India is entering a new dark age

[The Eagle]

India is entering a new dark age
​

Illustrated | TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images, SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images, DickDuerrstein/iStock
November 19, 2019

Even when India was an economic basket case of the world, it was a political and spiritual bright spot that guaranteed basic freedoms to its people and offered a refuge to Westerners seeking peace and spiritual wisdom. But under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is going backwards on every front: Its economy is in a free-fall (with growth at a six-year low and unemployment at a 45-year high); its polity is becoming authoritarian; and its dominant religion, Hinduism, is growing intolerant.

But what's even more depressing is that the country seems to have lost its will to fight this descent into darkness. Nothing speaks to that more poignantly than its muted reaction to two developments in just the last few weeks. One concerns the exiling of a journalist. The other is the Supreme Court's ruling in the 27-year-old Babri mosque case involving land that both Muslims and Hindus claim as their own.

In a raw exertion of authoritarianism, the Modi government moved to strip journalist Aatish Taseer of his Overseas Citizen of India status, akin to a Green Card, essentially banishing him from the country where he grew up. The official line is that Taseer, who was born in England to an Indian mother and a Pakistani father, committed fraud by failing to reveal his father's heritage on his OCI application. This accusation is beyond absurd given that Taseer comes from an extremely prominent family whose history has been public knowledge for decades.

Indeed, Aatish's father, Salmaan Taseer, whom he didn't even meet till he was 21, was the governor of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. His 2011 assassination by Muslim fanatics who hated him because he was a progressive reformer and vehemently opposed his country's blasphemy laws made international headlines. Meanwhile, Aatish's mother, Tavleen Singh, who never married his dad and brought Aatish to India when he was an infant, is a famous Indian journalist who arguably did more than any scribe in the country to put Modi in the prime minister's chair. She is a Sikh and a "liberal." Yet she broke ranks with her community and her peers to back Modi from the very start. She penned column after column backing Modi's line that the then-ruling Congress Party was dynastic, corrupt, and nepotistic and deserved to be thrown out. She pleaded that Modi, who talked up the cause of economic development, deserved a chance — never mind that in 2002 he had presided over a Muslim pogrom in the state of Gujarat where he was chief minister.

So what did Aatish Taseer, who divides his time between New York and New Delhi, do to deserve exile? Namely, he broke ranks with his mother and wrote a cover piece for Time magazine on the eve of Modi's re-election in May titled "Divider in Chief" that criticized Modi for feeding a revanchist Hinduism and turning a blind eye to the growing Hindu violence against Indian Muslims.

His anguished mother is now condemning the Modi government as not just "wrong but evil." But Modi targeted her son precisely to send one of his periodic reminders that no critic is immune from his wrath.

Taseer's exile has prompted 260 prominent personalities outside India to sign a petition demanding that the Modi government back off. But within India, the response has been relatively muted. There have been some critical pieces, mostly in anti-establishment publications, but nowhere close to the outpouring of disgust and alarm that the incident merits. It's as if the Indian media is getting too inured or scared — following brutal assassinations and arrests of anti-Hindu journalists and dissidents — to mount a vigorous opposition to Modi, which is his goal exactly.

But if India's lackluster response to the Taseer affair is troubling, its reaction to the Supreme Court's watershed ruling this month in the Babri mosque case is genuinely dismaying. This case has its genesis in 1992 when leaders from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led a procession of Hindu volunteers to Babri, a 16th-century mosque, whipped them into a frenzy, and prodded them to tear down the structure with their bare hands. Modi, a political neophyte at the time, himself rode on one of the chariots. The BJP's rap against the mosque has been that it was allegedly built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of the most revered Hindu gods, by a Muslim ruler who deliberately tore down a temple.

The only proper outcome in this case would have been for the land to be handed back to the Sunni Muslim board that owned the mosque before it was destroyed. But that's not what happened. Instead, the unanimous, 1,000-plus-page ruling rejected a lower court ruling that recommended divvying up the land between Hindus and Muslims because that would be inimical to "public peace and tranquility." It handed over the entire site to the Modi government to oversee the construction of a temple. In other words, the court allowed political rather than legal or rule of law considerations to sway its mind.

The result should have been public outrage. But remarkably, even secular liberals who oppose Hindu nationalism seemed more comforted than upset by the ruling because the court at least acknowledged that the original destruction of the mosque was an act of "political vandalism" that deserved compensation. It invoked Article 142, a law that gives the court sweeping powers to do "justice," to order that a lot twice the size of the original be handed to the Sunni board to build a mosque elsewhere.


The court also treated the issue as a property dispute, rejecting the notion that Hindus deserved the site simply because of its religious importance to them. But what truly mollified liberals was that the court went out of its way to affirm that the Babri mosque case would not set a precedent for future mosque grabs given that Hindus dispute literally thousands of Muslim structures, including the Taj Mahal. How? The court pointed out that the 1991 Places of Worship Act requires the country to honor the status quo that existed at the time India gained its independence from the British in 1947. However, this law exempted Babri from its purview because it was the subject of longstanding litigation. It is foolhardy to think that Modi, whose party holds a solid majority in Parliament, will have much difficulty scrapping the 1991 law to pave the way for a systematic dispossessing of Muslim places of worship.

In other words, standing laws pose absolutely no barrier for the ambitions of radical Hindu nationalists under Modi. Consider that in the six months since he's been re-elected, he has scrapped the constitutionally granted governing autonomy of Muslim-majority of Kashmir. The state's leaders are still under house arrest. He has also launched an unprecedented drive to strip millions of Muslims in the state of Assam of their citizenship. And his Home Minister Amit Shah categorically stated this month that his government plans make this drive national before the 2024 election.

The national reactions — or lack thereof — to the Taseer case and the mosque ruling, demonstrate that the only deterrent to majoritarian Hindu ambitions in Modi's India aren't legal or political but Modi's own will and designs. If Taseer can't hang on to his free speech rights and citizenship, its hard to see how any of one India's 140 million Muslim citizens can hang on to theirs.

There was a brief moment in the 1990s when it seemed India would liberalize its economy to go along with its liberal polity. The reverse is happening now, and Indian liberals are getting too fatigued to stop it. Authoritarianism is winning all around in India.

 

[Path-Finder]

India is entering a new dark age
​

Illustrated | TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images, SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images, DickDuerrstein/iStock
November 19, 2019

Even when India was an economic basket case of the world, it was a political and spiritual bright spot that guaranteed basic freedoms to its people and offered a refuge to Westerners seeking peace and spiritual wisdom. But under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is going backwards on every front: Its economy is in a free-fall (with growth at a six-year low and unemployment at a 45-year high); its polity is becoming authoritarian; and its dominant religion, Hinduism, is growing intolerant.

But what's even more depressing is that the country seems to have lost its will to fight this descent into darkness. Nothing speaks to that more poignantly than its muted reaction to two developments in just the last few weeks. One concerns the exiling of a journalist. The other is the Supreme Court's ruling in the 27-year-old Babri mosque case involving land that both Muslims and Hindus claim as their own.

In a raw exertion of authoritarianism, the Modi government moved to strip journalist Aatish Taseer of his Overseas Citizen of India status, akin to a Green Card, essentially banishing him from the country where he grew up. The official line is that Taseer, who was born in England to an Indian mother and a Pakistani father, committed fraud by failing to reveal his father's heritage on his OCI application. This accusation is beyond absurd given that Taseer comes from an extremely prominent family whose history has been public knowledge for decades.

Indeed, Aatish's father, Salmaan Taseer, whom he didn't even meet till he was 21, was the governor of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. His 2011 assassination by Muslim fanatics who hated him because he was a progressive reformer and vehemently opposed his country's blasphemy laws made international headlines. Meanwhile, Aatish's mother, Tavleen Singh, who never married his dad and brought Aatish to India when he was an infant, is a famous Indian journalist who arguably did more than any scribe in the country to put Modi in the prime minister's chair. She is a Sikh and a "liberal." Yet she broke ranks with her community and her peers to back Modi from the very start. She penned column after column backing Modi's line that the then-ruling Congress Party was dynastic, corrupt, and nepotistic and deserved to be thrown out. She pleaded that Modi, who talked up the cause of economic development, deserved a chance — never mind that in 2002 he had presided over a Muslim pogrom in the state of Gujarat where he was chief minister.

So what did Aatish Taseer, who divides his time between New York and New Delhi, do to deserve exile? Namely, he broke ranks with his mother and wrote a cover piece for Time magazine on the eve of Modi's re-election in May titled "Divider in Chief" that criticized Modi for feeding a revanchist Hinduism and turning a blind eye to the growing Hindu violence against Indian Muslims.

His anguished mother is now condemning the Modi government as not just "wrong but evil." But Modi targeted her son precisely to send one of his periodic reminders that no critic is immune from his wrath.

Taseer's exile has prompted 260 prominent personalities outside India to sign a petition demanding that the Modi government back off. But within India, the response has been relatively muted. There have been some critical pieces, mostly in anti-establishment publications, but nowhere close to the outpouring of disgust and alarm that the incident merits. It's as if the Indian media is getting too inured or scared — following brutal assassinations and arrests of anti-Hindu journalists and dissidents — to mount a vigorous opposition to Modi, which is his goal exactly.

But if India's lackluster response to the Taseer affair is troubling, its reaction to the Supreme Court's watershed ruling this month in the Babri mosque case is genuinely dismaying. This case has its genesis in 1992 when leaders from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led a procession of Hindu volunteers to Babri, a 16th-century mosque, whipped them into a frenzy, and prodded them to tear down the structure with their bare hands. Modi, a political neophyte at the time, himself rode on one of the chariots. The BJP's rap against the mosque has been that it was allegedly built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of the most revered Hindu gods, by a Muslim ruler who deliberately tore down a temple.

The only proper outcome in this case would have been for the land to be handed back to the Sunni Muslim board that owned the mosque before it was destroyed. But that's not what happened. Instead, the unanimous, 1,000-plus-page ruling rejected a lower court ruling that recommended divvying up the land between Hindus and Muslims because that would be inimical to "public peace and tranquility." It handed over the entire site to the Modi government to oversee the construction of a temple. In other words, the court allowed political rather than legal or rule of law considerations to sway its mind.

The result should have been public outrage. But remarkably, even secular liberals who oppose Hindu nationalism seemed more comforted than upset by the ruling because the court at least acknowledged that the original destruction of the mosque was an act of "political vandalism" that deserved compensation. It invoked Article 142, a law that gives the court sweeping powers to do "justice," to order that a lot twice the size of the original be handed to the Sunni board to build a mosque elsewhere.


The court also treated the issue as a property dispute, rejecting the notion that Hindus deserved the site simply because of its religious importance to them. But what truly mollified liberals was that the court went out of its way to affirm that the Babri mosque case would not set a precedent for future mosque grabs given that Hindus dispute literally thousands of Muslim structures, including the Taj Mahal. How? The court pointed out that the 1991 Places of Worship Act requires the country to honor the status quo that existed at the time India gained its independence from the British in 1947. However, this law exempted Babri from its purview because it was the subject of longstanding litigation. It is foolhardy to think that Modi, whose party holds a solid majority in Parliament, will have much difficulty scrapping the 1991 law to pave the way for a systematic dispossessing of Muslim places of worship.

In other words, standing laws pose absolutely no barrier for the ambitions of radical Hindu nationalists under Modi. Consider that in the six months since he's been re-elected, he has scrapped the constitutionally granted governing autonomy of Muslim-majority of Kashmir. The state's leaders are still under house arrest. He has also launched an unprecedented drive to strip millions of Muslims in the state of Assam of their citizenship. And his Home Minister Amit Shah categorically stated this month that his government plans make this drive national before the 2024 election.

The national reactions — or lack thereof — to the Taseer case and the mosque ruling, demonstrate that the only deterrent to majoritarian Hindu ambitions in Modi's India aren't legal or political but Modi's own will and designs. If Taseer can't hang on to his free speech rights and citizenship, its hard to see how any of one India's 140 million Muslim citizens can hang on to theirs.

There was a brief moment in the 1990s when it seemed India would liberalize its economy to go along with its liberal polity. The reverse is happening now, and Indian liberals are getting too fatigued to stop it. Authoritarianism is winning all around in India.

#FakeNewj

 

[HRK]

Meanwhile, Aatish's mother, Tavleen Singh, who never married his dad and brought Aatish to India when he was an infant, is a famous Indian journalist who arguably did more than any scribe in the country to put Modi in the prime minister's chair. She is a Sikh and a "liberal." Yet she broke ranks with her community and her peers to back Modi from the very start. She penned column after column backing Modi's line that the then-ruling Congress Party was dynastic, corrupt, and nepotistic and deserved to be thrown out. She pleaded that Modi, who talked up the cause of economic development, deserved a chance — never mind that in 2002 he had presided over a Muslim pogrom in the state of Gujarat where he was chief minister.

So what did Aatish Taseer, who divides his time between New York and New Delhi, do to deserve exile? Namely, he broke ranks with his mother and wrote a cover piece for Time magazine on the eve of Modi's re-election in May titled "Divider in Chief" that criticized Modi for feeding a revanchist Hinduism and turning a blind eye to the growing Hindu violence against Indian Muslims.

His anguished mother is now condemning the Modi government as not just "wrong but evil." But Modi targeted her son precisely to send one of his periodic reminders that no critic is immune from his wrath.

As they say in English "Revolutions Devour Their Own Children"

I know many will consider me Cruel for saying that I am enjoying this situation .... but it is the truth and wish more power to PM Modi and to his followers in India .....

 

[Viny]

ts economy is in a free-fall (with growth at a six-year low and unemployment at a 45-year high);

Agree economy is not doing good, but its not in isolation, every big global economy is facing hard time.
How well a country can cope up with this will give new paths ..

its polity is becoming authoritarian;

A checked authoritarianism helps in charting paths for success, democracy is a big tool to keep things in check.

and its dominant religion, Hinduism, is growing intolerant.

Well in a democratic society every one has to be tolerant, and if some sections are appeased for long period of time, then they will obviously feel intolerance when the appeasement is reduced or stopped and equal playing fields are made. I dont disagree in such a move some opportunists will try to take up supremacy path but there agendas will be short term.

The other is the Supreme Court's ruling in the 27-year-old Babri mosque case involving land that both Muslims and Hindus claim as their own.

One has to expect that supreme court of a country goes by laws of land. One cannot fancy that decision should go into favor or X or Y, it would be based on applicable laws and evidences produced. People questioning SC decisions should have ample legal proofs, otherwise its a biased narrative.

The official line is that Taseer, who was born in England to an Indian mother and a Pakistani father, committed fraud by failing to reveal his father's heritage on his OCI application. This accusation is beyond absurd given that Taseer comes from an extremely prominent family whose history has been public knowledge for decades.

What does it has to with prominent family, the law of the land is clear and is applicable to all. It got applied to Taseer to, if it was not applied in past it doesnt mean it would not happen in future.

The only proper outcome in this case would have been for the land to be handed back to the Sunni Muslim board that owned the mosque before it was destroyed. But that's not what happened. Instead, the unanimous, 1,000-plus-page ruling rejected a lower court ruling that recommended divvying up the land between Hindus and Muslims because that would be inimical to "public peace and tranquility." It handed over the entire site to the Modi government to oversee the construction of a temple. In other words, the court allowed political rather than legal or rule of law considerations to sway its mind.

The basis that land should be handed over to Sunni Muslim Board because the mosque before it was destroyed also gets applied to scene where Hindus claimed that the temple was destroyed and on top of that mosque was built. If board could have proved that there was not temple there, then they could have got the land. Which didnt happen. Still the judgement made sure that Board gets alternate land. Still some people want that minority appeasement should happen in legal solutions too, then thats not going to happen. Results will come on the basis of what artifacts are presented and what the law of land is.

It is foolhardy to think that Modi, whose party holds a solid majority in Parliament, will have much difficulty scrapping the 1991 law to pave the way for a systematic dispossessing of Muslim places of worship.

He is not entitled to the post for life, if public feels that what he is doing is not right, then he will be taken out from the post and new government will do the needful, building an imagination of future just based ones perspective doesnt represent bigger mass.

He has also launched an unprecedented drive to strip millions of Muslims in the state of Assam of their citizenship. And his Home Minister Amit Shah categorically stated this month that his government plans make this drive national before the 2024 election.

NRC is applicable to all, it is not driven against any religion. They dont select someone to prove nationality based on religion, rather is based on documented evidence to prove that one is Indian. If majority of people falling in that are from a given religion than that proves that they illegally migrated from region of there religious dominance to India.

The national reactions — or lack thereof — to the Taseer case and the mosque ruling, demonstrate that the only deterrent to majoritarian Hindu ambitions in Modi's India aren't legal or political but Modi's own will and designs. If Taseer can't hang on to his free speech rights and citizenship, its hard to see how any of one India's 140 million Muslim citizens can hang on to theirs.

It could also mean that people have matured and now have better understanding of whats going on. Taseer doesnt represent Indian Muslim like how OBL doesnt represent global Muslims. People who are worrying for Indian Muslims should first worry about billions of muslims across the world and in there neighbors who are either fighting internally or are labelled by West or rest of the world.

 

[YeBeWarned]

More Power to Modi , and his successor Yogi

 

[SIPRA]

This was the India always, as it is, whether one calls it dark or bright. Modi has merely removed the garb of sham secularism and democracy, and now anyone can see, what is underlying.

 

[Imran Khan]

wrong india is entered already in a dark age since 5 years now

 

[The Eagle]

As they say in English "Revolutions Devour Their Own Children"

I know many will consider me Cruel for saying that I am enjoying this situation .... but it is the truth and wish more power to PM Modi and to his followers in India .....

This is not the cruelty when everyone highlighted the path back in days, in view of BJP/RSS manifesto especially religious intolerance and election campaign. If someone digs old posts; there are posts by that time mentioning that "What an enemy couldn't do to India, Modi will do so by himself". The slogan as such didn't limit to the Forum at all but sane voices did raise same issue in different words. An extremist from any domain will bring the country to the edge of destruction and if the State is a big one having expenditure for Military as well; there is a grave risk that the neighborhood will burn as well. Ultimately, we are listening the war drums, being taught a lesson, bullet for bullet, evil this & that for almost everyday and that premise is in-fact dangerous to every living soul within the Region.

The thought process for RSS is defined like in superiority and has the most intolerance for others so if anyone, even Indians within their country opposing RSS; having thought that the mood as such will change, is on the wrong side while having foolish desires. The Mantra of so-called sponsored terrorism from Pakistan, the hate regarding other religions & their own people in North etc is now actually coming back to eat everyone for survival of RSS movement. Hate begets hate--intolerance begets intolerance.

However, many will not see such development from prospective of others as the followers/voters/supporters have their own set of relation with policy of Modi and there is less of any other thought what we mostly see through in routine.

 

[Gandhi G in da house]

India has indeed become less secular and democratic under Modi, but this is a blessing in disguise for India in the long run. Modi's tenure is forcing the old politics of minority appeasement, free doles to the poor, handouts, unbridled corruption to change and the other political parties will have to adapt to the new realities to be re-elected which they will.

This shock, though bad for India in the short run, will be good for India in the long run, since it will force the old parties like Congress to mend their ways and not continue to ignore the concerns of the majority community, the middle class, the corporate sector etc. while protecting the rights of the poor and the minorities.

Modi's popularity will eventually go down with time and with a struggling economy.

 

[Clutch]

More Power to Modi , and his successor Yogi

Amen to that!

Hindutvaism in India is the best thing to happen for Pakistan!

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

Hip hip hurray to Hindutva....

 

[xyxmt]

As they say in English "Revolutions Devour Their Own Children"

I know many will consider me Cruel for saying that I am enjoying this situation .... but it is the truth and wish more power to PM Modi and to his followers in India .....

I love you for saying that and I join you in that holy act

 

[War Thunder]

The thought process for RSS is defined like in superiority and has the most intolerance for others so

I don't understand what superiority is there in being ugly both in face and heart?
I mean I'm not racist nor I judge people on looks, but no one can deny those folk are ugly to look at and being lead by the ugliest...



P.S: RSS and modi are a creation of ISI. Wait till they start saying that lol

 

[HRK]

I don't understand what superiority is there

P.S: RSS and modi are a creation of ISI. Wait till they start saying that lol

superiority complex: click here

 

[Chakar The Great]

Feel bad for India. The damage being done will haunt India for decades to come.

People often blame Modi or BJP, I dont agree. Its infact the real India, world is only realizing now.