The Observer - 11.08.2019

• The Observer
  World 11.08.19 29

How Modi’s hardline Hindu coup

threatens India’s fragile democracy

assert federal control over Kashmir

and end its semi-autonomous status.

This aim was reiterated during last

spring’s election. Modi was always

likely to do it, sooner or later. The

alarming thought of Trump wading

in prompted him to act now.

To be fair, neither Trump nor

the colonial British (whose hur-

ried 1947 independence handover

began the whole sorry saga ) are ulti-

mately responsible for what is hap-

pening today. Blame for more than

70 years of scrapping and squabbling

lies squarely with successive Indian

and Pakistani governments. Blame

for the immediate crisis lies princi-

pally with Modi, a life-long, hard-line

Hindu nationalist.

Before becoming prime minister

in 2014, Modi was best-known for

It’s tempting, though illogical, to

blame Donald Trump for all the

world’s ills. Yet was it America’s self-

aggrandising president who triggered

last week’s sudden crisis between

India and Pakistan over Kashmir?

When Trump took offi ce in 2017, his

ignorance of international affairs

was seen as potentially dangerous.

Those fears now look well-founded.

Kashmir may provide conclusive, cat-

astrophic proof.

The trouble started on 22 July when

Trump hosted Imran Khan, Pakistan’s

prime minister, in the Oval offi ce.

Despite previously accusing Pakistan

of supporting terrorism and slashing

US aid , Trump was all smiles. Why?

Because he needed Khan’s help in

cutting a peace deal with the Taliban.

Trump yearns to tell America’s voters

next year that he ended the 18-year

Afghan war and brought the troops

home.

Naturally, Khan wanted something

in return. That included US help with

the disputed, Muslim-majority terri-

tory of Kashmir, over which India and

Pakistan came to blows as recently

as March. Islamabad has consist-

ently sought to internationalise the

problem by involving the UN and

third parties. Like his predecessors,

Narendra Modi , India’s prime min-

ister, insists it is an internal matter.

Divided Kashmir, the front line

between two nuclear-armed pow-

ers, lives daily with a bitter legacy of

violent insurgency and human rights

abuses. It is where Muslim and Hindu

extremists clash. It is a place where

diplomats tread with utmost care.

But not a president with a big ego and

mouth to match. Oblivious to histor-

ical booby traps, Trump jumped in

feet-fi rst at his meeting with Khan.

“I was with prime minister Modi

two weeks ago and we talked about

this subject,” Trump claimed. “He

[Modi] actually said, ‘Would you like

to be a mediator or arbitrator?’ I said,

‘Where?’ He said, ‘Kashmir.’ Because

this has been going on for many,

many years. I was surprised at how

long ... If I can help, I would love to be

a mediator.”

Trump’s claim about a media-

tion request was immediately

dismissed by India. The exter-

nal affairs ministry basically

accused him of making it up.

Later that same day, the state

department reaffi rmed

the official US posi-

tion that Kashmir was

a bilateral issue.

All the same, analysts

suggest, Trump’s clumsy

intervention spooked

Modi. He and his ruling

nationalist BJP party

have long sought to

until a Hindu state in all but name

(or even explicitly) is established.”

In seeking to rule on the basis of

race, religion, faith and fear, rather

than on a constitutional, legal, consen-

sual , inclusive basis, Modi is arguably

a man of his times. Rough parallels

can be drawn with Trump’s identity

politics and China’s Xi Jinping , doing

in Xinjiang and Tibet (and potentially

Hong Kong) what Modi appears bent

on doing in Kashmir.

Add to that the BJP’s record of anti-

Muslim rabble-rousing, refl ected in

a rise in hate crimes since 2014, and

a violent explosion on the ground

in Srinagar and other centres looks

unavoidable. The current security and

communications lockdown cannot

continue indefi nitely. It’s also likely

external, non-state militant groups

will try to intervene.

“In Kashmir, the insurgency fi ght-

ing to undo historical wrongs and

betrayals will get a new reason to

fi ght,” wrote Haseeb Drabu , a former

Jammu and Kashmir minister. “This

time, the Kashmiri insurgents will be

morally supported even by the pro-

India parties in the region. Kashmir’s

crowded political space will get reor-

ganised into two clusters: stooges and

separatists. The middle ground has

been obliterated.”

Though popular with many in

India, Modi’s constitutional coup

undermines the federal compact and

pluralist democracy. “India has many

asymmetric federalist arrangements

outside of Kashmir. This act poten-

tially sets the precedent for invalidat-

ing all of them,” wrote Pratap Bhanu

Mehta, a leading academic , who

pointed to possible knock-on insta-

bility in Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh, and

Bengal.

As the storm he helped create rages

on, Trump is keeping uncharacter-

istically quiet. His mediation offer

has not been repeated and the US

has declined to criticise Modi, call-

ing instead on Pakistan to exer-

cise restraint. Gallingly, Islamabad’s

appeals for international support

have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

For a moment back there, Imran

Khan may have thought he had a

friend in the White House. Turns out

he was mistaken.

100 miles

100 km

Control of Kashmir

Lahore Amritsar

Srinagar

Jammu

Islamabad

Pakistan India

China

Pakistan

control

India control

China

control

Line of

control

Siachen

glacier

K2

ON

OTHER

PAGES

Modi’s acts

go unchecked

in an ever

more lawless

world

Observer

Comment,

page 42

COMMENTARY

Simon

Tisdall

Asia expert at the Wilson Center in

Washington.

“The next time there is an attack in

Kashmir, India will blame Pakistan,

regardless of the facts,” he added:

“And then the two sides will find

themselves in an immediate cri-

sis that could well escalate into a

confl ict.”

In Kashmir, hundreds of migrant

workers have fled, fearing unrest,

while thousands of villagers living

along the heavily militarised “line of

control” dividing Kashmir between

India and Pakistan have also left their

homes.

‘Prime minister Modi

said “Would you like

to be a mediator over

Kashmir?” I said I

would love to...’

Donald Trump

his shocking role in the bloody 2002

communal riots in Gujarat, when he

was state chief minister. National

leadership brought increased inter-

national acceptance and respectabil-

ity. But now the original, chauvinist

Modi #1 is resurfacing. It is an uned-

ifying spectacle.

Boosted by May’s landslide re-

election victory, lauded by a syco-

phantic press, and untroubled by a

discredited opposition, the “divider-

in-chief”, as Time magazine recently

dubbed him, seems set on replacing

India’s founding secular, federalist

tradition with a centralised, majori-

tarian, authoritarian state in keeping

with the concept of “Hindu Rashtra”

(Hindu nation or polity).

“Today, the hold of Hindutva

[Hindu-ness] has reached a new level

• a hegemony across geographical
  space and social depth,” analyst Achin
  Vanaik warned in June. “What is the
  end goal? The fact is that a proper
  Hindu Rashtra cannot be secured

The Indo European Kashmir Forum

was established in London in the late

1980s to represent the interests of

Kashmiri Hindus, who once made up

a signifi cant minority in India’s only

Muslim majority state.

The bulk fl ed in 1990 as a popular

insurgency against Indian rule took

hold. Next month, the organisation

is holding a number of events across

Britain in support of the revoking of

article 370, which it has welcomed

with open arms.

Forum president Krishna Bhan

said: “We have the support of many

British Indians, not just those who

originate from Kashmir, and several

parliamentarians. I accept that things

are a little tense between the British

Indian and Pakistani communities at

the moment but I’m confi dent that

matters will settle down. Revoking

article 370 will lead to a better future

for Kashmir.”

Underpinning Modi’s stance on

Kashmir is the growth of Hindu

nationalism in India in recent times,

exhibited in the landslide victory of

the BJP during general elections ear-

lier this year.

This has resulted in a small num-

ber of incidents where members of

minority groups, like Muslims, have

been ass aulted and even hanged for

allegedly killing cows, a sacred ani-

mal in the Hindu faith, to more prev-

alent cases where domestic airline

crews have been told to proclaim

“Jai Hind,” (victory to India) when

making announcements.

Officials claimed that it was

introduced to refl ect “the mood of

the nation”.

With no end in sight to Kashmir’s

current isolation, for Nasti the ardu-

ous wait continues.

He said: “I keep calling and calling

in the hope that the lockdown will be

lifted so that I can speak to my fam-

ily and friends and also visit soon. My

beautiful Kashmir has been plunged

into the darkness and I pray that it

will soon return to the light.”

Southall in west

London, where

some 55% of a

population of

70,000 is either

from India or

Pakistan.

Alamy

BELOW

Narendra Modi

was alarmed by

Donald Trump’s

intervention. Rex

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