NEW YORK - In his eight years in power, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government has profaned Indian democracy, espousing an intolerant Hindu supremacist majoritarianism over the ideals of secularism, pluralism, religious tolerance and equal citizenship upon which the country was founded after gaining independence on Aug. 15, 1947, reports The New York Times.
Drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany, the regime uses co-opted government machinery, disinformation and intimidation by partisan mobs to silence critics while dehumanizing the large Muslim minority, fanning social division and violence.
Civil liberties are systematically violated. India, the world’s largest democracy, is where the global battle between liberalism and tyranny is being lost.
Yet Western democracies like the United States refuse to call out Mr. Modi, instead courting him to maintain access to India’s huge market and for the nation’s utility as a strategic bulwark against China. Parliament’s composition already reflects this majoritarianism.
At 200 million, India’s Muslim population is the third largest in the world, after Indonesia’s and Pakistan’s, accounting for about 15 percent of Indians. (Hindus make up around 80 percent.) But Muslims hold just 5 percent of Parliament seats. The B.J.P. is the first governing party in India’s 75-year history without a single Muslim member of Parliament.
Laws and rights are applied unevenly. Muslims can now be arrested for praying in public, while Hindu pilgrims are congratulated by state officials. The state celebrates the Hindu religion, while protests are orchestrated against Muslim customs like the wearing of the hijab and the call to prayer.
Hindu vigilante groups attack Muslims and their businesses. A high-ranking B.J.P. leader called Muslim refugees from Bangladesh “termites” eating away the country’s resources. Emboldened by state support, Hindu extremists now openly threaten the genocide and rape of Muslims, while the government arrests journalists who call out acts of hate. On August 15, Independence Day, the government released 11 convicts serving life sentences for gang-raping a Muslim woman and murdering 14 members of her family during the 2002 Gujarat pogrom that occurred on Modi's watch.
