(Worth reading article in NYT. Pakistan is paying a heavy price for its religious extremism, which is not easy to reverse. Unfortunately, India is heading in the same direction of religious extremism and abandoning its secularism. f.sheikh)
The sleepy pilgrimage city of Ayodhya in northern India was once home to a grand 16th-century mosque, until it was illegally demolished by a howling mob of Hindu militants in 1992. The site has since been reinvented as the centerpiece of the Hindu-chauvinist “new India” promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalism has fed distrust and hostility toward anything foreign, and the receptionists at my hotel were sullenly suspicious of outsiders. There was no hotel bar — a sign of Hindu virtue — and the food served was pure vegetarian, a phrase implying both Hindu caste purity and anti-Muslim prejudice.
In education, government institutions are run by ignorant functionaries of the ruling party, and from school textbooks to scientific research papers, the Hindu nationalist version of India is pushed forward, myth morphing into history. In the private universities that have begun to crop up in India, Mr. Modi’s government keeps a close eye on classes, panels or research that might be construed as criticizing his government or its idea of a Hindu India.
This is not sustainable, even if it seems likely that Mr. Modi will ride to a third victory in national parliamentary elections that begin Friday and conclude June 1. Mr. Modi’s India is marked by rampant inequality, lack of job prospects, abysmal public health and the increasing ravages of climate change. These crises cannot be addressed by turning one of the world’s most diverse countries into a claustrophobic Hindu nation.
Perhaps even the prime minister and his party can sense this. Their crackdowns on opposition political leaders, manipulation of electoral rolls and voting machines and freezing of campaign funds for opposition parties are not the actions of a confident group.
But the truth is harder to hide than ever. Mr. Modi and his party are giving India the Hindu utopia they promised, and in the clear light of day, it amounts to little more than a shiny, garish temple that is a monument to majoritarian violence, surrounded by waterlogged streets, emaciated cattle and a people impoverished in every way.
One comment by a reader in NYT;
Navdeep
Dayton OH5m ago
The facts don’t match the bluster of the BJP. Most of their achievements were initiated by their predecessor: Congress. The VAT and liberalization of the economy were under Manmohan Singh of Congress, an Oxford educated Economist. Unlike the uneducated and ultra orthodox BJP government that believes in Hindu astronauts 4,000 years ago and cow waste curing every human malady. Instead of moving to enlightenment, India is heading back to the Dark Ages of superstition and disbelief of science. India deserves what it gets with the population voting for Modi. It’s all fine and good when they demolish someone else’s house, wait till they come to demolish yours.