The Modi government has turned ostensibly impartial agencies of the state, such as the police, into instruments of blunt power
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the most Olympian of India’s public intellectuals, infuriated many of his compatriots. Instead of lauding the audacity of a government that had just imposed direct rule on Jammu and Kashmir, India’s most troubled state and its sole Muslim-majority one, Mr Mehta issued a warning. We should not cheer the “Indianisation” of Kashmir, he said, but rather fear a creeping “Kashmirisation” of India.
In a few short weeks his government has pushed through an impressive stack of laws. Tackling issues that have for decades been cobwebbed by political point-scoring, it has among other things taken bold steps to free farming from state control, untangle stifling labour rules, revise public education and reform the bureaucracy. The new regulations on labour, for instance, collapse 44 laws into four simplified national codes.
Yet all this welcome vigour in the foreground cannot completely disguise what happens in the background. Just as with one arm Mr Modi unshackles India’s economy, with another he is quashing hard-won freedoms. His government used not only its bigger numbers, but petty rules, a highly dubious voice-vote and an opposition walk-out to ram more than two dozen laws through parliament in a single week.
Behind all the noise, what such antics reveal is an increasingly pronounced aspect of the Modi era that residents of Kashmir, in particular, are all too familiar with: hypocrisy. Consider foreign funding. Citing national security and the need for accountability, the Modi government has selectively throttled donations to groups it does not like. Over six years some 15,000s have been forced to shut, the latest being the Indian office of Amnesty International, a human-rights defender.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Megan Thee Stallion Is Giving Away 2 Scholarships to Women of Color“In honor of all the young women out there who don’t stop working hard.”
Read more »
Turning local, British PM Johnson to unveil new coronavirus rulesBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce new measures to tackle a growing coronavirus crisis on Monday, moving to work more closely with local leaders from England's worst affected areas.
Read more »
Binyamin Netanyahu is losing supportPolls suggest Binyamin Netanyahu is losing ground to another right-wing party, despite their ideological similarities
Read more »
North Cyprus vote pits president v prime ministerNorthern Cyprus voters cast ballots in masks and gloves on Sunday in a presidential election where incumbent Mustafa Akinci and Premier Ersin Tatar were favourites among 11 candidates in the breakaway region of the Mediterranean island.
Read more »
Factbox: New Zealand parties clash over COVID-19, economy, taxes and housingNew Zealand holds a general election on Oct. 17, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's centre-left Labour Party holding a wide lead over the centre-right main opposition National Party.
Read more »