>
<p>The Hindu nationalists’ crusade against pluralism takes place even as the Modi administration cracks down on civil liberties. Between 2014 and 2016, <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/sedition-case-punishment-convictions-kanhaiya-kumar-jnu-5543891/">179 people were arrested</a> on charges of sedition for protests, critical blogs or anti-government posts on Facebook, according to government crime statistics. </p>
<h2>Fears of religious minority groups</h2>
<p>This is the cultural context that has Muslims worried over India’s statue-building spree.</p>
<p>The BJP is not the first party to build public monuments celebrating only one segment of Indian society.</p>
<p>From 2007 to 2012, a top politician named Mayawati built numerous memorials and parks across Uttar Pradesh state commemorating <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-18394914">leaders from India’s marginalized Dalit class</a>, formerly known as the “untouchables.” Mayawati, a Dalit, commissioned statues of herself, her political mentor Kanshi Ram and other Dalit icons <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/ars/13441566.0044.006/--monumental-pride-mayawatis-memorials-in-lucknow?rgn=main;view=fulltext">who fought against India’s caste system</a>. </p>
<p>It was the first time such grand homage had been paid to the Dalit leaders who crusaded against India’s deep-rooted caste system.</p>
<p>But the <a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/mayawati-memorials-cost-rs-5919-cr-says-lda/951755/">US$800 million</a> price invited scrutiny, and the courts have asked Mayawati <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/mayawati-has-to-pay-for-statues-supreme-court/articleshow/67897118.cms">to repay</a> some of those funds. </p>
<p>India’s election commission also insisted that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-16464502">Mayawati’s statues be shrouded ahead of state elections in 2012</a>, saying the visibility of the then-chief minister and her party symbol might sway voters. </p>
<p>In contrast, resistance to India’s giant new statues has been muted. And Hindu nationalists are pushing for more public commemoration of their faith. </p>
<p>In November 2018, tens of thousands of Hindus gathered to demand the construction of a Hindu temple <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46318505">in the Indian city of Ayodhya</a> – at the same spot where, in 1992, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/07/world/hindu-militants-destroy-mosque-setting-off-a-new-crisis-in-india.html">Hindu zealots demolished an ancient Muslim-built mosque</a>. </p>
<p>The proposal to build instead an enormous statue of Ram in Ayodhya is widely seen as an effort to placate Hindu nationalists in their decades-long quest for a Ram temple.</p>
<p>Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that destroyed the ancient mosque, some local Muslims <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/ayodhya-muslims-india-hindu-nationalists-sunday-violence-a8650166.html">fled the city</a> last November.</p>
<h2>Indian elections</h2>
<p>Indians will decide whether to give Modi another five years when they vote this spring in the <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/india-elects-2019">world’s biggest election</a>.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://indianexpress.com/elections/pm-modis-popularity-back-to-peak-levels-on-air-strike-survey-says-5662728/">polls</a> show Modi and his BJP leading in a race in which several competitor parties have allied to defeat him. </p>
<p>The prime minister’s public approval got a <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/post-pulwama-pm-narendra-modis-ratings-rise-by-7-to-52-poll/articleshow/68350217.cms">7% boost</a>, to 52%, after India’s brief but sharp escalation of recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/kashmir-conflict-is-not-just-a-border-dispute-between-india-and-pakistan-112824">tension with neighboring Pakistan</a>, a majority Muslim state.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-election/india-to-go-to-polls-from-april-11-pakistan-tension-may-boost-modi-idUSKBN1QR0FD">Border disputes</a> are a classic move for a strongman leader during election season. Paying homage to Hindu nationalist icons in the form of giant public monuments, however, is something different. Modi is transforming secular India, one statue at a time.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Two citations have been added to this piece to acknowledge the scholarship of Kajri Jain.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indulata Prasad received funding from the American Institute of Indian Studies for her research on land rights and India's Dalits. </span></em></p>Colossal public monuments to Hinduism are going up across India, sending an ominous message to the country’s 260 million religious minorities.Indulata Prasad, Assistant Professor, Women and Gender Studies, School of Social Transformation, Tempe Campus, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/878902017-12-05T12:06:03Z2017-12-05T12:06:03ZNigeria set to pass a law against mob lynching. Will it make a difference?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197149/original/file-20171130-30912-1oofw4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerians don't trust the police and often resort to mob justice. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Ole, ole!” (thief, thief!) is all that needs to be shouted in Nigeria before large crowds gather to beat, and often burn, the accused to death. Although there are no official statistics on the prevalence of mob lynching in Nigeria – referred to as jungle justice – media reports suggest it’s a regular occurrence. A 2014 <a href="http://www.noi-polls.com/root/index.php?pid=293&ptid=1&parentid=66">survey </a>revealed that 43% of Nigerians had personally witnessed a lynch mob attack.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/vigilantism-is-flourishing-in-nigeria-with-official-support-86867">some Nigerian vigilante groups</a> holding the potential for success, execution style jungle justice clearly poses a threat to the rule of law and due process. The brutality of the methods used, and the fact that victims may be innocent and merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, has led to <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/jungle-justice-disregard-rule-law/">widespread condemnation</a>. But the perpetrators are rarely arrested and prosecuted. In fact, security officials themselves are sometimes implicated in <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/08/nigeria-recorded-40-extra-judicial-killings-2016-rights-group/">extrajudicial killings</a>.</p>
<p>A new bill being put through the Nigerian parliament aims to change this. The anti-mob lynching act recently <a href="http://www.nassnig.org/document/download/9065">passed its second reading in the Senate</a>. It now needs to clear a third reading before being signed off and passed into law. This is expected to happen in the new year.</p>
<h2>The extent of jungle justice</h2>
<p>Alleged offences that draw mob lynching in Nigeria range from serious crimes such as murder, armed robbery, rape and kidnapping, to petty theft, homosexuality, blasphemy and even witchcraft. </p>
<p>A case that shocked the country involved the necklacing of four male students from the University of Port Harcourt - known as the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/26/world/africa/nigeria-mob-justice-duthiers/index.html">Aluu four</a> - in 2012. After being falsely accused of theft, the four had tyres doused in gasoline thrown around them and set on fire. The incident took place in Aluu, Rivers State in south Nigeria. </p>
<p>The brutal attack was filmed and circulated on social media, drawing widespread condemnation from the public. This led to the arrest of 12 people, and three, including a police officer, were subsequently <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/aluu-four-police-sergeant-2-others-sentenced-death/">sentenced to death</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, in 2016, a homosexual was <a href="https://www.nigerianbulletin.com/threads/7-most-gruesome-jungle-justice-cases-in-2016-photos.226510/">beaten to death</a> in the south west Ondo State, and nine people were <a href="https://www.nigerianbulletin.com/threads/7-most-gruesome-jungle-justice-cases-in-2016-photos.226510/">burnt alive</a> in Zamfara State in the north west for insulting Prophet Muhammad. A man was <a href="http://dailypost.ng/2016/11/08/man-lynched-stealing-motorcycle-ebonyi/">lynched in Ebonyi State</a>, south east Nigeria, over the theft of a motorcycle.</p>
<p>Mob lynchings have continued to appear in the news this year. Lagos has been featured regularly, with <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21712099-why-criminals-prefer-cops-mob-suspects-are-beaten-and-burned-jungle">several incidents</a> linked to alleged theft and kidnapping. Widespread fear over the Badoo cult saw numerous accusations of witchcraft <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/ikorodu-residents-on-edge-over-attack-by-badoo-gang/">resulting in deadly jungle justice</a>.</p>
<p>Children are not excluded from the horrors of mob lynching. In 2015, a child said to be <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/lynching-7-yr-old-boy-residents-fume-want-perpetrators-brought-book/">as young as 7 </a> was necklaced, again in Lagos, for attempting to steal garri (cassava flour) from a trader. Young children <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooXBMU_06vg">accused of witchcraft</a> are also often targeted, sometimes by their own families.</p>
<p>This is not a complete list; Nigerians often resort to mob lynching as they view the police and judicial system as <a href="http://www.noi-polls.com/root/index.php?pid=293&ptid=1&parentid=66">corrupt and inefficient</a>.</p>
<h2>So what does the new bill aim to do?</h2>
<p>The nature of mob violence can make it difficult to charge offenders under the laws that cover murder and assault. The <a href="http://www.placbillstrack.org/upload/SB109.pdf">new bill</a> seeks to change that. It defines lynching as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offence. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Alongside lynching, the bill covers mob action that results in severe bodily harm, and riotous assembly causing destruction of property. A person found guilty of instigating any of these three criminal offences will be punished by imprisonment for life or not less than 25 years. </p>
<p>The bill stipulates that a security officer who fails to make reasonable efforts to prevent an attack, or to apprehend a perpetrator, will be punished by up to five years imprisonment or face a fine of up to N500,000 (USD$1400). A security officer who takes part in, or conspires to an extrajudicial attack, would be guilty of a capital offence. Those who have failed at prevention would be subject to dismissal and 15 years imprisonment.</p>
<p>These punishments could act as an excellent deterrent. However, the success of the bill will depend on police and judicial implementation. A legal system unable to deal with crime resulting in jungle justice may be unable or unwilling to prosecute the latter. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the emphasis on security officer complicity is promising, and formal recognition will allow tracking and prevention.</p>
<h2>A global problem</h2>
<p>Mob lynching is not unique to Nigeria, nor to Africa. Nigeria is also not the first country to try and pass an anti-lynching bill. </p>
<p>Up until the mid-1900’s, <a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/">African-Americans</a> were commonly lynched in southern USA. Attempts were made to pass the <a href="http://www.naacp.org/oldest-and-boldest/naacp-history-anti-lynching-bill/">Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill</a>, but it was always halted by Southern congressmen in the Senate. In 2005, the Senate <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/politics/senate-issues-apology-over-failure-on-lynching-law.html">formally apologised</a> for this failure.</p>
<p>More recently, after a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/27/india-cow-protection-spurs-vigilante-violence">spate of vigilantism</a> in India, the country has pushed for an a new <a href="http://stopmoblynching.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Masuka-05072017-PK.pdf">Protection from Lynching Act</a>, referred to as MaSuKa. This would make lynching a specific, non-bailable offence, punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment and a fine of 5 lakh (USD$7770).</p>
<p>The MaSuKa also compels security officers to preemptively identify attacks and to intervene without delay. Failure to do so would result in discharge and punishment for dereliction of duty. When a lynching does happen, a charge must be laid within three months or a review committee will investigate, and the respective state must compensate the victim’s family.</p>
<p>Although the proposed new law has support from 11 of India’s political parties, the ruling <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/india-epidemic-mob-lynching-170706113733914.html">Bharatiya Janata Party has complicated its passing</a> in parliament.</p>
<p>Conversely, there is little doubt that Nigeria’s anti-mob lynching bill will be passed. With police and judicial support, it could provide an important precedent for countries struggling with mob lynching and official indifference.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigeria is on the verge of passing a law to criminalise rampant mob lynching. Other countries have tried to do this and failed.Leighann Spencer, PhD Candidate in Criminology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/832872017-09-26T00:16:41Z2017-09-26T00:16:41ZWill outlawing ‘instant divorce’ advance justice for Muslim women in India?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187445/original/file-20170925-17421-hat5nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists protesting against the recently banned triple divorce.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Altaf Qadri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court of India <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/asia/india-muslim-divorce-triple-talaq.html?mcubz=0&_r=0">recently struck down</a> a specific divorce practice among its minority Muslims. The age-old practice known as “triple talaq” allowed a Muslim man to dissolve his marriage by uttering the term divorce three times, all at once.</p>
<p>As a scholar who has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/politicizing-islam-9780190225247?cc=us&lang=en&">conducted research among Muslim communities in India</a>, I have seen firsthand how the abuse of this practice resulted in devastating consequences for Muslim women in India. In recent years, some men, for example, were divorcing their wives over Skype or a phone app. Many women <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/10/india-muslim-women-fight-triple-talaq-law-instant-divorce">found themselves abandoned</a>, without any access to financial resources and in some cases custody of their children.</p>
<p>India came to this decision late after predominantly Muslim countries such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-agODQAAQBAJ&pg=PA302&dq=pakistan+talaq+biddat&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_gffIisHWAhXHJCYKHQz2BBIQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q=talaq&f=false">Pakistan</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=tQIxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA32&dq=iran+talaq&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEr9PHi8HWAhXCQiYKHfPlD-IQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=talaq&f=false">Iran</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=gZU0jbXt5MkC&pg=PA205&dq=indonesia+talaq&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUm9q1i8HWAhWILyYKHcuVC9AQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=indonesia%20talaq&f=false">Indonesia</a> and <a href="http://library.umac.mo/ebooks/b28020686.pdf">several Arab nations</a> had outlawed the practice in the 20th century. And controversially so. Even now, perhaps most fundamentally, the question remains – what difference will it actually make?</p>
<h2>Divorce in Islam</h2>
<p>Divorce in Islam is regulated by <a href="http://14.139.60.114:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/34741/1/014_Understanding%20Islamic%20Law%20in%20India%20An%20Assessment%20of%20the%20Contribution%20of%20Justice%20V.R%20Krishna%20Lyer%20a%20Tribute%20%28307-332%29.pdf">a number of considerations and responsibilities</a>. According to the principles of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-sharia-law-means-five-questions-answered-79325">sharia</a>, or Islamic law, the recommended practices are to have two witnesses to the decision to end the marriage, hear both sides, allow time to reflect and reconcile, and carefully handle matters of property.</p>
<p>The process is not cut and dried, but is instead based on mediation, facilitated by an Islamic judge. These judges try to abide by principles of Islamic law and take into account the unique circumstances and life situations of all parties. For example, in some divorces women retain the “mehr,” which is the money the husband agrees to gift the bride at the time of marriage. In others, she is expected to return the gift upon divorce.</p>
<p>Still, the procedures differ significantly between men and women. Men have the right to declare “talaq” and thus end the marriage, although they are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PsB5LY2Now0C&source=gbs_book_other_versions">required to take three months</a> before finalizing their decision. </p>
<p>When a Muslim woman wants to <a href="http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Lemons_berkeley_0028E_10699.pdf">initiate a divorce based on Islamic law</a>, she generally must turn to an Islamic judge or imam (leader) to assist her if the husband refuses his consent. </p>
<p>There are many possible justifications under Islamic law: A woman might claim her husband prevents her from being pious or that he has abandoned or neglected her. It could also be that the husband is impotent, has other health issues or is in prison. I have also seen divorce granted on the <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/socio-legal-studies/muslim-womens-quest-justice-gender-law-and-activism-india?format=HB#dI2R6A1vD0zHIz0Y.97">grounds of cruelty</a>. Islamic judges can even annul the marriage on certain grounds.</p>
<p>In sum, women have ways to seek divorce under Islamic law. But unlike men, they cannot unilaterally make a binding decision to end the marriage. </p>
<p>In the debates that led up to the Indian Supreme Court ruling many Muslim activists and intellectuals argued that the practice of instant divorce by the husband <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/instant-triple-talaq-has-no-quran-sanction-muslim-women-board/articleshow/58651914.cms">did not exist in the Quran</a> and is therefore not a practice that should fall under religious freedom. The <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/supreme-court-strikes-down-triple-talaq-deems-it-against-tenets-of-islam/story-MG91Nll4c5KDOUkaFVsHEL.html">majority opinion</a> on the court accepted this argument that triple talaq, in which the word “talaq” is said all at once, is not a truly Islamic practice. </p>
<h2>Status of religious minorities</h2>
<p>So why did it take so long to rule against this practice in India? </p>
<p>While India is a secular country, the rights of minority communities such as Muslims and Christians to <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21588">practice their religious laws</a> in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody and adoption are constitutionally protected.</p>
<p>In view of this protection, any attempt by the government to interfere in religious law and community matters is viewed as a violation of minority rights and a threat to freedom. For example, in 1985, when a Muslim woman, Shah Bano, filed a petition in court demanding the right to alimony from her divorced husband, the case became <a href="http://southasia.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/shared/events/2008_Indian_Democracy/Agnes-FromShahbano2Kausar.pdf">highly political and controversial</a>. Muslim leaders demanded that the government <a href="https://feminisminindia.com/2017/04/21/revisiting-shah-bano-judgement/">not interfere in “personal” and religious matters</a>.</p>
<p>Today, Muslims have even more cause to worry about interference in their communities. Since the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6652.html">Hindu nationalist movement</a> has become emboldened. Hindu nationalism promotes the political domination of “ancient” Hindu culture over all other cultures in India. For example, in the name of protecting the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hinduism-and-its-complicated-history-with-cows-and-people-who-eat-them-80586">sacredness of cows and Hindu tradition</a>, there have been many cow vigilante groups, who have <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/27/india-cow-protection-spurs-vigilante-violence">attacked minority Muslims</a> for eating beef. </p>
<p>For this reason, even progressive legal changes like banning instant divorce were <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/owaisi-differs-on-triple-talaq-verdict-calls-it-contentious-slams-bjp-117082200839_1.html">viewed by some Muslim leaders</a> as one small step in a larger attack on religious minorities. </p>
<h2>Where are Muslim women’s voices?</h2>
<p>The other issue is who speaks on behalf of the Muslim community. Muslims constitute 14 percent of India’s population and are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=MKIT9muBRuoC&pg=PT16&lpg=PT16&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false">enormously diverse.</a> However, it is the self-appointed Muslim leaders who have been the most vocal on the issue, saying that the government <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/aimplb-for-large-scale-community-reforms-to-discourage-instant-talaq/articleshow/60454787.cms">should not intervene</a> in Muslim family laws. </p>
<p>India does not demand official representatives of the Muslim community, as do some other countries, such as <a href="https://www.world-religion-watch.org/index.php/events-seminars-conferences-symposii/symp-state-of-belief/216-belief-public-policies-ff">France</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/knocking-on-europes-door-islam-in-italy/">Italy</a>. </p>
<p>Consequently, Muslim women’s groups have been struggling to be heard in these debates. </p>
<h2>Condition of Muslim women in India</h2>
<p>For many reasons, it is not clear how much the court ruling will improve women’s overall lives. </p>
<p><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/understanding-context-of-sc-ruling-on-triple-talaq-divorce-rate-of-muslim-women-is-thrice-that-of-men-4810719/">Divorce appears to be lower among Muslim women</a> than among women of other religious communities. The <a href="http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-series/c-3.html">divorce rate</a> (based on the number of divorces per 1000 married women) is just over 5 percent for Muslim women, lower than the rate for Christian and Buddhist women. </p>
<p>Moreover, as women’s rights lawyer <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/flavia-agnes">Flavia Agnes</a> argued, there have already been <a href="http://www.epw.in/engage/article/triple-talaq-muslim-womens-rights-and-media-coverage">a number of legal cases</a> that effectively declared instant divorce invalid. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187441/original/file-20170925-17421-10cz036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim women in India are dealing with a large number of challenges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is also important to note that <a href="http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/sachar_comm.pdf">Muslim women are dealing with a large number of challenges.</a> These include widespread poverty, lack of access to education and an illiteracy rate of almost 40 percent in urban areas and over 50 percent in rural areas. (These percentages can vary widely across India.) Muslim women have the <a href="http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/sachar_comm.pdf">lowest rate of primary school completion</a> compared to other groups, at 71 percent in urban areas and 48 percent in rural areas. </p>
<p>Arbitrary divorce is therefore only one of the injustices Indian Muslim women face. </p>
<p>Furthermore, while many Muslim women may want and need internal reforms in their communities, they are uncomfortable in courts and also have reasons to <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/muslims-in-indian-cities/">distrust the state</a>. There are cases of <a href="http://twocircles.net/2017jul10/412735.html">police abuses</a> against Muslims, with <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Ggul4ceD4lEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=Muslims%20india&f=false">rates of incarceration</a> being higher compared to other communities. </p>
<p>In my own research among <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/politicizing-islam-9780190225247?cc=us&lang=en&">low-income Muslim communities in the Indian city of Hyderabad</a>, people did not think government intervention would really improve their lives. They also feared it would undermine their religious autonomy. </p>
<p>Often, women look for local solutions before approaching civil courts. In one low-income neighborhood <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/politicizing-islam-9780190225247?cc=us&lang=en&">I studied</a>, a group of activists worked with Islamic judges to help women in situations of marital crisis or domestic violence secure a divorce or claim their financial rights in the aftermath of divorce. Activists told me that developing supportive relationships with these judges resulted in faster, easier and less costly resolution of family conflicts than going through civil courts. </p>
<p>While legal advancement is important and ensuring fairness in divorce is something to celebrate, it is but one small step toward a greater vision of gender justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Z. Fareen Parvez received funding from the New Directions in the Study of Prayer at the Social Science Research Council; the National Science Foundation; the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; and the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Institute of International Studies.</span></em></p>Muslim women in India struggle with a host of challenges, such as widespread poverty and lack of access to education. Arbitrary divorce was only one of many injustices.Z. Fareen Parvez, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/815712017-08-26T08:58:54Z2017-08-26T08:58:54ZIndia at 70: after the celebrations, single-party dominance menaces democracy<p>Seventy years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous “<a href="http://nehrumemorial.nic.in/en/galleries/audio-gallery/46-tryst-with-destiny-midnight-1947/detail/388-tryst-with-destiny-midnight-1947.html?tmpl=component">Tryst with Destiny</a>” speech not only marked India’s independence from British rule but also expressed the vision for a united, democratic, egalitarian and modern country.</p>
<p>Not long after, that vision of the India’s first prime minister, as well as the values that guided the freedom struggle, was written in the constitution that Indians gave themselves. That constitution, its principles and the robust institutional architecture it put in place, helped India weather multiple challenges over the years. </p>
<p>Now the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears is determined to <a href="https://thewire.in/37866/the-bjp-wants-to-erase-nehru-lets-see-what-india-would-have-been-without-him/">erase Nehru’s legacy</a>. To get the better of its political rivals and consolidate itself, the BJP has manipulated national institutions to short-circuit competition, undermine and even exclude its challengers. </p>
<p>In 2014, the BJP promised a radical rupture from the incumbent Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance-II (UPA-II) and rode to power on the sentiment that “<a href="http://www.oneindia.com/india/achche-din-aane-wale-hain-manmohan-was-behind-narendra-modi-bjp-slogan-1689393.html">good days are just ahead</a>”. From 2009 to 2014, the UPA-II government was marked by not just by economic downturn and sluggish policymaking but also <a href="http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/12/web-exclusives/decline-congress-party-indian-politics.html">cronyism and corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Today, under the premiership of Narendra Modi, the optimism of 2014 is fast evaporating as an “its my way or the highway” mode of governance shows a culture of one-party dominance violating both standard operating procedures and “dharma” – right conduct in the exercise of duty in Hindu philosophy – to get the better of its political rivals. </p>
<h2>Dharma lost</h2>
<p>It was presumed by some that the BJP’s experience in the states and as the main opposition party for more than a decade would have given it a more magnanimous perspective. With its massive mandate and its quest for recognition, it was imagined the party would show greater generosity to its opponents as well as respect for the moral values embedded in the constitution. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181010/original/file-20170804-1730-1e0kxug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dharma is the right conduct in the exercise of duty: ‘Dharma Wheel’ at the Sun temple, Konark, Orissa, February 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/%272%27_Dharma_Wheel%2C_The_Wheel_of_Life_at_Sun_Temple_Konark%2C_Orissa_India_February_2014.jpg">Ramnath Bhatt/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the major election campaign planks of the BJP in 2014 was cooperative federalism. The issue of centre-state relations has been a core factor in the politics of the states beyond Hindi speaking areas of north and central India. The states anticipated a better deal since, as chief minister from 2002 to 2014 in western India’s Gujarat, Modi was highly critical of the functioning of the central government and even blogged of the “<a href="http://www.narendramodi.in/co-operative-not-coercive-federalism-for-strong-republic-3053">systematic disruption of our country’s federal structure both in letter and spirit</a>.” </p>
<p>In power, however, his party, like the Congress in the past, has proved to be a “<a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/reluctant-federalists/939434/0">reluctant federalist</a>.” When in the opposition, the BJP was critical of Congress and its <a href="http://www.bjp.org/hi/national-executive-2015/2006/political-resolution-15">use of governors</a> as instruments of the ruling party. However, within a month in office, the NDA-II government threw federal niceties out of the window and <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/NDA-government-nudges-7-governors-to-quit-one-refuses/articleshow/36677778.cms">replaced the UPA-II appointed-governors</a> with its own.</p>
<h2>Controlling states</h2>
<p>Over the last three years, the central government has unhesitatingly <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/article-356-use-misuse/">used Article 356,</a> an emergency provision in the constitution that puts a state directly under the centre, via the office of the <a href="https://thewire.in/117542/modis-governors-goa-manipur/">governor</a> and the centre’s administrative and financial muscle, to further the party’s <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/arunachal-pradesh-verdict-nabam-tuki-harish-rawat-uttarakhand-president-rule-supreme-court-modi-government-2914435/">partisan ends</a>. </p>
<p>States such as <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bjp-forms-government-in-arunachal-pradesh-with-33-ppa-mlas-joining-it/articleshow/56271718.cms">Arunachal Pradesh</a>, <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/presidents-rule-in-uttarakhand-revoked-upbeat-congress-looks-at-early-elections-2795918/">Uttarakhand</a>, <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/tripura-gov-reads-house-speech-with-party-lens-on-skips-parts-that-slam-centre-4530928/">Tripura</a>, <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/politics/vidyasagar-raos-role-in-tamil-nadu-turmoil-shows-why-we-need-to-abolish-governors-post-3304888.html">Tamil Nadu</a>, <a href="http://www.ptinews.com/news/8903755_Nagaland-Governor-played-a-partisan-role--NPF.html">Nagaland</a>, <a href="https://www.thequint.com/politics/2016/12/23/struggle-for-power-a-timeline-of-najeeb-jung-arvind-kejriwal-feud-over-delhi-chief-minister-lt-governor">Delhi</a>, and <a href="https://www.thequint.com/politics/2017/04/06/turf-war-silently-brewing-in-puducherry-between-kiran-bedi-and-v-narayanasamy">Puducherry</a>, proved to be sitting ducks for central meddling. These intrusions are gross violations of the federal spirit and are not good exemplars of cooperative federalism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181012/original/file-20170804-27459-v3bh15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modi masks sold during the 2014 BJP campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/44895654@N04/13143191555/">Subhankar Kenny Sahu/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Arunachal Pradesh, for instance, the governor convened a meeting of the state legislative assembly <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/arunachal-impasse-sc-starts-examining-powers-of-governor/story-DttQLgBzZ72bY5brRq7EtK.html">without consulting</a> the government, in which only BJP and rebel Congress legislators participated. In Uttarakhand, the central government <a href="https://thewire.in/30749/political-parties-react-to-uttarakhand-hc-order-quashing-imposition-of-presidents-rule/">imposed Art. 356</a> just a day before the chief minister was to assert his majority in the assembly. In both cases, the BJP had encouraged defectors to topple the ruling Congress governments.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://interstatecouncil.nic.in/">Inter-state Council</a> (ISC), a constitutional forum for inter-governmental engagement met more <a href="http://interstatecouncil.nic.in/isc-meetings/">frequently</a> when state-based parties called the shots rather than when the Congress or the BJP dominated. Though Modi has hailed the ISC as the “<a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=147149">most significant platform for strengthening centre-state relations</a>”, his government chose not to use it as a platform to involve the states in national-level decision making. </p>
<h2>Parliament undermined</h2>
<p>The BJP’s attempts to manoeuvre to a position of strength and checkmate the opposition has also undermined parliament. For instance, the NDA-II introduced a potentially institution-weakening step by <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/parliament-passes-aadhaar-bill-amid-acrimonious-debates/article8361992.ece">passing</a> a <a href="http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/the-aadhaar-targeted-delivery-of-financial-and-other-subsidies-benefits-and-services-bill-2016-4202/">controversial</a> bill in a way that allowed it to bypass the opposition – this was contrary to the <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/privacy-after-aadhaar-money-bill-rajya-sabha-upa/">spirit of the constitution</a> and serves merely to further corrode government-opposition relations.</p>
<p>Finally, over the last three years, the government has been <a href="https://thewire.in/78534/creeping-erosion-free-expression/">intolerant</a> of criticism and has often “shot the messenger” while ignoring the message. Unfavourable judgements of <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/those-opposing-demonetisation-anti-national-maharashtra-cm-devendra-fadnavis/story-GnzwQDV5eitcBVVtJbSEnK.html">public policy</a> and functionaries as well as <a href="http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/270217/ramjas-row-cong-imposed-emergency-now-preaches-free-speech-bjp-lashes-out.html">positions</a> that oppose those of ruling cadre are often interpreted as a <a href="https://thewire.in/76919/bhopal-prison-break-all-8-killed-in-encounter/">threat to the nation</a>. </p>
<p>On different occasions, party spokespersons, as well as government ministers, have sought to restrain the right to free speech in the name of preserving national security.</p>
<p>For instance, when student groups on certain university campuses took a position on armed struggles that was contrary to the government stand, they were dubbed as <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/university-unrest-national-security-at-risk-says-minister-venkaiah-naidu/articleshow/57458701.cms">anti-national</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5qviGF5y0mM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar upon release from jail, February 2016.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The government, <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/opposition-flays-raids-on-ndtv-promoter-prannoy-roy-govt-says-law-taking-its-course/story-VYiR69vOikyZXIkcYMShgJ.html">directly</a> and <a href="https://thewire.in/160030/nikhil-wagle-quits-tv9-popular-tv-show-dropped-due-political-pressure/">indirectly</a>, has been extremely critical of media organisations and individuals who have not toed the government line.</p>
<p>Bypassing the opposition, curbing the freedom of expression, violating the rights of states can at best win pyrrhic victories. There are certain obligations for rulers in office and to not follow those canons is a corruption of the terms of office. Constitutions are negotiated constraints designed to serve particular purposes and produce specific results. It is normal that not everybody is happy with the existing arrangements. Dharma ,however, demands that you work within the institutional logic. To ignore the complexity and subtlety and invent practices that undermine the institutional order violates the spirit of the constitution: the bedrock of this democracy celebrating seven decades of independence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kailash Kunhi Krishnan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>India’s institutional architecture is been trampled over by the BJP in its attempt to get the better of its political rivals.Kailash Kunhi Krishnan, Associate professor, University of HyderabadLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830242017-08-24T23:00:13Z2017-08-24T23:00:13ZWorth reading in the Trump era: Nuclear nightmares, authoritarianism and climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183380/original/file-20170824-18715-1200hm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=544%2C241%2C2436%2C1519&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Assumptions, authoritarianism and errors are just a few of the ways in which the world could be confronted by a nuclear disaster, physicist and disarmament expert MV Ramana suggests in his book reviews.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/explosion-nuclear-bomb-over-city-410259007">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Conversation Canada asked our academic authors to share some recommended reading. In this instalment, MV Ramana, a nuclear physicist and disarmament expert who wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-nuclear-power-reactors-future-or-folly-81252">small nuclear reactors</a>, looks at a mix of new and recent books on nuclear disaster, weapons, authoritarianism and climate change.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183367/original/file-20170824-18715-id9cba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>My Nuclear Nightmare</em> by Naoto Kan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/Resources/titles/80140100930800/Images/80140100930800L.jpg">Handout</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30455027-my-%20nuclear-nightmare"><em>My Nuclear Nightmare</em></a></h2>
<p><em>Leading Japan Through the Fukushima Disaster to a Nuclear-Free Future</em></p>
<p>By Naoto Kan. Translated from Japanese by Jeffrey S. Irish. (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Cornell University Press.) </p>
<p>On March 11, 2011, following a massive earthquake and tsunami, nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Japan, lost electrical power and all cooling systems stopped functioning. The malfunction led to meltdowns of three reactor cores, and multiple explosions involving hydrogen gas that were seen live around the world.</p>
<p>The resulting radioactive contamination spread over a large area, and forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people from their homes, many of whom still cannot return because their neighbourhoods continue to have unacceptably high levels of radiation. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are expected to develop fatal cancers as a result of exposure to radiation from the accident. </p>
<p>Naoto Kan was the prime minister of Japan during this critical period and this book, published in Japanese in 2012 and newly available in English, offers his inside perspective of how events unfolded at the highest levels. </p>
<p>Kan reveals how little even powerful individuals and institutions like him and the government can do in the face of a major nuclear accident. If a society like Japan that is so well-prepared for natural disasters like earthquakes is unable to deal with a severe nuclear accident like Fukushima, there is little doubt that no country would have been able to do much better. </p>
<p>Kan’s account is testimony of the prevalence of the safety myth: the comforting but illusionary idea that technology can prevent nuclear accidents. Sadly, that myth continues to prevail not just in Japan but in most countries that are operating or constructing nuclear power plants. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183368/original/file-20170824-24217-1qmrg69.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Command and Control</em> by Eric Schlosser.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/303337/command-and-control-by-eric-schlosser/9780143125785/">Handout</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452798-command-and-control"><em>Command and Control</em></a></h2>
<p><em>Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety</em></p>
<p>By Eric Schlosser (Non-fiction. Paperback, 2014. Penguin.)</p>
<p>The Damascus accident started when a missile technician dropped a socket from a socket-wrench while servicing a Titan II inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a silo in rural Arkansas. The socket hit the missile, puncturing its outer layer, causing a fuel leak that eventually sparked a powerful explosion that engulfed and propelled out of the silo the multi-megaton thermonuclear warhead. Fortunately, the warhead itself did not explode. </p>
<p>The Sept. 18, 1980, incident was just one of the many close calls involving nuclear weapons that the world has experienced. Going through these experiences, it’s hard to attribute the fact that there have been no accidental nuclear explosions to anything but blind luck. </p>
<p>Eric Schlosser, an award-winning American journalist and author, has produced a very readable account of accidents and near-misses, as well as the decades-long history of trying to control these risks through technological and institutional fixes. </p>
<p><em>Command and Control</em> reminds us of the extraordinary danger posed by the large nuclear arsenals possessed by many countries around the world — most importantly, the United States and Russia. </p>
<p>At a time when Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are trading aggressive rhetoric and increasing tensions in East Asia and elsewhere, this book raises a further warning: The mere existence of nuclear arsenals — even during periods of low political tension — brings with them the risk of nuclear weapon use, deliberately or inadvertently, along with horrendous consequences. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183369/original/file-20170824-23353-8n6uip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Unmaking the Bomb</em> by Harold A. Fieveson et al.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/9780262529723.jpg">Handout</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22104557-unmaking-the-bomb"><em>Unmaking the Bomb</em></a></h2>
<p><em>A Fissile Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation</em></p>
<p>By Harold A. Feiveson, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, Frank N. von Hippel (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2014. MIT Press.)</p>
<p>The threat of nuclear warfare with North Korea, thanks to the posturing by Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, makes me, like many others, ponder the question of how to rid the world of these hugely destructive weapons. </p>
<p>In contrast to proposals for nuclear disarmament that focus on diplomacy and international relations, this book by four physicists at Princeton University (my former colleagues) offers a more technical road map for nuclear disarmament: Namely, through the control and elimination of highly enriched uranium and plutonium — the fissile materials that are the essential ingredients of all nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>The connection is laid out in the introduction of the book: “If we are to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons, we must deal with the dangers posed by the production, stockpiling, and use of fissile materials. Unmaking the bomb requires eliminating the fissile materials that make nuclear weapons possible.”</p>
<p><em>Unmaking the Bomb</em> provides useful background material for the present crisis in East Asia by presenting some of the most reliable publicly available information on the nuclear facilities in North Korea and the United States (as well as the eight other countries confirmed to possess nuclear weapons) and the best independent estimates of their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. </p>
<p>It also reminds us that most nuclear programs grow by borrowing technology from other states, and that the acquisition of nuclear technology for supposedly civilian purposes can be a stepping stone to a nuclear weapons program. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183372/original/file-20170824-18740-1xabidb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism</em> by Achin Vanaik.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30805651-the-rise-of-hindu-authoritarianism"><em>The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism</em></a></h2>
<p><em>Secular Claims, Communal Realities</em></p>
<p>By Achin Vanaik (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Verso Books.)</p>
<p>The last few years have seen victories by right wing, authoritarian political parties and leaders in multiple countries. The same phenomenon in India, the “world’s largest democracy,” should be — and is — cause for worry. </p>
<p>In 1998, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power for the first time (if one discounts a brief stint in 1996), one of its earliest decisions was to test nuclear weapons, which has since led to well over a billion people living under a nuclear shadow. </p>
<p>The year before the BJP’s rise, Achin Vanaik’s book, <em>The Furies of Indian Communalism: Religion, Modernity, and Secularization</em>, was published. Vanaik — a writer, social activist, former professor at the University of Delhi, and Delhi-based fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam — has now updated and expanded that work significantly.</p>
<p>In this updated edition, he traces the transformation of the BJP from a relatively fringe position on the political spectrum to becoming the dominant national-level party replacing the Congress, and implanting itself and its ideology “in the country’s structures and institutions.” </p>
<p><em>The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism</em> not only explores in great detail the growing communalization of the political arena and civil society, it also delineates what an oppositional and transformative project might look like. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183370/original/file-20170824-18734-1q8521.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Great Derangement</em> by Amitav Ghosh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo22265507.html">Handout</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29362082-the-great-derangement"><em>The Great Derangement</em></a></h2>
<p><em>Climate Change and the Unthinkable</em></p>
<p>By Amitav Ghosh (Non-fiction. Cloth, 2016. University of Chicago Press.)</p>
<p>Climate change has rightly come to be seen as one of the greatest challenges — if not the single greatest challenge — confronting the world today. There is an endless stream of academic papers and books, reports by local, national and international bodies, newspaper stories and documentaries on the subject. And yet climate change has appeared only sparingly in the world of fiction and literature. </p>
<p>It is the curious absence of climate change in these latter genres that novelist and writer Amitav Ghosh explored in a series of lectures delivered at the University of Chicago, which were subsequently published in the form of this book.</p>
<p>Ghosh traces this literary absence to “peculiar forms of resistance that climate change presents to what is now regarded as serious fiction,” but then goes on to explore the histories of imperialism, colonialism and capitalism that have brought humanity to what he terms “the Great Derangement.” </p>
<p>Reading this book makes it clear, at least to me, that climate change is not a problem that can be dealt with through some clever technological inventions or some neat-looking financial instrument, but will require us to fundamentally reshape our economic, political and international structures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MV Ramana does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A nuclear physicist and disarmament expert recommends reading on nuclear disasters, weapons, authoritarianism and climate change.MV Ramana, Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/663632016-10-03T06:18:16Z2016-10-03T06:18:16ZWhat escalating Kashmir attacks tell us about Modi’s changing foreign policy<p>Simmering tensions between India and Pakistan in the disputed state of Kashmir appear to have flared up again with an <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37536349">attack by militants on an Indian camp</a> coming three days after India announced it had undertaken “<a href="http://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/27446/Transcript_of_Joint_Briefing_by_MEA_and_MoD_September_29_2016">surgical strikes</a>” against militants in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. </p>
<p>Since the 2014 election of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-origins-of-todays-hindu-nationalism-55092">Hindu nationalist</a> government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), there have been <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indiapakistan-diplomacy-a-pirouette-on-pakistan/article9136821.ece">several militant assaults</a> against Indian military targets in the state. </p>
<p>The deadliest attack in two decades took place on September 18, and reports at the time said <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37399969">at least 17 Indian soldiers</a> and all four attackers had been killed. India alleged the attack had been carried out by the Pakistan-based group <a href="https://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/jem.html">Jaish-e-Mohammad</a> (JEM). </p>
<p>The BJP’s <a href="http://www.bjp.org/manifesto2014">election manifesto</a> pledged “zero tolerance” for terrorism. And the party’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had condemned the 2004-2014 Congress Party-led government’s policy of “strategic restraint” toward militant attacks by Pakistan-backed groups.</p>
<p>Despite this, the government stuck to the Congress formula of responding with diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to clamp down on groups such as JEM. But this changed last week, when the Indian strikes signalled a change in approach from strategic restraint to limited, pre-emptive self-defence. </p>
<h2>The ongoing dispute</h2>
<p>The Kashmir conflict is the legacy of the subcontinent’s decolonisation and the partition of British India into a state for Muslims (East and West Pakistan), and the secular state of India in 1947. At the time, some 535 “princely states” that had treaties with the British Crown became independent and could choose to join either India or Pakistan. </p>
<p>Kashmir’s Hindu ruler signed <a href="http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/documents/instrument_of_accession.html">a treaty of accession</a> with India, but since the state has a Muslim majority, Pakistan has long claimed it as an essential part of the Pakistani nation.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan have fought several wars over Kashmir, including one in 1999 after both countries had become nuclear powers. The current de facto border dividing Kashmir into Pakistani and Indian-controlled regions – commonly known as the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/south_asia/03/kashmir_future/html/default.stm">Line of Control</a> – was established in 1972. It’s based on the ceasefire line resulting from Indian intervention in the war that led to the creation of Bangladesh in what had been East Pakistan. </p>
<p>But infiltration by Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups across the Line of Control <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/687021.stm">became common</a> in the 1990s as a separatist insurgency erupted in the Indian-controlled Kashmir. The uprising was fuelled by the Indian government’s unwillingness to uphold <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198074083.001.0001/acprof-9780198074083">Article 370 of the Indian Constitution</a>, which guarantees autonomy for the state. </p>
<p>The current spate of militant attacks appears to take advantage of a new wave of unrest <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36762043">following the killing of Kashmiri militant leader</a>, Burhan Wani, by Indian security forces on July 8. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37399969">More than 80 people</a>, mostly anti-government protesters, had been killed in the two months before the September 18 attack.</p>
<h2>Disrupted road to peace</h2>
<p>India and Pakistan came close to a negotiated solution to the Kashmir dispute during “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/02/the-back-channel">back channel</a>” talks that lasted from 2005 to 2008. </p>
<p>These talks, which focused on building economic and people-to-people links, along with India’s strategic restraint policy, were the result of then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s economics-focused foreign policy. <a href="http://archivepmo.nic.in/drmanmohansingh/speech-details.php?nodeid=102">Singh</a> believed that, in a globalised world, borders were less relevant and that a stable neighbourhood was necessary for India’s rise as an economic power.</p>
<p>But negotiations were suspended after the 2008 Mumbai attacks by the Pakistan-based group <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/790">Lashkar-e-Taiba</a>. The four-day <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-14662732">assault by ten members of the group</a> left 174 people dead and 308 wounded.</p>
<p>The Congress government responded to the Mumbai attacks with strategic restraint, focusing on diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to end its support of militant groups rather than using military force. Though <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/back-in-the-day-crossloc-hit-and-run-was-a-given/article9174532.ece?homepage=true">cross-border raids</a> by both the Indian and Pakistani armies continued after 2008, they went unacknowledged by the army. </p>
<h2>Balancing economics and militarism</h2>
<p>The Modi government has also placed economics at the centre of foreign policy. But important differences between the two governments reflect their disparate political ideologies and constituencies.</p>
<p>The Congress government was elected on a platform of “inclusive growth” that sought to address growing inequality. Its core voter base included the poor and minority groups. And its <a href="http://www.prembhatiatrust.com/lecture16.htm">foreign policy statements</a> often stressed its role in economic transformation and poverty alleviation within a <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/report/upa-brought-fundamental-reset-in-foreign-policy-pm/20131104.htm">framework</a> of secularism and pluralism.</p>
<p>Modi’s key political constituency in the state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister before becoming a national leader, was what he calls the “neo-middle classes”. These are <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/modi-of-the-middle-class/">newly urbanised, religious, and aspirational Indians</a>, whom <a href="http://www.narendramodi.in/our-sankalp-for-a-bhavya-and-divya-gujarat-3084">Modi</a> views as the future of India’s entrepreneurship-driven economic growth. </p>
<p>In the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto, this group was highlighted as a key group requiring special attention at a national level. The emphasis on India as an “aspiring leading power” that began to appear in <a href="http://thewire.in/6903/india-wants-to-be-a-leading-power-rather-than-just-a-balancing-power/">foreign policy statements</a> from 2015 reflects both Modi’s nationalism and his desire to appeal to this neo-middle class constituency.</p>
<h2>Strategic restraint to preemptive self-defence</h2>
<p>But Modi’s focus on markets and economic liberalisation has also led to divisions in the Hindu nationalist movement. The grassroots organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which finds its core support among the traditional Hindu nationalist constituency of small traders and farmers, has <a href="http://www.india.com/news/india/100-fdi-in-retail-is-anti-national-rss-affiliate-group-hits-out-at-narendra-modi-government-1274002/">opposed</a> several BJP policies that are seen as too much in favour of the corporate sector and foreign capital.</p>
<p>The BJP’s willingness to publicise the army’s latest cross-border raid signals an attempt to appeal to both the neo-middle class and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh by invoking traditional Hindu nationalist themes of teaching Pakistan “to behave”, as BJP leader <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/surgical-strikes-india-pkaistan-uri-attack-pathankot-attack-narendra-modi-nawaz-sharif-3056843/">Ram Madhav</a> has put it. </p>
<p>But the limited nature of the military response ensures the government’s economic priorities are not displaced, and that the international fall-out is not unmanageable. </p>
<p>This shift in policy is a significant gamble. As the latest attack on the Indian army camp shows, the government risks a serious escalation of violence if the Pakistani government and militant groups in that country respond with further attacks. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fighting-to-the-end-9780199892709?cc=us&lang=en&">fight for Kashmir</a> provides the glue for Pakistani nationalism. For this reason, neither the Congress Party’s approach of making borders irrelevant, nor a military response reliant on the threat of escalating force has previously worked to convince the Pakistani leadership to end its support to militants. </p>
<p>Ultimately, only a return to the negotiating table and addressing Kashmiri grievances is likely to achieve regional stability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priya Chacko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the latest attack on an Indian army camp shows, India’s shift in policy from strategic restraint to preemptive self-defence is a serious gamble.Priya Chacko, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638942016-08-17T10:13:44Z2016-08-17T10:13:44ZThe Dalits of India are finding new ways to fight the caste system<p>To mark India’s 70th year of independence on August 15 2016, the prime minister <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.in/independence-day-2016-live-updates-pm-modi-address-nation-red-fort-where-watch-live-updates-689906#UFVxjUVpbgKeIPhd.97">addressed the nation from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort</a>. Amid much pomp, his upbeat speech on the state of the nation was beamed across the country. </p>
<p>But it was the far less stately setting of a small coastal town in the Indian state of Gujarat which grabbed global attention. Tens of thousands of Dalits, the people at the bottom of India’s caste hierarchy, <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-huge-dalit-rally-in-una-caste-tension-seethes-19-injured-1444670?pfrom=home-lateststories">had gathered at Una</a>. It was the culmination of a remarkable <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-36936857">ten-day protest march</a> against their brutalisation at the hands of gau-rakshaks, the self-styled cattle vigilantes.</p>
<p>In July 2016 four Dalit men were <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/4-Dalits-stripped-beaten-up-for-skinning-dead-cow/articleshow/53184266.cms">flogged by cow vigilantes</a> in Una for skinning a dead cow, and falsely incriminated for killing it. The lynching incident was not an isolated development, and recent months have seen intensive mobilisation on the part of right-wing groups to polarise politics around the figure of the sacred cow, with what some consider the <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/india/dalits-vs-the-cow-bjp-caught-in-curious-man-animal-conflict-2927068.html">tacit consent</a> of the ruling <a href="http://www.bjp.org/">Bharatiya Janata Party</a> (BJP). </p>
<p>The cow emerged as a highly-charged object in the first year of BJP rule in 2014-15 when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34729894">people</a> were were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/opinion/sunday/manil-suri-a-ban-on-beef-in-india-is-not-the-answer.html?_r=0">subjected to violence for eating beef</a>. It is not surprising therefore that among those who joined Dalit protestors in Una were members of the Muslim community. </p>
<p>In creating the cow as the prime fetish object, the Hindu right may have originally targeted Muslims, but ended up by comprehensively alienating the Dalit communities. As a party striving for a unified Hindu community, the BJP’s “casteism” has only affirmed the position of the famous Dalit politician <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/b-r-ambedkar-indian-social-reformer-and-politician-honoured-with-a-google-doodle-10174529.html">Bhimrao Ambedkar</a>, 80 years ago. </p>
<p>A social reformer and architect of India’s independent constitution, he argued that due to the divisive principle of caste, the basic requirements of unity and cohesiveness in a society or nation were out of reach for the Hindus. </p>
<p>Caste is unsurprisingly then, the BJP’s Achille’s heel. But Dalits have felt completely alienated from most other political parties because of the fundamentally upper-caste dominance within them. Caste as an issue seems to be ignored and the upper-caste appear to be in denial about its impact. To many, it as if caste is just a rumour.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134333/original/image-20160816-13020-130im7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bspindia.org/">Bahujan Samaj Party</a> is the only Dalit mainstream political party that has an all-India presence. But the crowds have not gathered around its leader, preferring instead the simple unifying rallying cry of “Jai Bhim”, which means “Victory to Bhim”. It refers again to that heroic Dalit figure of Ambedkar and his bold and uncompromising views on the continuing place of Dalits categorically outside Hindu society. And it is these views which have provided different Dalit communities across India with strength and solidarity. </p>
<p>Equally, it has made Dalits even more wary of electoral politics. </p>
<p>Ambedkar tried to settle the social question of ritual hierarchy and inequality through legal enforcement and constitutional guarantees of compensatory positive discrimination. <a href="http://scroll.in/article/814003/jignesh-mevani-an-introduction-to-the-brilliant-face-of-the-gujarat-dalit-agitation">Jignesh Mevani</a>, the lawyer turned leader of the Una march is reluctant to call the agitation political, instead referring to it as a social movement. It is here you can see the Ambedkar imprint at its strongest. For him, political freedom was only one of three freedoms necessary in the pursuit of complete sovereignty, the other two being social and economic. </p>
<h2>A stronger voice</h2>
<p>Dalit assertion has grown in strength and scale in recent years. And it is remarkable in both its primary interest in the recognition of the violence Dalits face on the basis of their ritual status, and the Ambedkarite belief that no real change can take place within the framework of Hindu society itself. It is therefore crucial to move away from it. </p>
<p>At the UN-led World <a href="http://www.un.org/WCAR/durban.pdf">Conference Against Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban in 2001</a>, Dalits sought recognition of their plight and solidarity with those of anti-racism groups.</p>
<p>The mass gathering at Una is just one sign that a new era of Dalit politics is increasingly being recognised on its own terms in a thriving Dalit public sphere, on both real and virtual platforms. Organisations such as <a href="http://www.dalitcamera.com/">Dalit Camera</a> have played a crucial role in documenting the atrocities committed against the community. Publishers such as <a href="http://navayana.org/">Navayana</a> bring out literature “on caste from an anti-caste perspective”. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/suicide-of-dalit-student-sparks-rage-over-caste-discrimination-in-indian-universities-53653">Rohit Vemula</a>, a Dalit doctoral student whose suicide after relentless victimisation provoked widespread protests often used the hashtag #CasteIsNotARumour. Social media is now filled with hundreds of posts using this hashtag every day. It is an assertion which is only set to grow – and redefine India’s political society as it does so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kriti Kapila does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tens of thousands of Dalits protested against a lack of freedom – on India’s Independence Day.Kriti Kapila, Lecturer in Social Anthroplogy and Law , King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377012015-02-17T03:47:10Z2015-02-17T03:47:10ZThe honeymoon is over for India’s Modi, thanks to Delhi’s ‘AK-67’<p>A taste of the unpredictable, raucous world of Indian politics came to the Adelaide Oval as India played Pakistan in their Cricket World Cup showdown.</p>
<p>In front of me was an India supporter wearing a Modi mask. Party volunteers donning masks of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-man-who-dines-alone-26758">Narendra Modi</a> became ubiquitous in the election campaign that brought him to power last year. “Modi! Modi! You’re here?” shouted a man behind me, leading me to assume he was a fan of the controversial prime minister. </p>
<p>Minutes later, however, he shouted “Kejriwal! 67!” – a reference to the landslide victory of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-19796991">Arvind Kejriwal</a> and his Aam Aadmi (common man) Party (AAP) in this month’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2015">Delhi state election</a>, in which the AAP won 67 of the 70 seats.</p>
<p>Three men later walked past us wearing Gandhi topis (hats) emblazoned with the party’s name and slogan – a symbol worn by the AAP’s legions of volunteers. This prompted yells of:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>AAP! You won Delhi and now you’re here! I’m so glad to see you here! Kejriwal! 67!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Suddenly, thanks to the AAP’s unexpectedly sweeping victory, the dominant narrative of Indian politics has changed. Modi’s much-vaunted political “wave” in the 2014 national election has been brought to a grinding halt by a political upstart who had been <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/modi-targets-anarchist-kejriwal/article6775417.ece">dismissed as an “anarchist”</a> by Modi. Modi campaigned in Delhi for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and it lost 28 seats, retaining only three.</p>
<h2>A stunning twist on AAP’s rise and fall</h2>
<p>A former civil service officer and activist, Arvind Kejriwal is known affectionately by his supporters as “Muffler Man” for his penchant for wrapping his head in a muffler to ward off the cold during Delhi’s bitter winters.</p>
<p>Kejriwal’s AAP burst onto the Indian political scene in December 2013, tapping into growing disaffection over corruption to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2013">win enough seats</a> in the Delhi state election to head a minority government.</p>
<p>The party has attracted high-profile candidates and supporters. They include India’s leading human rights lawyer, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prashant_Bhushan">Prashant Bhushan</a>, activist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medha_Patkar">Medha Patkar</a>, social scientists <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogendra_Yadav">Yogendra Yadav</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajmohan_Gandhi">Rajmohan Gandhi</a> (a grandson of Mahatma) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meera_Sanyal">Meera Sanyal</a>, who quit her job as head of the Royal Bank of Scotland to contest the national election. The AAP’s victory also represented a new type of politics – one not grounded in dynasties, class or identity politics, but in issues of livelihoods and accountability.</p>
<p>But the AAP’s stint in power was short-lived. After failing to get his anti-corruption bill through the state legislature, Kejriwal resigned as chief minister after 49 days. That left Delhi under the control of the central government for more than a year while fresh elections were organised. The AAP <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2014#Other_parties">performed poorly</a> in the 2014 national election and lost support in Delhi, where voters punished it for prematurely quitting government.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Modi had quite the dream run after his 2014 election victory. He was <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-indian-pm-is-doing-the-rounds-and-look-what-hes-getting-out-of-it-32673">feted by world leaders</a>, including Tony Abbott and Barack Obama, and <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/17/thousands-gather-rock-star-modi-sydney-stadium">fawned over</a> by the Indian diaspora.</p>
<p>Opposition to Modi’s rule has been muted. The Congress Party, which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party trounced in the national election, remains in disarray. It has been wiped out as a political force in Delhi – a remarkable state of affairs for the “grand old party”, which dominated Delhi politics for 15 years. </p>
<p>A powerful regional rival of Modi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayalalithaa">Jayalilithaa</a>, was recently convicted of corruption. Another regional leader, Mamata Banerjee, has been <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/west-bengal/peoples-magic-says-mamata-as-trinamool-edges-closer-to-win-bypolls-in-west-bengal/">put on the defensive</a> by the BJP’s electoral inroads in her state of West Bengal.</p>
<h2>Modi faces rising discontent</h2>
<p>However, discontent has been brewing within the electorate and within Modi’s Hindu nationalist movement. The last nine months have brought little of tangible benefit to the <em>aam aadmi</em>; Modi’s government is increasingly seen as favouring the business elite. </p>
<p>The government has sought to alter labour laws and the previous government’s social policies on welfare and land acquisition to make them more business-friendly. It has also attempted to undertake these reforms through stealth – by-passing democratic debate by introducing ordinances to dilute existing legislation. This is counter to the expectations of greater accountability and transparency that have been at the core of voters’ demands.</p>
<p>The BJP’s grass-roots affiliate, the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/919613/Rashtriya-Swayamsevak-Sangh-RSS">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</a> (RSS), has also revived the spectre of destabilising social conflict through its attacks on churches and campaigns against Valentine’s Day and the supposed rising prevalence of Muslim men marrying Hindu women.</p>
<p>Modi and the BJP leadership seem to regard these incidents as embarrassments, but they also appear to be struggling to control these extremist elements. Another problem is the RSS’s unhappiness with the pro-business, pro-market thrust of the BJP’s economic policies.</p>
<p>The Hindu nationalist movement has long been divided between those espousing hardline Hindu nationalism and anti-globalisation economics and those, like Modi, who are committed to pro-market, pro-business economics and use the divide-and-rule politics of Hindu nationalism as a tool to win power. These tensions are now coming to the fore.</p>
<h2>AAP comeback galvanises opposition</h2>
<p>Despite being punished in the national election, the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal remained popular. This was because even his brief period in office resulted in tangible change in the lives of Delhi’s inhabitants. Stories abound about how corruption dropped during the AAP’s 49 days in power thanks to the introduction of measures like a <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/aap-to-bring-back-corruption-hotline-lokpal-bill-in-houses-second-sitting/">phone hotline</a> to report corrupt officials.</p>
<p>Kejriwal has acknowledged his resignation was a mistake and asked for Delhi’s forgiveness. An electorate eager for new ideas and a new style of politics has been keen to oblige.</p>
<p>While it has <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/looking-to-spread-wings-in-four-states-in-next-five-years-says-aaps-yogendra-yadav-739715">national aspirations</a>, the AAP remains a regional electoral presence confined to Delhi and Punjab. The Kejriwal team, dubbed “AK-67” by the media, has a long road ahead to address Delhi’s myriad governance problems.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the AAP and Kejriwal have emerged as a visible face of opposition to Modi. Kejriwal’s modest dress sense and persona and his campaign against India’s “VIP culture” present a stark contrast to Modi’s “strong man” image and love of expensive monogrammed suits.</p>
<p>The AAP’s victory in Delhi has also reinvigorated opposition politics. The first face-off will be over the BJP’s <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-decoded-what-changes-has-the-narendra-modi-government-made-in-the-land-acquisition-ordinance-2048240">Land Acquisition Ordinance</a>. Modi is eager to have this passed through the upper house, where the BJP is in the minority, to facilitate the acquisition of land for industrial developments.</p>
<p>With a galvanised opposition – including the AAP, the Congress, the RSS, the Left and regional parties – Modi’s task just got a whole lot tougher. The honeymoon is definitely over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priya Chacko is affiliated with the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>A taste of the unpredictable, raucous world of Indian politics came to the Adelaide Oval as India played Pakistan in their Cricket World Cup showdown. In front of me was an India supporter wearing a Modi…Priya Chacko, Lecturer in International Politics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.