{"id":89798,"date":"2020-02-21T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=89798"},"modified":"2020-02-20T18:41:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T23:41:24","slug":"guardian-how-hindu-supremacists-are-tearing-india-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=89798","title":{"rendered":"(Guardian) How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The onslaught on JNU marked the middle of a season of nationwide protest, provoked by a new law. The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by parliament on 11 December 2019, provides a fast track to citizenship for refugees fleeing into India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Refugees of every south Asian faith are eligible \u2013 every faith, that is, except Islam. It is a policy that fits neatly with the RSS and the BJP\u2019s demonisation of Muslims, India\u2019s largest religious minority. To votaries of Hindutva, the country is best served if it is expunged of Islam<\/a>. The act was both a loud signal of that ambition and a handy tool to help achieve it.<\/p>\n

Since December, millions of Indians have turned out on to the streets to object to this vision of their country. The government has fought them by banning gatherings, shutting off mobile internet services, detaining people arbitrarily, or worse. After protests flared at Jamia Millia Islamia, an Islamic university in Delhi, cops fired teargas<\/a> and live rounds<\/a>, assaulted students<\/a> and trashed the library<\/a>. As demonstrations spread across the state of Uttar Pradesh, police raided<\/a> and vandalised<\/a> Muslim homes<\/a> by way of reprisal. Detainees in custody were beaten; one man reported<\/a> hearing screams in a police station all night long. (In various statements, the police claimed to be acting in self defence, or to prevent violence, or to root out conspiracy.) At least 20 protesters died of bullet wounds. Police officials denied firing at the crowds, even though the police carried the only visible guns at these rallies.<\/p>\n

Still, the protests have persisted well into February. At Shaheen Bagh, a neighbourhood in south-eastern Delhi, hundreds of thousands of people have turned up over nine weeks to take part in an indefinite sit-in. The BJP has taken a ruthless view of all this dissent. On one occasion, Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu cleric who is chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said: \u201cIf they won\u2019t understand words, they\u2019ll understand bullets.\u201d One of Modi\u2019s ministers used \u201cShoot the traitors to the nation!\u201d as a call-and-response at a rally \u2013 the same slogan the ABVP had raised in JNU.<\/p>\n

In its 72 years as a free country, India has never faced a more serious crisis. Already its institutions \u2013 its courts, much of its media, its investigative agencies, its election commission \u2013 have been pressured to fall in line with Modi\u2019s policies. The political opposition is withered and infirm. More is in the offing: the idea of Hindutva, in its fullest expression, will ultimately involve undoing the constitution and unravelling the fabric of liberal democracy. It will have to; constitutional niceties aren\u2019t compatible with the BJP\u2019s blueprint for a country in which people are graded and assessed according to their faith. The ferment gripping India<\/a> since the passage of the citizenship act \u2013 the fever of the protests, the brutality of the police, the viciousness of the politics \u2013 has only reflected how existentially high the stakes have become.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

On Jan. 5, a masked, armed mob ransacked a hostel in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. People were beaten–a blind student, most shockingly. I spent 3 days at JNU that week & wrote about the attack. And about the Hindu right’s takeover of India. (1\/n)https:\/\/t.co\/wX0E2fFtQr<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Samanth Subramanian (@Samanth_S) February 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n