Tale of a Perfidy

India’s actions in Occupied Kashmir have attracted universal negative attention. In over seven decades, successive Indian governments have undermined terms of the Instrument of Accession until all that was left of it was a skeletal structure. Now even that has been shot to hell.

India by virtue of its large area and a population exceeding one billion is regarded as one of the largest democracies in the world. But unfortunately it is beset with multiple cultural, religious, racial, ethnic and linguistic problems which have made it a country difficult to govern. The fathers of India made it a secular state because of its peculiar complexion and it was declared that all minorities in India shall have the same rights as its citizens. Before the coming into power of the Bhartia Janata Party (BJP), all Congress leaders had tried hard to project India’s image as a secular state. But the present leadership of BJP under Narendra Modi has taken a somersault and has openly declared India to be meant only for Hindus; all other nationalities and religions on its soil are declared as interlopers. India’s new citizenship law, the CAA, is also exclusionist as it provides a path to citizenship for every religion except Islam, which is practiced by roughly 16 percent of the country’s population, or nearly 200 million people. Besides making life difficult for the Muslims, Indian democracy is also faced with scores of other separatist movements. Is this leading to an implosion situation for India?

On October 27, 1947, Mountbatten declared, “the question of the State’s accession should be settled by a reference to the people. ”Similarly, the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, vowed at the UN General Assembly that there was no other way of resolving the Kashmir dispute but through a plebiscite where the Kashmiris should decide which side they wanted to join.

Narindera Modi has reversed all the policies of India’s former leaders and has adopted a policy of hostility and confrontation towards Pakistan. He has vowed to isolate Pakistan internationally and cripple its economy. His foreign policy is based on deepening India’s strategic collaboration with Afghanistan and other regional countries to isolate Pakistan. The world knows that the present insurrection in Kashmir is local and indigenous, while Pakistan has scrupulously kept itself away from the internal disturbances in the Valley. With such a hostile neighbour, Pakistan would rather focus its energies on internal security and economic stability because without economic stability, even the Kashmiris may not be too eager to join Pakistan.

Narendera Modi is a life member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization founded in 1927, inspired by the fascist movements of Europe. Adolf Hitler was their greatest hero. Just as the fascists of Germany took great pride in their racial superiority and purged their country of the Jewish minority, in the same way , the RSS takes pride in Hindu superiority which it terms as ‘Hindutva’ and firmly believes that all entities other than Hindus are intruders, who should be gradually eliminated from Indian soil. In 1948, a former member of the RSS murdered Gandhi for being too soft on the Muslims. The followers of the RSS are mostly dominated by upper-caste Hindus, and have since led many vicious assaults on minorities.