From ‘Shining India’ to ‘Intolerant India’

“…it looks very much as though our government has gone rogue…”: Arundhati Roy

DESPARDES — The Economist says India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is stoking divisions in the world’s biggest democracy, and its 200m Muslims fear the prime minister is building a Hindu state.

The mag’s Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) has lowered India 10 spots on Democracy Index, citing erosion of civil liberties in the country.

The ‘situation’ in India has led the country’s one of the most respected creative actor/director Naseeruddin Shah to say, ‘After 70 Years I’ve Come to Realize as a Muslim I Can’t Live in India’.

“From Shining to Intolerant!,” one observer called it, alluding to how ‘Shining India’ narrative was internationalized a decade back and now how an ‘intolerant India’ is becoming internationalized.

The renowned British magazine which invariably finds a choice sit on world thought-leaders desk, was sure how India’s pace would outpace China’s. That was in 2010. Fast Forward: The mag has declared the same country intolerant on Modi’s watch.

It appears a de ja vu. But some observers have been predicting it.

“THE WORLD is waking up to a new India, an intolerant, Hindu extremist and fundamentalist India, an India where goons are ruling. We are waking up to this new India, that is starkly different to the idea of its founding fathers. Jinnah stands vindicated today. The two nation theory is back and with a vengeance”, says Toronto-based Rashid Husain Syed, a renowned analyst and contributor to BBC, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and Dawn.

“To a large extent, and despite few sentences here and there, driven mainly by its business interests, the global conscience is maintaining a virtual mum on the issue.”

The icy silence may have been broken though with The Economist’s cover story.

Renowned novelist and Human Rights Activist Arundhati Roy who wrote, “The silence is the loudest sound in Kashmir” when PM Modi annexed occupied Kashmir and the world turned 24/7, reacted more when the government amended the Citizenship Act. “…it looks very much as though our government has gone rogue…“

Priyamvada Gopal, who teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge University, said. the attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University shows that the ideological civil war in India has taken a new violent turn.

The world community continues to remain silent though, an observer say — even some of the Muslim states with huge economic interests in the country which has the largest Muslim minority population: 200m to 220m.

Syed says, “the so-called Islamic world, from Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi are endeavoring to look the other way. The OIC is in deep slumbers too, while all seem set for the genocide of Indian Muslims and Kashmiri Muslims. This is a question mark on the global conscience. How long would it remain so, is yet to be seen. Ultimately, the world will have to speak out, and in unison against the ongoing and the impending genocide in Kashmir, UP, Bihar, Assam and the rest of India. History is keeping a close eye!”

“I fear for India as these murderous thugs will rip India apart. In 30 years, China has become a rich China. In 10 years, China will be an advanced China which is on fast track. India on the other hand is regressing fast. It’s a shame because it really has nice people”, says Khaled Almaeena, a media icon and former Editor-in-Chief of Arab News & Saudi Gazette.