NEW YORK – The (Kashmir) valley looked like Switzerland but felt like theGaza Strip,” is how a veteran American journalist with years of reportingexperience in South Asia described India’s repression in the disputed stateduring one of her trips there even before it plunged into deeper crisisafter New Delhi’s annexation on August 5.
“I saw how the historic dispute (between India and Pakistan) had created apermanently open wound and a vicious cycle of protest and repression, oftensparked by insurgent attacks,” Pamela Constable, correspondent for TheWashington Post, wrote in the newspaper she represents.
“I drove past apple orchards and meadows and visited quaint house boatsthat bobbed on Dal Lake, waiting for tourists who never came. But the newsthat brought me there was depressing and often deadly. The local Muslimpopulace was always waiting for the next funeral.”
Although correspondent Constable does refer to the repressive lockdown ofJammu and Kashmir after the revocation of the state’s special status, themain focus of her article, entitled: ‘India’s iconic democracy feels likeit is under siege’, is about the B.J.P. government’s push to promote the“Hindutva” ideology as well as the eruption of country-wide protestsagainst its anti-Muslim measures.
“These days, when I think back on the contentious but secular mosaic ofIndia I experienced between 1998 and 2005, I am stunned to see the ominousturn it has recently taken into religious intolerance,” the article said.“At that time, Hinduism was dominant but not overbearing…,” she wrote inthe Post.
Correspondent Constable wrote, “Promotion of the “Hindutva” ideology, anall-encompassing guide for life, often took the form of public services,carried out by disciplined youth cadres…. But religious tensions remainedclose to the surface, especially between Hindus and Muslims, whosedifferences had festered since the chaotic partition of India in 1947.
“Despite their huge numbers and a few high-profile celebrities, such asfilm star Shah Rukh Khan, Muslims remained largely second-class citizenswith little political clout. My first encounter with such ‘communal’hostility took place in my kitchen, where the Hindu manager angrilyupbraided the Muslim watchman for drinking from his teacup. In public, faruglier confrontations erupted periodically: In 1992, militant Hindu groupsinvaded and demolished the historic Babri Mosque; a decade later,Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat state left more than 1,000 dead…”
“The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is the same Hindu nationalist group thatdominated power during the years I lived there. But its once-inclusivemessage — then tempered by the opposition Congress party — has beenreplaced by an aggressive agenda of Hindu hegemony. And the prime ministeris now Narendra Modi, a religious hard-liner who was once accused ofabetting the anti-Muslim rioters in Gujarat as the state’s chief minister.Modi’s election in 2014 was largely based on his record as a champion ofeconomic growth.
Read Top Stories
“But his reelection in May was stoked by a wave of patriotic and religiousemotion after an especially deadly suicide bombing in Kashmir — which wasfollowed by an aerial skirmish between Indian and Pakistani warplanes —brought the nuclear-armed rivals dangerously close to war.
“In August, Modi’s government abruptly revoked the semiautonomous rightsfor Kashmir that India’s constitution had granted in 1950, then flooded theregion with troops, cut off the Internet and banned news coverage formonths.
Last month, after a semi-clandestine visit, the New Yorker journalistDexter Filkins described the mood among Kashmiri Muslims as isolated,frightened and smoldering with anger.
“Across the country, authorities have also used force, legal measures andharsh rhetoric to intimidate Muslims, branding them as potentialterrorists. Police have stood by as mobs lynched Muslims for selling cows,which are venerated in Hinduism…”
“In recent weeks, the new citizenship restrictions have provoked aspontaneous, widening wave of protests by a cross-section of Indians,including students at the country’s leading university, in defence of boththe Muslim minority rights and India’s tolerant democracy.
“Last week, news reports showed a young woman, her arm in a cast and herhead bandaged after a beating by Hindu nationalists, defiantly addressing acrowd in New Delhi. ‘Even if you beat us, we won’t step back,’ she cried.‘Long live the revolution.’ Maybe the India I once knew is alive andkicking after all.’
