India Is on the Brink, Modi’s Hindu-Supremacist Politics Are Pushing India Into A War Zone

[beijingwalker]

India Is on the Brink, Modi’s Hindu-Supremacist Politics Are Pushing India Into A War Zone​

Aug. 9, 2023

At a memorial in the Churachandpur district of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, portraits of victims who died during recent ethnic clashes between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki minority.Credit...Arun Sankar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


By Debasish Roy Chowdhury

Indian social media is a brutal place, a window on the everyday hatred and violence that has come to colonize the country in the nine years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power. But the images from the northeastern state of Manipur that began circulating in July were shocking even by those low standards.

A video clip showed two women being sexually assaulted as they were paraded, naked, by a crowd of men who later gang-raped one of them, according to a police complaint. The horrific scene was part of an explosion of ethnic violence since May that has turned the small state into a war zone, killing more than 150 people and displacing tens of thousands.

The state has a long history of ethnic animosities that predate Mr. Modi’s rise. But the fuse for the current unrest in Manipur was lit by the politics of Hindu supremacy, xenophobia and religious polarization championed by his Bharatiya Janata Party.

India is a diverse nation, crisscrossed by religious, ethnic, caste, regional and political fault lines. Since Mr. Modi took office in 2014, his ruling party has torn those asunder with dangerous exclusionary politics intended to charge up the party’s base and advance its goal of remaking India’s secular republic into a majoritarian Hindu state. The repugnant nature of this brand of politics has been clear for some time, but the situation in Manipur shows what’s ahead for India: The world’s most populous country is slowly degenerating into a conflict zone of sectarian violence.

Image

Christian activists take part in a candlelight vigil in protest over sexual violence against women and the ongoing ethnic violence in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, during a demonstration in Amritsar, India.Credit...Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


The violent impact of his party’s polarizing politics is acutely felt in India’s heartland, too. The area near a tech and finance hub on the outskirts of New Delhi was rocked by violence last week as Hindu supremacists staging a religious procession clashed with Muslims. Mosques were attacked, an imam was killed, businesses were burned and looted, and hundreds of Muslims have fled.

In tandem with the B.J.P.’s demonizing of India’s nearly 200 million Muslims, television, cinema and social media are deployed to radicalize the Hindu majority, pumping out a steady stream of Islamophobia and vile dog whistles. Extremist groups, at least one of which appears to have received the public support of the prime minister, run amok. Muslims have been arrested for praying, had their livelihoods and businesses destroyed and their homes razed. Bulldozers, used to demolish homes, have become an anti-Muslim symbol, proudly paraded by B.J.P. supporters at political rallies.

As John Keane and I argue in our book “To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism,” it’s a signature tactic of modern-day despots: tightening their grip on power by redefining who belongs to the polity and ostracizing others. In the ultimate subversion of democracy, the government chooses the people, rather than the people choosing the government.

India is already a complex federation of regional identities, many of which consider themselves distinct from Hindi-speaking north India, the power base of Mr. Modi’s party. This federal structure is held together by delicate bonds of social and political accommodation. But they are fraying fast under Mr. Modi, who has no appetite for either, shrinking the space for nonviolent political contestation. Some regional political parties see the Bharatiya Janata Party’s centralizing and homogenizing Hindu-first thrust as a cultural imposition from outside and are assailing it with the same divisive us-versus-them vocabulary.

Due to its giant and growing population, India will become more important to the rest of the world, both geopolitically and due to the promise of its massive market. And so Western leaders like President Biden — who staged a lavish welcome for Mr. Modi on a state visit to Washington in June — engage with the prime minister, downplaying his government’s assaults on liberalism.

But a political strategy of conspicuous humiliation and subjugation of ethnic and religious minorities that make up around one-fifth of the population is dangerously deluded. India can be either a conflict zone or an economic powerhouse — not both. It is increasingly clear which of those two destinies awaits the country.

Opinion | India Is on the Brink

Narendra Modi’s intolerant brand of Hindu supremacy threatens to turn India into a conflict zone.

www.nytimes.com

 

[beijingwalker]

Why ethnic violence in India’s Manipur has been going on for three months​

The dispute stems from animosity between the state’s mainly Hindu Meitei majority and the predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo.

Dozens of houses lay vandalised and burnt during ethnic clashes and rioting in Sugnu, Manipur [File: Altaf Qadri/AP]
Published On 9 Aug 20239 Aug 2023

At least 150 people have been killed since May in ethnic violence in Manipur, a remote state in northeast India with a history of tensions between tribal groups.
Soldiers were rushed in from other parts of the country to contain the violence, and months later a curfew and internet shutdown remain in force in most parts of the state.

Thousands of guns were stolen when the unrest began, and militia groups on both sides of the state’s ethnic divide are hunkering down for a protracted fight.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week faces a no-confidence motion in parliament over the violence, with the opposition accusing him of inaction.

Why did the latest violence start?​

The dispute stems from animosity between Manipur’s Meitei majority and the Kuki-Zo, one of several tribal groups in the state that make up about 16 percent of its population.


The Meitei are predominantly Hindu and largely live in capital Imphal and the prosperous valley around it, while the mainly Christian Kuki-Zo usually live in scattered settlements in the state’s hills.

People take part in a rally in capital Imphal, organised by COCOMI (Coordinating Committee On Manipur Integrity) demanding restoration of peace in the state [File: AFP]

Longstanding tensions between the two communities have revolved around competition for land and public jobs, with rights activists accusing local leaders of exacerbating ethnic divisions for political gain.

Things came to a head in May over plans to recognise the Meitei as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) – a status already conferred upon the Kuki.

The ST status would grant Meiteis a form of affirmative action through guaranteed quotas of government jobs and college admissions.

Kuki-Zo groups staged protests over fears the plans could reduce their entitlements, with rallies quickly spiralling into violence.

Protesters set fire to vehicles and buildings, and Meitei mobs armed with guns and petrol cans then attacked Kuki-Zo settlements in the hills.

A protest in New Delhi against the sexual assault of two tribal women in Manipur [File: Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

What has happened since?​

Mobs looted police stations when the clashes began, with 3,000 weapons and 600,000 rounds of ammunition going missing according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
The state has fractured on ethnic lines, with rival Meitei and Kuki-Zo militias setting up blockades to keep out members of the opposing community.

Clashes have killed at least 150 people, though many in Manipur believe the number could be higher.

Some 60,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, taking shelter in relief centres or nearby states.

Reprisal attacks have seen the firebombing of homes and places of worship.

More than 220 churches and 17 Hindu temples had been destroyed by the end of July, according to a report by the India Today news magazine.

An Indian army soldier inspects the debris of a church set on fire in Manipur [File: Arun Sankar/AFP]

Has Manipur seen unrest before?​

Manipur is one of the seven northeast Indian states – sandwiched between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar – that has long been a hotbed of separatism and a tinderbox of tensions between different ethnic groups.

An armed rebellion broke out against Indian rule in the late 1970s by Manipuri rebels who said the region had been largely neglected by New Delhi, with daily armed attacks on government facilities.

About 20 armed groups were active in Manipur during the peak of the rebellion, with more than 10,000 people losing their lives in the two decades to 2010.

A woman with her child at a relief camp for displaced tribals in Churachandpur [File: Aishwarya Kumar/AFP]

But the state had been relatively calm since the last major rebel attack in 2015, when an ambush on a military convoy killed about 20 soldiers.

The latest violence has revived calls among the Kuki-Zo to be granted a separate state administration.

This demand has been rejected outright by the Meitei, who make up more than half of the state’s 2.8 million population, according to India’s last census in 2011.

India's Meitei reject calls for separate Kuki administration in Manipur

How has the government responded?​

Sporadic violence has continued despite the federal government rushing in troops from other parts when the clashes began, as well as imposing a curfew and internet shutdown that both remain in force in many areas.

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah toured Manipur’s capital in June and demanded the return of weapons looted from police stations during the unrest.
He has also promised an “impartial investigation” into the violence.

Modi was criticised by opponents for not speaking about the conflict for more than two months after clashes began.

He broke his silence in July after the publication of a graphic video showing a baying mob parading two Kuki women naked, saying that the incident had filled his heart with “pain and anger”.

Human Rights Watch has accused state authorities in Manipur, led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of facilitating the conflict with “divisive policies that promote Hindu majoritarianism”.

India’s parliament is debating a no-confidence motion against Modi this week over his government’s failure to rein in the conflict – a vote he is expected to easily survive.

Why ethnic violence in India’s Manipur has been going on for three months

The dispute stems from animosity between the state’s mainly Hindu Meitei majority and predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo.

www.aljazeera.com