'For every challenge, the BJP and its supporters have the standard response: 'Where were you when…?' Here are a few posers for them... In India, there has always been a question mark on the motivations and quality of what passes for public debate on matters of public interest. But never before has this debate been as corrosive as it is in today’s poisonous environment created by the venomous ideology and brutal brazenness of the Modi government.
'Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Britain is still weeks away but it has already become a subject of heated debate in Cambridge University with the vice-chancellor facing pressure to withdraw his invitation to the Indian prime minister to address the Senate, its most important academic body. A group of students and faculty members have written to the VC Leszek Borysiewicz protesting his decision arguing that by inviting him the university would be seen condoning “ongoing attacks on academic freedom and freedom of expression in India’’.
'This is a story I have narrated, but it bears repeating. Not 50 metres from the Hajee Sir Ismail Sait mosque in my east Bangalore neighbourhood of Richards Town is the Lusitania cold storage. You can buy pork chops, ox tongue, roast beef and a variety of other meat products. The homes behind Lusitania are overwhelmingly inhabited by Muslims, with a reasonable scattering of Hindus and Christians. So it is all across Bangalore’s old cantonment areas. Pork shops are close to mosques, restaurants with beef on their menu are next to Hindu homes – and no one has ever cared.
'For nearly three weeks after the Dadri lynching, the Prime Minister, confronted by mounting pressure to respond, oscillated between ducking the issue by keeping silent, turning it into a wider existential clash between Hindus and Muslims, and finally describing it as a 'sad incident' while drawing an administrative distinction: "what do incidents like Dadri," he asked, "have to do with the Centre?"
'In what appears to be a deliberate strategy one Hindutva organisation takes a step back for another to take several steps forward. The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha that has worked closely with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on several initiatives in the past, such as the more recent ghar wapsi and love jihad programs, is now preparing to commemorate the assassin of Gandhi as a “martyr” and a “desh bhakt”.
'India's main program to fight child malnutrition has been hit by budget cuts that make it difficult to pay wages of millions of health workers, a cabinet minister said on Monday in a rare public criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies. Modi's government in February slashed social sector budgets to boost infrastructure spending in a bid to fasten the pace of economic recovery. States were asked to fill the gap from the larger share of federal taxes they receive from New Delhi.
'Fourteen prominent women’s organisations and over 20 women academics from universities across the United Kingdom have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is due to visit the U.K. in November, expressing their alarm at the rise in gender violence in India.
'Sometimes you sit in a corner and watch a country and you learn a lot. You learn to listen, to wait for the right time, the right pitch. You hear people talking and you realise power fascinates them. They realise quickly that power, no matter how potent or distant, loves flattery. You can seduce power as it seduces and entraps you. Sitting on pavements and hearing conversations at bus stops, I realise that people felt that Modi was like a demon god. He was all-powerful, for there was no one to oppose him. There was no child to announce aloud that the emperor had no clothes.
'In an interview published in the Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika on Wednesday, Modi has finally made a specific mention of the Dadri lynching – but typically, played down both the lynching and the rationalisations by his own ministers and party men and women. He said the incident was "sad and unwelcome", but asked rhetorically, "What can the Central government do?" Yes, indeed, the UP government ruled by the Samajwadi Party bears a significant measure of responsibility for failing to prevent organised violence in Muzaffarnagar, Dadri, Mainpuri and elsewhere.
'Since he was elected in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has been adept at appeasing his Hindu hard-line base while, at the same time, promising economic growth and development to a wider national and international audience. But that balancing act is in danger of teetering, imperiling not only the economic development Mr. Modi has promised but also India’s open, inclusive democracy. The latest alarming sign of the Hindu right’s growing boldness was the Sept. 28 lynching of a Muslim man by an angry mob.
