Violence against Indian Muslims risen during Modi;s rule: NYT column
World
The world's biggest democracy is jettisoning freedom and tolerance: NYT
WASHINGTON (Dunya News) – India, under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, has seen a surge in violence against Muslims, which often goes unpunished.
New York Times, in a column, stated the Indian government has implemented laws and policies that discriminate against Muslims, including changes in citizenship rules that put them at a disadvantage and the elimination of the special status of the Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Meanwhile, the BJP government has been actively suppressing all forms of free speech and opposition, enhancing its emergency powers to censor information it wants to keep from the public, and making it easier to detain dissidents under vague counterterrorism laws.
The US paper said next year Modi will almost certainly run again, and if he wins and serves a third term, he would become the longest-serving prime minister other than India’s first, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi.
It seems likely that a further emboldened Modi, bolstered by a third-term victory, will seek to make fundamental changes to the structure of the Constitution and declare India a Hindu nation.
The writer said it was a tragedy that India’s rise comes when the country is less free, less tolerant, more willing to jettison the furniture of democracy to build a temple of national greatness around a single faith.
